European History: Sydney
Sydney was first visited by the British in 1770 when Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks sailed the Endeavour into Botany Bay. The First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay in 1788 led by HMS Sirius and under the command of Governor Arthur Phillip, a total of 11 ships brought convicts and officials with plans to establish a colony.

After deciding that Botany Bay was not suitable for the settlement, Phillip rowed north to Port Jackson. On his arrival in Port Jackson Phillip fixed on a cove that he believed had ‘the best spring of water, and in which the ships can anchor so close to the shore that at a very small expence quays may be made at which the largest ships may unload’. Phillip named the cove Sydney Cove after the British Secretary of State, Viscount Sydney. On January 26, 1788, the First Fleet sailed north to Port Jackson, Phillip having left the day before to begin clearing land at Sydney Cove. It wasn’t long before the colony established itself and for the next 60 years it would be the new home to unwanted, persecuted and criminal elements of British society.

It wasn’t long before the inexperienced farmers utilising patchy European farming methods found themselves on the brink of starvation. Combined with desease and low morale, the colony was in desparate trouble. Despite the harrowing experience of the First Fleet’s settlement the second and third fleet of convicts and military setlers followed soon after the First. In 1808, Governor William Bligh was overthrown by the New South Wales (Rum) Corps whom had commercial interests in the Rum trade, this became known as the Rum Rebellion.

By 1840 the colony’s population was made up of mainly free immigrants and transportation ceased in 1842. By 1847 the convict population of Sydney accounted for only 3.2 percent of the total population. Thanks to Edward Hargraves bringing his discovery of gold from the west to the colony in 1851 and word that gold had been discovered in Victoria, settlers began leaving Sydney for the prospect of becoming rich. The gold rush that ensued attracted miners and prospectors from all over the world. Despite the mass exitus of settlers, Sydney’s population grew from 54,000 to 96,000 in 1961 due to the growth in immigration.

Australian Federation occurred in 1901 and the Commonwealth of Australia was declared in a ceremony in Centennial Park. The first world war spurned an economic boom for Sydney, however, with the artificial spending stimulant of the war over, the economy went into rapid decline and over a third of Sydney siders were unemployed during the Great Depression of the early 1930’s.