Convicts At King George Sound
The first convicts to arrive in what is now Western Australia were convicts of the New South Wales penal system, sent to King George Sound in 1826 to help establish a settlement there. At that time the western third of Australia was unclaimed land known as New Holland. Fears that France would lay claim to the land prompted the Governor of New South Wales, Ralph Darling, to send Major Edmund Lockyer, with troops and 23 convicts, to establish the King George Sound settlement. Lockyer's party arrived on 25 December 1826. A convict presence was maintained at the settlement for nearly four years. In November 1830, control of the settlement was transferred to the Swan River Colony, and the troops and convicts withdrew.
Read more about this topic: Convictism In Western Australia
Famous quotes containing the words convicts, king and/or sound:
“So long as State constitutions say that all may vote when twenty-one, save idiots, lunatics, convicts and women, you are brought down politically to the level of those others disfranchised.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower?
And all alone comes riding there
The King that could make his people stare,
Because he had feathers instead of hair.
A slow low note and an iron bell.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,
A sound as if, with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.”
—Robert Southey (1774–1843)