1788: Elizabeth Pulley’s first year, Sydney Cove/Warrane
Photo: descendant A. Maie from performance series, 'Centre of the Storm', 1998-2000
Before embarking on this part of the story I would first
like to acknowledge the First Peoples of Australia and their elders past and
present, especially the Gadigal and Wangal peoples on whose
country Elizabeth and Anthony landed. I would also like to acknowledge the
devastation of Australia’s First Nations peoples which was the result of British
arrival, and honour those who fought and died to protect their land –
Australia’s first wars. [1]
Three months after stepping onto Australian soil, Elizabeth Pulley
married Anthony Rope. She was about 26
years of age, and Anthony about 32.
Frances Williams loaned Elizabeth special clothes for the occasion, and
Elizabeth Mason and John Summers acted as witnesses. Elizabeth Mason had been one of ‘Pulley’s
crowd’ on the Friendship,
transferring with her to the Prince of
Wales where they met up with Frances Williams. John Summers had travelled out on the Alexander with Anthony.
Theirs was not the first wedding in the new colony. Not long after the convict women landed
fourteen couples announced their plans to marry to the delight of those in
charge. However Judge-Advocate Collins
suspected that some had been responding to a rumour that married couples would
be given special privileges for, when they realised their mistake, they very
quickly applied to be unmarried again.
It was also suspected that some already has spouses in England.
By the time of Elizabeth’s and Anthony’s marriage the colony had
more-or-less settled into a routine. The
sound of the drum summoned the battalion and convicts to work, dinner, official
assemblies, and divine services. By the
morning ‘Revalie beating’ everyone had to be clean, dressed and out of their
tents, and at the end of the day the ‘tattoo beating’ announced ‘lights
out’. The routine was in place well
before the women convicts landed.
The formal commissioning ceremony
On the day after the women landed Governor Phillip gathered everyone
together on a cleared area used as the parade ground, and with great pomp and
ceremony, conducted the official commissioning.
With Judge Advocate presiding, Phillip was formally appointed Captain
General and Governor over the territory of New South Wales, viewed as extending the length of the Eastern coast, which Captain James Cook had claimed for Great Britain in 1770. The legal and court system for the colony was
also formally established.
Phillip then turned to the convicts, who were seated on the ground and
surrounded by soldiers, and urged them to view this as a new start. He did his
utmost to encourage their good conduct and co-operation, and warned them of the
dire consequences of misbehaviour. At
the conclusion of the ceremony three volleys were fired, interspersed with the
band playing God Save the King. The officials viewed the troops, and a dinner
was enjoyed by the officers and gentlemen.
The trials begin
Within a few days a court martial had been convened, and soon after a
court of criminal justice. The trials
began. It was not only the convicts who
were at fault. As was the case during
the journey out to Australia the marines were as much to blame. Part of the problem was drunk and disorderly
behaviour due to the marines bringing liquor ashore, part centred on the
women’s camp into which the marines would sneak at night, and the rest centred
on the public stores.
Provisions and rationing
Phillip had brought enough provisions for only two years, so food was
often rationed. In addition the stores
were continually under attack from the male and female convicts, marines and
the guards themselves. In fact
everything - food, clothes, and tools - could be bartered so was at risk of being
stolen. At first those caught were given
a warning and pardoned, or flogged, or put in chains, or given harsher rations
of bread and water, or, in the case of the marines, drummed out of the camp. When this did not seem have the desired
effect, a gallows was built. On 27th
February, one month after arrival, James Barrett was made an example and had
the dubious notoriety of being the first person to be hanged on the soil of 'New South Wales'.
Food was a real concern. Not all
the provisions had lasted the journey. Animals
died in transit or on arrival, flour grew mould, and fresh mutton was full of
maggots in a day. Efforts were quickly
directed into supplementing the limited stores.
Settlement gardens were dug and seeds planted near the Governors place
and the hospital. The Public Garden and
a farm for stock were organised at a cove nearby (the area now marked by the
Botanical Gardens at the head of Farm Cove/Woccanmagully) and another garden begun on Garden
Island/Ba-ing-hoe.
Everyone, including the convicts, was encouraged to develop their own
garden and keep chickens for which they were given Saturday free from normal
work. Sunday was for the compulsory
divine service. However, by the end of
the first year it was realised that the soil was not very good, not much grew,
ants and field mice were a problem, and the stealing of tools and provisions
was still rife. Even the officers, who
were free to wander, hunt, and explore, found that survival was not as easy as
it seemed. One remarked that he did not
know how the ‘natives’ did it.
Building the town
As well as working in the gardens convicts were involved in the major
project of constructing the town. The
aim was to get everyone and everything out of the tents: that is, the hospital
and stores built, the Governor and officers in proper housing, the marines in
barracks, and the convicts in huts. Both men and women were expected to be
gainfully employed, although a number of women were pregnant or had young
children, so were excused.
