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Australia First Settlement
 1788-1809

Introduction

On May 13th, 1787  Capt. Arthur Phillip, R.N. Set sail from Portsmouth,  England, with 11  vessels. He arrived  in  N.S.W.  On 26 January 1788  With 717 convicts of which included some 180 women, 191 marines and 19 officers.  Capt. Arthur Phillip, R.N. was commissioned as the first Governor  of  New South Wales. 

In the heat of a mid-summer day the building of the Nation began. Convicts felled trees, cleared ground and erected the first structures in Australia, Tents and Marquees for officers and guards. By 6 February canvas accommodation was sufficient to house the women convicts. Such was the conditions of the 750 men and woman cast out of England's Georgian society.  (J.M.Freeland)

Apart from the tents the expedition had brought out practically no building materials as part of the Many of the carpentry tools intended for use in the cutting and shaping of the timber necessary to build huts, turned out to be inferior for the task, this was mainly due to the hardness of the local timber.

Governor Phillip requested  that further supplies of axes, saws, nails, and chisels be provided to replenish the initial tools that had proved to be so inadequate. Another two years were to pass before the next shipment of supplies would arrive. In the mean time, crude makeshift tools were made from metal taken from the fabric of the ships, these tools were  manufactured on the forges supplied in the original cargo.

Workers

There were sixteen ships carpenters brought over with the fleet, a search of the ships muster revealed twelve of the convicts were trained as carpenters. Among the crew was a Midshipman, Henry Brewer, born in London he was a trained carpenter who later studied architecture. Governor Phillip appointed Brewer, temporary superintendent of building works.

Materials

The site chosen for the settlement was well stocked with timber, whilst considered suitable for making crude slab huts, the timber was however incredibly hard. Using inferior axes, it would take approximately sixteen men six days to cut down one of these trees and drag it to the  saw pit, in readiness for cutting into the slabs.

 

Slab hut construction

Timber Construction Methods

Heavy timber posts approximately 6 inches square were set directly into the ground for the corners of the huts, making a rectangular plan about twelve feet by nine feet. Other square stumps were placed directly into the ground three feet apart, around the external walls. These posts would act as supports for the floor and wall frames. The framework was grooved top and bottom to house the timbers for each wall, as well as the uprights. Walls were made with slabs of wood fitted into the grooved top and bottom timber plates. The roofing timbers, of hipped form were covered with split timber shingles made from reeds cut from the swaps and fixed to thin wooden strips called battens. However, due to the hardness of the timber and poor quality of the tools by June 1788 only four timber huts had been completed.

The Colony’s First brick-makers

When the First Fleet reached Sydney Cove in January, 1788, a consignment of 5,000 bricks and 12 wooden moulds for making bricks was included in the cargo carried by the transport Scarborough. This token consignment was adequate enough to enable the first settlers to make a start on the colony’s first buildings, until the location of a suitable site for brick-making could be found. A site deemed suitable for this endeavour would need to have a plentiful supply of clay and a ready source of fresh water. Approximately a mile from the settlement, at the head of a Long Cove and consequently so named, a suitable site for brick-making was located. This site was later named Cockle Bay, and, still later, Darling Harbour.

In March of 1788 brick-making began at this site under the instruction of James Bloodsworth. The site was to become known as the Brickfield. The approximate area is at the lower end of George Street, now known as Haymarket. James Bloodsworth was a bricklayer and he had a knowledge of brick-making. He had been sentenced in Kingston upon Thames Local Court to seven years transportation for forgery. He was placed in charge of a gang of labourers who were responsible for the erection of the first brick huts built by May 1788.

Whether Mr. Bloodsworth’s (also known as Bloodworth) transportation was a coincidence or by design, there can be little doubt about his ability and the importance of his selection for the task of the colony’s first brickmaker. As recorded by surgeon G.B. Worgan in his diary dated 13 May 1788:

“walked out today as far as the brick grounds. It is a pleasant road through the woods about a mile or two from the village, for from the number of little huts and cots that appear now, just above the ground, it has a villatick appearance. I see they have made between 20 and 30 000 bricks and they are employed in digging out a kiln for the burning of them”

It was just five months since the arrival of the First Fleet and already brick-making was well under way. Finding a suitable site for brick-making with a good supply of alluvial clay, was indeed a bonus for the convict workers. Finding a good source of limestone to use in the process of making mortar was to prove a little more difficult.
 

Source:  Historic Houses Trust
Drawing by Morton Herman.
Australia’s first Government House,  located on what is now the south-west corner of Phillip and Bridge Streets, Sydney.

On 4 June 1789, just sixteen months after the first landing at Sydney Cove, the early settlers gathered to celebrate the birthday of King George III and the grand opening of Government House, a brick building designed and built by James Bloodsworth, The convict brick-maker was responsible for many of Sydney's early public buildings.

The use of brick was initially limited  because of the  shortage of lime, a key ingredient in making mortar. Archeologists have discovered that the lime used in the first Government House was made from oyster shells. Government House was used for 57 years before the old building was demolished and its foundations disappeared beneath the pavement. Some of the original bricks are now held in Sydney's Mitchell Library. Another convict who appears to have had a more direct responsibility for early brick-making at the Brickfield was Samuel Wheeler, whom Watkin Tench records was "tasked to make 40,000 bricks and tiles monthly, (as many of each sort as may be) having 22 men to assist him".

Source:  And So We Graft from Six to Six: The Brick-makers of New South Wales,
Warwick Gemmell, p 42
Typical convict bricks with the broad arrow mark  
 

Making bricks was a backbreaking task - the Colony's most intractable convicts were sent to the brickfields as punishment. But the hardest work was carting the bricks. There were no horses so a team of 12 men drew a cart laden with 750 kilograms of bricks, making approximately nine trips a day to the settlement a mile away.

Source:  Historic Houses Trust

The oldest existing building in Australia is Elizabeth Farm at Parramatta, home of John and Elizabeth Macarthur. Completed in 1794, this long, low brick building with a steeply-pitched, shingled roof is the archetypal Australian farmhouse.