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The Enterprising Colonial Economy of New South Wales 1800 - 1830: Being the Government Business Enterprises and Their Impact on the Colonial Economy 1788 - 1830
The Enterprising Colonial Economy of New South Wales 1800 - 1830: Being the Government Business Enterprises and Their Impact on the Colonial Economy 1788 - 1830
The Enterprising Colonial Economy of New South Wales 1800 - 1830: Being the Government Business Enterprises and Their Impact on the Colonial Economy 1788 - 1830
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The Enterprising Colonial Economy of New South Wales 1800 - 1830: Being the Government Business Enterprises and Their Impact on the Colonial Economy 1788 - 1830

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This third volume of the Series on the Colonial Economy of NSW (1788-1835) researches the formation, operation and use of labour in the numerous Government Business Enterprises. This volume supplements the studies on the Colonial Economy and the other most important economic driver - the commissariat. The economic history of NSW and essentially that of early Australia is set out in this series.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 15, 2012
ISBN9781466927544
The Enterprising Colonial Economy of New South Wales 1800 - 1830: Being the Government Business Enterprises and Their Impact on the Colonial Economy 1788 - 1830

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    The Enterprising Colonial Economy of New South Wales 1800 - 1830 - Gordon Beckett

    Chapter Contents

    1. Introduction And Outline

    2. Content Summary And Review Of The Literature

    3. Detailing The Operations Of Public Enterprises

    4. The Role Of The Commissariat In Economic Planning

    5. Introducing The Colonial Economy

    6. The Growth Of Manufacturing As A Result Of Public Enterprises

    7. Convict Management And Managing The Government Farms And The Public Enterprises

    8. Accounting And Finance For The Public Enterprises

    9. Measuring The Economic Impact Of The Enterprises On The Colonial Economy+

    10. Summary & Conclusions

    11. Bibliography

    CHAPTER 1

    INTRODUCTION and OUTLINE

    1. Introduction to Chapter 1

    Government Business Enterprises

    Secretary of State, Lord John Russell, proclaimed in 1837 that ‘all convicts should be placed on public works to avoid evils… exaggerated by the difference of the humanity, weakness, fear or caprice of different masters [HRA 1:18:764]

    Of course, public works for the colony were analogous to government work, and government assignment was the starting point of the process.

    The goal of the British Government was to assign convicts, preferably to private masters for productive work, in exchange for their maintenance. A select ‘few’ were to be retained for government assignment to work in ‘gangs’. These were reserved for outside work such as road-making, tree clearing, rock removal, levelling, and the building of retaining walls. Construction of public buildings, including barracks, stores, government housing, churches, land clearing or routine upkeep progressed around the town as did grass-cutting, road upkeep, fence painting and burial ground clearing. These were essential government services and even the most unimaginative governors such as Hunter, King and Bligh had a worker group for these. However, there was another group which has received little recognition. The function of that group (of workers) is covered by my term Government Business Enterprises which whilst fitting with the current definition of a GBE, had certain technical idiosyncrasies which made them different yet important.

    This paper is about the early government business enterprises in the colony of NSW by the government of that colony between 1800 and 1830. Government involvement was necessary and essential on three fronts. Firstly, items for production were aligned with the public works program. Secondly, convicts, with or without appropriate skills, were assigned to government to be put to productive work. Finally, the small local market and the lack of capital in the fledgling economy made the government the sole provider of development capital for a secondary sector within the economy. The items to be manufactured would also have been delayed if imported from Britain, so the local manufacture created employment, a fast turnaround time, and a demand for capital and labour. Thus began the manufacturing sector within the colonial economy of NSW. This is the story of the development and growth of a basic government enterprise between 1800 and 1830, with three main features. Firstly there is a lack of research and referencing by mainstream economic historians; and secondly an unrecognised impact of the GBEs on GDP. Thirdly is the demonstration of how economic growth during the period was neglected and misunderstood. However the outcomes from those factors are quite dramatic

    Professor Noel Butlin wrote in his article ‘Contours of the Australian Economy’’ that

    ‘however unsophisticated and crude many early ‘services’ may have been, the complexity of the economy beyond mere food production and pastoralism shows up strongly from a very early stage and throughout. The omission of ‘services’ from consideration is common to most studies of economic structure and development. The variability of the service shares points to some intriguing economic questions that have not, so far, been explored to any substantial extent.’

    [Contours of the Australian Economy:

    N.G. Butlin p.119, AEHR September 1986]

    I think Butlin should have taken the next step and considered how to incorporate his findings into the GDP figures for the pre-1861 period, rather than to leave this question unresolved.

    But first a definition of Government Business Enterprises or GBEs as I will refer to them: This is my term for the enterprises or establishments operated by the government, using convict labour to manufacture materials and items in support of the public works program. From Hunter to Darling, but mainly for Macquarie, instructions were given to utilise arriving convicts in the workforce. GBEs, which include, the manufacturing workshops (the lumber and timber yards), and the materials centres (the brick and tile facilities, stone quarries and timber camps) used large amounts of convict labour to produce materials for local use and to replace imports. Imports would have been very costly and contrary to directions from the Colonial Secretary’s office in London, but convict maintenance merely reflected the number of convicts supported by the government store.