It was a slow process. In spite
of Phillip’s motivational speech the convicts were more inclined to ‘slack off’
or escape into the woods. Nine men and
one woman were soon missing. As one
report recorded, ‘not more than 200 out of the 600 were at work’. Part of the difficulty was that the officers
and marines did not consider the convicts to be their responsibility once the
convicts had landed on shore. So, the
supervision was carried out by the more trusted convicts who, naturally, had a
difficult time. Another problem was a
lack of skilled labourers, especially carpenters, bricklayers and farmers.
Waves of sickness did not help.
By the end of February ‘the flux’ (dysentery) became a mini-epidemic,
with reports of over two hundred being hospitalised. Scurvy too, began to take its toll. There were attempts to augment the diet with
wild celery, spinach and parsley to fight the effects of malnutrition. Native sarsaparilla was found to be effective
in treating scurvy, but soon became scarce around the settlement.
The tank stream, being the only real source of fresh water, was
strictly monitored. It was forbidden to
cut the trees along its banks in an effort to protect it from the heat of the
sun. Smaller streams around the
settlement quickly dried up in hot weather.
Explorations
Phillip was only too aware of the limits of confining survival hopes to
one small area. From the first day he
had encouraged his officers to explore and map every bay and stream along the
river, as well as the land to the north and north-west, in the hope of finding
other suitable sites for settlement. In
mid-February the Supply set out, with
supplies and a small number of convicts, to settle Norfolk Island, with the aim
of cultivating flax, corn, cotton and other grains, as well as sending back
pine for building and trading purposes.[2]
The following month Phillip led a party north to explore Broken Bay,
the traditional land of the Guringai
nation. He returned to the area in
April, moving further inland beyond the end of the river, hoping to find the mountains,
another river, and other sources of fresh water and fertile land. During April
and May excursions were made west to carefully assess the land at the head of
the harbour.
Clash of cultures
It was not long before the Traditional Landowners (from now on I will use the term Eora) [3], probably
members of the Cadigal and Wangal peoples south of the river and Guringai
nation north of the river, began to
react to the effect the newcomers intrusion had on their previous way of
life. They were not pleased that the
English had monopolised their fishing grounds, nor about the large numbers of
fish the seine could haul in. At first
they assisted, and were rewarded with part of the catch. At some stage the reciprocal arrangement fell
apart. They were also not pleased that the English were denuding the area of native edible plants. The Eora began to avoid contact and steal equipment, probably
in retaliation for their own spears and tools being ‘souvenired’, in spite of
official orders not to do so.
By May some sheep had been killed by dingos belonging to one of the Aboriginal bands and convicts gathering native plants and reeds from the outskirts of the
settlement had been attacked, wounded and killed. There was a suspicion among the officers that
some convicts had also killed Aboriginal people, and that the attacks were
payback. Winter was fast approaching,
fish were scarce, and the Eora were no longer so willing to
accommodate the encroachment on their food sources and on their land. Yet there
are reports of continuing friendly encounters and sharing of food, with a
number of officers noting how hungry the Eora looked.
Settling in
In spite of the difficulties the tent city was slowly being transformed
into a town. By the time of Elizabeth’s
and Anthony’s wedding saw-pits had been dug, a stonemason found, the stone
quarry begun, a bricklayer found, and a site for the brickworks chosen,
although chalk or lime was still not available [4]. Some of the women were employed making
shingles for the roofs, the pegs to attach them, and in crushing shells for
lime.
Sydney Cove, 1788 (drawing: A. Maie)
The foundation stone for the Governor’s house had been laid and at
least one of the storehouses had been completed and was being used for divine
services. The hospital was having
shingles put on its roof and the building of huts for the officers and women
had commenced. The general construction
of the huts was of pine for the posts and plates, and cabbage trees split in
half for the sides. The huts were then
plastered with clay and thatched with rushes or shingles.
Elizabeth and Anthony
During this time, Elizabeth and Anthony had met, set up a relationship
and Elizabeth was pregnant so was probably not working. Anthony served as a labourer at the
brick pits, which were situated near the marshes at the source of the tank
stream.
Their marriage is recorded as being on 19th May at St Phillips Church
of England, Sydney. It probably took
place where divine services were being held, that is, under a tree, or in the
storehouse. A week after their wedding
they held a ‘marriage supper’, supposedly for a friend, which resulted in some
entertainment for the rest of the town and has become part of the Rope-Pulley
legend.
The ‘marriage supper’, at which the infamous ‘Sea Pye’ was eaten, took
place on ‘Sunday Sennight’ 25th May. It
was held in Anthony’s tent where both Elizabeth (now Rope) and Elizabeth Mason
lived. Also present were ‘Price, Day...a
Marine and a woman named Williams’. Both
James Price and Samuel Day had travelled out on the Alexander with Anthony. Both
probably worked with him at the brickworks and Price helped Anthony build
his hut. Elizabeth’s friend, Frances
Williams, has already been mentioned.
