History of Sydney

The Sydney region has been occupied by Indigenous Australians for at least 30 000 years, and at the time of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, 4000 - 8000 Aboriginal people lived in the region. There were three different language groups in the Sydney region, these were further refined into dialects spoken by smaller clans. The principal languages were Darug; the Cadigal, the original inhabitants of the City of Sydney, spoke a coastal dialect of Darug; Dharawal and Guringai. Each clan had a territory, the location of that territory determined the resources available. Although urbanisation has destroyed most evidence of these settlements (such as shell middens), there are still rock carvings in several locations.

European interest in Australia arose with the sighting of Botany Bay by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. Under instruction from the British government, a convict settlement was founded by Arthur Phillip in 1788. Phillip founded the colony at Sydney Cove on Port Jackson. He named it after the British Home Secretary, Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, in recognition of Sydney’s role in issuing the charter authorising Phillip to establish a colony. In April 1789 a disease, thought to be smallpox decimated the Indigenous population of Sydney; a conservative estimate says that 500 to 1000 Aboriginal people died in the area between Broken and Botany Bay affecting Kuringgai and Darug. There was violent resistance to British settlement, notably by the warrior Pemulwuy in the area around Botany Bay, and conflicts were common in the area surrounding the Hawkesbury River. By 1820 there were only a few hundred Aborigines and Governor Macquarie had begun initiatives to ‘civilise, christianise and educate’ the Aborigines by removing them from their clans.

Macquarie ’s tenure as Governor of New South Wales was a period when Sydney was improved from its basic beginnings. Roads, bridges, wharves and public buildings were constructed by convicts, and by 1822 the town had banks, markets, well-established thoroughfares and an organised constabulary. The 1830s and 1840s were periods of urban development, including the development of the first suburbs, as the town grew rapidly when ships began arriving from Britain and Ireland with immigrants looking to start a new life in a new country. The first of several gold rushes started in 1851, and the port of Sydney has since seen many waves of people arriving from around the world. Rapid suburban development began in the last quarter of the 19th century with the advent of steam powered tramways and railways. With industrialisation Sydney expanded rapidly, and by the early 20th century it had a population well in excess of one million. The Great Depression hit Sydney badly. One of the highlights of the Depression Era however, was the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932.

Throughout the 20th century Sydney continued to expand with various new waves of European and (later) Asian immigration, resulting in its highly cosmopolitan atmosphere. Indeed, Sydney has the second highest immigrant population of any major world city, with 43% of the population being either migrants or children of migrants.[5] The majority of Sydneysiders are of British and Irish background. More recent arrivals have included Italians, Greeks, Jews, Lebanese, South Africans, South Asians (including Indians, Sri Lankans and Pakistanis), Sudanese, Turks, Macedonians, Croatians, Serbs, South Americans (Brazilians, Chileans and Argentinians), Armenians, Eastern Europeans (Czech, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians and Hungarians) and East Asians (including Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese).

European settlement
European interest arose with the sighting of Botany Bay (now a southern suburb of Sydney) in 1770 by Captain James Cook. Under instruction from the British government, a settlement was founded by Arthur Phillip in 1788. (See First Fleet). Phillip originally landed at Botany Bay, but found it unsatisfactory. After a brief sail north, Phillip landed at Sydney Cove on Port Jackson (the proper name for Sydney Harbour).

Phillip originally named the colony “New Albion”, but for some uncertain reason the colony acquired the name “Sydney”, after the (then) British Home Secretary, Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney (Baron Sydney, Viscount Sydney from 1789). This is possibly due to the fact that Lord Sydney issued the charter authorising Phillip to establish a colony.

European settlement had a disastrous impact on the local Aboriginal people. In the early days of the colony this was mainly due to the advent of introduced diseases such as measles, chicken pox and smallpox, to which the Aboriginal population had no genetic immunity. Contrary to later trends, Governor Phillip in fact enforced strict rules of behaviour for interaction between settlers and native people, and his policy was remarkably enlighted by the standards of the time.

However in 1789, shortly after the arrival in Botany Bay of the French expidition led by La Perouse, a catastrophic epidemic disease — smallpox or possibly chicken pox — spread through the Eora people and surrounding groups, with the result that local Aborigines died in their thousands, and bodies could often be seen bobbing in the water in Sydney Harbour.

Colonial historian and First Fleet officer Watkin Tench, whose accounts are primary sources about the early years of the colony, suggested that the epidemic may have been caused by Aborigines disturbing the grave of a French sailor who died shortly after arrival in Australia (supposedly of smallpox) and had been buried at Botany Bay. However the very strict Aboriginal customs concerning graves and dead bodies make this unlikely in the extreme. Another intruiging possibility suggested by Tench was that one of the colony’s physicians had reportedly brought a vial of smallpox-infected material with him from England, that he may have been experimentally innoculating of colonists and/or local Aboriginal people against the disease and that it spread into the Aboriginal population by this vector.

Whatever the actual cause, the results were catastrophic for the Eora people and their kin and by the early 1800s the Aboriginal population of the Sydney basin had been reduced to only 10 percent of the 1788 estimate.

Early Sydney

Early Sydney was molded by the hardship suffered by early settlers. In the early years, droughts and disease caused widespread problems, but the situation soon improved. The military colonial government was reliant on the army, the New South Wales Corps (also known as the Rum Corps due to their monopoly on the importation of alcohol).

Conflicts arose between the governors and the officers of the Rum Corps, many of which were land owners such as John Macarthur. In 1808 these conflicts came to open rebellion, with the Rum Rebellion, in which the Rum Corps ousted Governor William Bligh (known from the Mutiny on the Bounty).

First newspaper

Sydney’s first newspaper was the Sydney Gazette established, edited and distributed by George Howe. It appeared irregularly between 1803 and 1842, but nonetheless provides a valuable source on the early development of the colony based at Sydney.

The Sydney Morning Herald joined the Sydney Gazette as a daily publication in 1831; it continues to be published to this day.

Gold rush

The first of several gold rushes was in 1851, since which time the port of Sydney has seen many waves of people from around the world including an influx of people from Asia.

20th century

With industrialisation Sydney expanded rapidly, and by the early 20th century it had a population well in excess of one million. The Great Depression hit Sydney badly. One of the highlights of the Depression Era however, was the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932.

Throughout the 20th century Sydney continued to expand with various new waves of European and (later) Asian immigration, resulting in its highly cosmopolitan atmosphere of the present day.

Historic population

The majority of Sydneysiders are of British and Irish background. More recent arrivals have included Italians, Greeks, Jews, Lebanese, South Africans, South Asians (including Indians, Sri Lankans and Pakistanis), Sudanese, Turks, Macedonians, Croatians, Serbs, South Americans (Brazilians, Chileans and Argentinians), Eastern Europeans (Czech, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians and Hungarians) and East Asians (including Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese).
1800: 3 000 inhabitants
1820: 12 000
1851: 39 000
1871: 200 000
1901: 500 000
1925: 1 million
2003: 4.3 million
2050: 5.1 million (projected)