Parramatta - Convict and Convict Labour

On 24^th April 1788 Governor Phillip chose the site of Rose Hill.  First wheat crop harvested at Rose Hill in 1789. 1st burial in St John’s Cemetery Parramatta was in 1970. Rose Hill renamed Parramatta in 1791.

Convict is a person found guilty of an offence against the law and is sentenced to imprisonment.

Majority of the convicts to Australia were English and Welsh (70%), Irish (24%) or Scottish (5%), the convict population had a multicultural flavour (1%) - some convicts sent from various British outposts such as India and Canada.

Good behaviour - convicts rarely served their full term and could qualify for a Ticket of Leave. This allowed convicts to earn their own living and live independently. However, for the period of their sentence they were still subject to surveillance and the ticket could be withdrawn for misbehaviour.

Governor Philip (1788-1792) founded a system of labour in which people, whatever their crime, were employed according to their skills - as brick makers, carpenters, nurses, servants, cattlemen, shepherds and farmers.

Educated convicts were set to the relatively easy work of record-keeping for the convict administration. Women convicts were assumed to be most useful as wives and mothers.

James Ruse was one of the convicts settled in Parramatta in 1789. He was given 30 acres of land for farming.

Samuel Gilbert was also a convict from England lived in Parramatta with his wife Mary and 12 children.

Elizabeth Farm was built using the convict labour in 1793 by John Macarthur

Parramatta Gaol and Parramatta Road was built by convicts.

 

St John's Cemetery - Parramatta

St John's cemetery, Parramatta, is the oldest burial ground in Australia. It contains the remains of notable persons associated with the foundation of the colony and many graves of those who arrived with the First Fleet. The first interment is James Magee, a convict’s child, buried on 31 January 1790. The first burial marked with a stone memorial was of Henry Edward Dodd on 28 January 1791. Henry Dodd, Superintendent of Convicts at the Government Farm, is noted for growing the first successful wheat crop in the colony.

St John's cemetery site is a place of cultural heritage. Many early landholders, whose names reflect local suburbs, are buried here. D’Arcy Wentworth of Wentworthville, John Harris of Harris Park, several members of the Blaxland family, Mary Kelly of Kellyville, Mary Pymble of Pymble and John Thorn of Thornleigh are buried there. Other notable burials include Reverend Samuel Marsden, Chief Cleric of the colony, Minister at St Johns Cathedral for almost 50 years, Robert Campbell of Campbell’s Wharf and Duntroon, noted as the father of Australian commerce, two Governor’s wives, Mrs Elizabeth Bourke and Lady Mary Fitzroy, two Assistant Commissaries John Palmer and Thomas Freeman, many pioneer missionaries and seventeen marked graves of those who arrived on the first fleet.