The marine was Robert Ryan, with whom Frances later had a daughter. Also in attendance was Joseph Hatton who had travelled out on the Alexander with Anthony and also worked at the brick pits.
The location of Anthony’s hut could have been near the brickworks, or
in the married quarters along the west side of the Tank stream closer to the
Cove. On Tuesday 13th May, George B.
Worgan, one of the Surgeons, had
‘walked out to Day, as far as
the Brick Grounds, it is a pleasant Road through the Wood about a Mile or Two
from the Village, for from the Number of Little Huts & Cots that appear
now, just above Ground, it has a villatick appearance.
I see they have made between 20
& 30,000 Bricks, and they were employed in digging out a Kiln for the Burning
of them.’
Near the brickworks was ‘two acres of ground...marked out for such
officers as were willing to cultivate them and raise a little grain for their
stock’.
The animal, which it was alleged comprised the ‘Sea Pye’, had also been
in the area during that month. It seems
that George Johnston, Lieutenant of Marines, had sent out a ‘She Goat’ to some
land ‘a little beyond the Brick Kilns, at the head of Long Sea Cove’ to graze. William Roberts, ‘a person who looks after
the stock’ had tethered it ‘by a rope...round her horns to a stake’, and at
some stage on Saturday 24th May she went missing. The same day its skin was found ‘near a Point
where the Brick makers were collecting Sand’.
Anthony Rope and James Price were charged with stealing its flesh ‘with
force of arms...on or about 24th May’, and Samuel Day and Elizabeth Rope were
charged with a similar offence ‘on Sunday 25th May last’. A number of friends and co-workers came to
their defence, swearing they had seen the goat already dead and ‘crows at it’.
William Earl swore that he had told Anthony about seeing ‘the Animal lying
there’. Others corroborated that Earl
had told them as well. Another admitted
that Price had passed some meat on to their hut and they had made a meal of
it. Although there was disagreement
about the cause of death, that is, whether it was mangled by an animal, or
killed cleanly by a person, the evidence from friends held and the four were
acquitted on 2nd June.
Winter scarcity
By now winter was taking its toll.
Over the next two months the settlement relied on salted meat. The Eora were starving. Some were found dead. Others began to appear closer to the
settlement and took ‘with force of arms’ the odd animal, fish from the fishing
boats, and other food and clothing. They
weren’t the only ones. Although a number
of Officers had remarked how ‘better behaved than expected’ the convicts were,
some of them, as well as the marines, continued to make trouble, in spite of
the executions which followed.
Internal conflicts
For their own part the Officers maintained their refusal to be involved
in anything else but ‘their duty of soldiers’ and setting up home and garden
for themselves and their help. The
marines felt insulted that they were expected to live on the same rations and
under the same conditions as everyone else (that is, the convicts). There had also been dissent between some of
the Officers about who had the right to pass judgement in a particular court-martial,
which unfortunately mushroomed into a series of official complaints and
arrests. The friction between Major
Ross, Commandant of the Marines, Captain-Lieutenant Tench and some of the other
officers, continued the rest of the year.
Disappointment tests resolve
The sheep were dying, the crops disappointing, and, to add to the
strain, the cattle on the Governors farm went missing. [5] The expected fresh turtle from Lord Howe
Island did not eventuate. There was a desperate
need for new clothing, especially for the women. Some of the thatched huts burned down when
fires were lit inside. Chimneys were
outlawed. There were no beds or cots, so
convicts still slept on the ground.
The transports had begun to return to England, leaving everyone,
including the Officers, feeling isolated.
Then, in August the rains turned everything into mud. The brick kiln fell in, bricks were
destroyed, the roads were impassable and the Lieutenant Governor’s house had
fallen down.
Phillip was getting quietly desperate.
His letters back to England stress the lack of involvement of the
Officers, ‘the great want of proper persons to superintend the convicts’, and
the need for ‘support from the mother country, on which for a few years we must
entirely depend’. Provisions such as,
clothing, blankets, tools, medicines and food, were needed. He was also concerned that England was
planning to send out more convicts.
I hope few convicts will be sent out for one
year at least, except carpenters, masons, and bricklayers, or farmers, who can
support themselves and assist in supporting others. Numbers of those now here are a burthen and
incapable of any kind of hard labour, and, unfortunately, we have not proper
people to keep those to their labour who are capable of being made useful.’
Progress and hope
Even though by November everyone had fallen out and the Officers and
marines just wanted to go home, there was progress in some areas. Lieutenant Dawes’ Observatory had been built,
the Governor’s brick house was finished, the Lieutenant Governor’ hewn-stone
house was completed. Most Officers huts
had plastered roofs, and the Officers were being ordered to focus on building
public barracks for their men. Fresh
fish, rather than salted, was back on the menu as fish began to return with the
warmer weather.
