New South Wales

In the early twentieth century, it was often said that “Australia rides on the sheep’s back”—a reflection of the nation’s dependence on the wool trade. Accordingly, a vast itinerant army of labourers was required to shear the sheep and prepare fleeces for market. In this essay, Rolf Boldrewood provides a vivid picture of the shearing season on a large property.

In the summer of 1839, 26-year-old Louisa Anne Meredith, in the company of her husband, Charles Meredith, sailed from England to the British colony of New South Wales, in what was then New Holland. Four years later, she published a detailed account of the years since she had left England. A fascinating window into the past, Louisa's impressions and experiences cover the four-month ocean voyage; life within the fledgling city of Sydney; travels across the Blue Mountains to Bathurst; and eventual settlement at Homebush in Sydney's west.

As a teenage orphan in England in 1791, Mary Reibey was sentenced to death for stealing a horse. When police cornered her, she was dressed as a boy, and she maintained that disguise until she was unmasked at her trial. Due to her 'tender age', Reibey was spared the hangman's noose and sentenced to seven years' transportation to the colony of New South Wales. With the odds stacked against her, Reibey went on to become Australia's first female business tycoon and the richest woman in the colony, founding the Bank of New South Wales, now one of the nation's biggest financial institutions.