Edward Deas Thomson and New South Wales

Abstract

Between the 1820s and the 1850s New South Wales experienced a remarkable social and economic transformation. When the first census was taken in 1828 convicts comprised some forty-three per cent of the population. The colony still served the needs of the British government as a dumping ground for criminals and its economy was geared, to a large extent, to the needs of the convicts and their masters. By 1851, native-born persons and free immigrants were the largest sections of the population. Transportation had ceased and convict numbers had fallen to less than two per cent. The ships which landed the immigrants at Sydney Cove reloaded with wool, which would shortly be rivalled by gold as the colony's leading source of wealth. These changes were accompanied by a gradual evolution of the colony's mode of government. In 1824 a nominated legislative council met for the first time, ending the almost completely autocratic powers which governors had enjoyed since the foundations of settlement. A representative element was added to this council in 1843 and in 1856 the executive branch of government became responsible to the lower house of a bicameral legislature. In a little over thirty years New South Wales had been transformed from a penal autocracy to a free colony with the same measure of self-government as that enjoyed by British North American colonies.