The news from Norfolk Island was also good, as the agricultural efforts
there were beginning to look promising.
So Phillip turned his attention west.
Since the excursions there in April and May Phillip had been seriously
planning a satellite town near the head of the harbour and on 3rd November a
settlement was established there. This
area was the land of the Burramatta (barra = place, matta
= eels) band of the Dharug nation. It was at first named Rose
Hill by the British but later reverted to resemble the Indigenous naming - Parramatta (the place where eels lie
down).
There were other highlights to the year. One was the Kings Birthday celebrations on
the 4th June, for which everyone received a three-day holiday and a ration of
spirits. The earthquake later in the
same month gave everyone a fright. On
12th August the Prince of Wales’ birthday offered another excuse to celebrate
and make merry, and for a few months speculation about the discovery of a ‘gold
mine’ set tongues wagging. It was found
to be a fabrication and the perpetrator was ‘rewarded for his ingenuity with a
hundred lashes’.
And, of course, on the 30th October Elizabeth’s and Anthony’s first
child, Robert, was born. He was
christened three days later, on 2nd November.
Ryan’s memoirs (Toby Ryan was Elizabeth’s & Anthony’s grandson from
their second child) state that Robert was the ‘first white male child born in
Australia’. This may be wishful
thinking. Ryan also recounts the family
tradition that Robert was born ‘in the Soldiers’ Barracks, Wynyard Square’[6].
Conflict between the
British and the Eora resumes
By the end of the year relations between the Eora and the
settlers were causing great concern. In
November, Phillip was writing home, ‘I now doubt whether it will be possible to
get any of those people to remain with us, in order to get their language,
without using force’. Then, on 18th
December there were rumours of an assembled, armed Aboriginal force near the brick-kilns. It turned out there were only fifty men (although reports ranged up to 2000) and they were soon dispersed when the brickmakers pointed their shovels and spades like guns, but Phillip had made up his mind.[8]
On 30th or 31st December (records differ) Phillip sent two boats to Manly Cove/Kay-ye-my where two
Aboriginal men were seized. They were possibly
from the Kayimai band of the Guringal nation based
around North Sydney and Manly cove/Kay-ye-my. One escaped, but the other was dragged to the
boat, ‘fastened by ropes’, and taken back to the settlement where he was
imprisoned. His name was Ar-ab-a-noo. [9]
*All the maps in this series are drawn by me soas not to infringe copyright.
© A. Maie, 2020
2022 update
[1] Gadigal land is to the east of Sydney Cove/Warrane along the southern side of the harbour and Wangal land is to the west of what is now Darling Harbour and along the south bank of the river to Parramatta/Burramatta (which then becomes the land of the Barramattagal peoples. Regarding the wars, some of the First Wars were initially researched and published by Al Grassby and Marji Hill in 1988 as Six Australian Battlefields. A more recent article is, What are the Frontier Wars. A map of known massacre sites is also available online. I believe it is updated as more information becomes available.
[2] Norfolk Island had originally been settled by Polynesians but they had long
gone before the British arrived.
[3] Aboriginal clans and nations define themselves in relation to their part of the country
or language. Around Sydney/Warrane Wan-gal (gal meaning people) means people from Wanne and Gadi-gal means
people from Gadi. Eora
was used by the locals to define themselves as ‘people’ (of this place) in
contrast to berewalgal, ‘people from
far away’ which they used in relation to the British. By using Eora in this section as an overarching term I am following Grace
Karsken’s usage in The Colony.
[4] The Dictionary of Sydney places the brickfields two kilometres
out of Sydney in the vicinity of Chinatown.
[5] The cattle
included 4 cows, 1 bull and 1 bull-calf.
They were eventually found living and thriving near present-day Camden, in
an area promptly named ‘Cowpastures’. By
1795 the herd had grown to 60, and by 1811 there were 5,000. It is quite possible, from a 1790 report by
escapee ‘Black Caesar’, that the local Muringong
people had been herding them. It became
a tourist attraction until too many cattle were being taken by local convicts,
settlers and escapees for food or to supplement their own herds. By 1817 the government had penned them in for
government stock and cattle theft became a capital offence. (Karskens, The Colony, pp. 285ff.)
[6] If Elizabeth and Anthony were living near the brick
pits this could be so, as the hospital was on the other side of town, near the
cove, and the barracks were in between.
She may have been caught unawares. It is unlikely that Robert was the first white male child born
at Sydney Cove, as addressed in the Rope-Pulley Family Newsletter,
December 2014, No. 77
[7] The letter, written on 17th November 1788, was printed in the Norfolk Chronicle, a copy of which was provided by descendant Jim Kable. It also describes Henry's impressions of this country.
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