The Hawkesbury River was first ‘discovered’ by Governor Phillip in 1789, the year after the First Fleet landed. He and his team sailed up the coast to Broken Bay and explored the district on foot. They planted potatoes, Indian corn, melon and other seeds, which subsequently flourished, as a result of which Phillip said he “knew now that the ultimate success of the colony was assured. The end of fears of food shortages for the people was in sight.” [1]
However Phillip and Co also noted signs of extreme flooding in the area, so he advised against its settlement until several more explorations had been made. His successors weren’t so meticulous though, so the first farmers arrived in 1794. Ever since then, and up until fairly recently despite the building of dams, the Hawkesbury has flooded on a regular basis.
When Mary and Thomas first arrived there they would have first had to clear the land. There was no farm machinery in those days. ‘The farms at this time were cultivated by hoe. The land had been cleared by cutting down the trees and leaving the stumps. The ground was then turned over with a hoe and wheat seed was scattered and hoed in. The number of stumps and the scarcity of bullocks or horses precluded the use of the plough. Harvest took place in December when the wheat was reaped, bound up into sheaves, then carried by men to a stack or barn. It was thrashed with a flail and marketed.
‘Farms had no fences. There was no need for them as the settlers had no livestock except pigs…’[2] The houses were small and extremely primitive: wattled and plastered walls, thatched roofs, and the floor was just the bare ground.
And then came the floods. They were so bad, and so frequent, that in January 1802, in response to reports from Governor King of the plight of the Hawkesbury farmers Lord Hobart (Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs) made a suggestion:
‘It has occurred to me,’ he said, ‘that the very causes which have contributed to produce this effect might be brought to operate in favour of the cultivation of an article of food that would not be much less advantageous to the public of the individuals than that of bread corn. It is perfectly well known that rice will only succeed in ground that is occasionally inundated; and as the plant rises in proportion as the water rises, without suffering material injury, it would seem to be better adapted for the banks of the Hawkesbury than any other corn. By removing the buildings to the higher grounds, and selecting for cultivation such parts as appear to be least exposed to the rapidity of the water, I should apprehend that a very beneficial change might be effected in that district.’[3]
In October 1802 King responded: ‘Respecting the advantage of rice being cultivated on the low grounds at the Hawkesbury, which are so liable to be overflowed, there is a probability it might answer … if we had the means of giving the grounds the necessary irrigations; for although the banks of the Hawkesbury are inundated twice or thrice in some years, yet in others the rivers and creeks seldom rise above the ordinary level, which is at least twenty feet from the top of the lowest banks.’[4] The Australian climate, don’t you love it?
It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wattled wall of Mary’s primitive hut, to hear what she thought of this brave new country that her cousin had dispatched her to.
‘It was a very small and primitive yet faction-torn Sydney that Mrs Mary Pitt found in 1801 when “Canada” came to anchor in Sydney Cove.
‘A few barrack-like structures on the headland to the right; on either side of the tank stream, houses of slabs, weatherboard or brick-nog set in large allotments, for each citizen was expected to cultivate a kitchen garden to eke out the scanty food supplies of the colony.
‘Soups of wallaby and ’possum bones, rhubarb or pumpkin pie, with wholemeal bread baked in dripping was the worker’s Sunday dinner. Blue seemed to be the only paint available. Houses were sometimes painted a lightish shade white caste, water-butts and barrows were a few tones darker.
‘Bertie (whoever he may be) says: “The inhabitants were hard drinking, crotchety, narrow-minded, ignorant and often tyrannical, impressing their narrow views on each new batch of settlers.”
‘There was no real settlement beyond Port Jackson (Sydney) and the Hawkesbury outside a strip of country eighty miles long and about half as wide. To the west the Blue Mountains were an impregnable barrier, and the terrain between them and the sea offered little more than a subsistence to its scattered inhabitants.
‘To these hard conditions of life from the comparative luxury of Britain came the hardy stock from which we are sprung. Grimly determined men, devoted, self-sacrificing women, each sustained by a faith that almost passeth understanding, confident and content in some vague fashion that a generation yet unborn, reaping where they had sown, would hold them in high honor as the founders of a great nation.’[5]
When Mary and family arrived in 1801 the colony itself was thirteen years old. A muster taken in 1801 just before she arrived showed a total population of just under 6,000, of which only around thirty-four were free settlers (although records of free settlers are, unlike those of convicts, rather vague). The remaining population comprised convicts and officials, and men outnumbered women by at least six to one.
It wasn’t a place free people wanted to migrate to – why should they? – it was a very long way from home and conditions were dreadful. For the first few years of its existence the colony had been on the brink of starvation, and although Governor Phillip, the first governor, urged the British government to encourage free settlers to migrate they (the government) did not take a lot of notice, partly because, frankly, they had other more important things to think about, such as the Napoleonic Wars.
It is extraordinary, when you look at this beautiful country, to think that as recently as 200 years ago no Europeans could be persuaded to come and live here.
[1] Macquarie Country, Dowd
[2] Ibid
[3] Historical Records of Australia Series 1 Vol 3, p369
[4] Ibid p 587/588
[5] Country Life 20 Sept 1929, Australian Pioneers II, the Descendants of Mary Pitt, Archdeacon Oakes