    The outside work gangs (for land clearing, construction, road-making and maintenance) were another form of government labour and public farming was carried out on government farms in 22 areas within the Cumberland County and Bathurst region.

    Butlin’s term for this public activity is Government Establishments, or destinations to which convicts were assigned for government service.

    These earliest enterprises had many similarities to modern GBEs such as the old T.A.A, Qantas and Telstra (when they were in government hands), and the even older AGL Co and AWA (when they were considered essential industries). However the main ingredients of the original GBEs were government capital, and forced labour. In addition the government was the only market for the GBE output, although any small surplus was sold thru the Commissariat or sold by auction to the general public.

    I read the challenge issued by Butlin in Forming the Colonial Economy, in which he stated ‘It is unfortunate that no history of the commissariat system in Australia has been written’. I accepted that challenge and prepared a masters’ thesis on the commissariat in response. The GBEs are a natural extension of the role and operation of the commissariat.

    Why then are GBEs such an exciting concept?

    This is because, between 1800 and 1825, they employed over 8,000 convicts and involved teaching most workers a trade, useful for when they were emancipated. William Lithgow the first Colonial Auditor-General from 1824, assessed the net value of their labour at 10d per day, and that was deduced from his calculations of the cost of maintaining and clothing a convict for a year (being ₤15.4.2). Using this figure and opening the convict records for 1820, the value of the government assigned labour was therefore over ₤300,000, and the value of their output was over ₤900,000. Why is this so important? Butlin and Sinclair made a well recognised assessment of GDP between 1788 and 1861, but although Butlin recognised the value of government farming in his GDP computations, he deliberately did NOT recognise the value of the government manufacturing enterprises. Although I can’t find his exact reasoning I surmise his omission is based on British Treasury instructions which gave ‘nil’ value to convict labour or output. The Blue Books noted that the ‘net colonial income’ for the year 1828, was exclusive of sums in aid of revenue whose proceeds could not be viewed as income. This is further defined as ‘the proceeds of the labour of convicts, and establishments connected with them, being applied to the reduction of the amount of parliamentary grants for their maintenance’. The item ‘receipts in aid of revenue’ appeared regularly in the ‘Blue Books’, and included proceeds from the ‘sale of Crown livestock, government farms produce, clothing and cloth made at the Female Factory at Parramatta, wheat, sugar, molasses and tobacco produced by the convicts at new settlements such as Port Macquarie’, but never did it include any reference to government output. Now you may be wondering what do British revenue to the colony and tax collections have to do with GBEs?

    Firstly the early balance of payment was one directional i.e. Imports and transfers to the commissariat were not offset by any worthwhile volume of exports. The amount of timber or coal was minor in comparison to the imports of supplies and financial support. This imbalance regularly exercised the mind of Governors Phillip, Hunter and King, and they could find no staple exports until whaling and sealing in the first decade of the 19th century. Secondly the GBEs were an import replacement, with many millions of pounds of local production replacing the importation of building materials, convict supplies, and foodstuffs

    The GBEs introduced an Aussie form of capitalism and entrepreneurship evidenced by the recruitment, operation and success of early entrepreneurs. The introduction of any real capital was overshadowed by settlers bringing belongings and net worth to the colony. Often these settlers speculated with items considered a requirement in the colony and sold them (upon arrival) at a substantial profit, but items in kind contributed most of the capital before 1835.

    How can we assess the value of convict production and what are the sources to verify the labouring team numbers? I have used two methodologies. The first was to compute the production from early records and assign a value to each item. The second was to use the task rates assessed for each work section and measure output in this way. The pricing used was exactly the same. By a remarkable coincidence, the results are within 5% of each other.

    I’ve stated previously that the main market for GBE output was the public works program.

    Investment in public works was a major challenge. Britain saw the settlement as a tent town with the prisoners as inhabitants, under guard, transported out of sight and out of mind, with no need of money, public buildings, fancy housing or amenities. Under the early Governors from Phillip to Bligh, only the minimum amount of work was done, so expenditure was limited. By the time Macquarie arrived, there was a deferred maintenance and construction schedule which dumped all this expense and workload on his Administration. Commissioner Bigge reported that 76 buildings had been completed under Macquarie. Some of these he considered extravagant, such as the Governor’s Stables, the Rum Hospital and the toll booths on Parramatta Road. Bigge revamped them for alternate and less extravagant use. He made no comment on the provision of water, sewerage or drainage for a town with a fast growing population. Macquarie had drained the marshes in Centennial Park for use as the town water supply and outlawed the use of the Tank Stream for animal grazing, washing and as a sewer.

    The earliest convict gangs were employed on timber harvesting, farming, brick and tile making and construction. Crews were engaged in building barracks, for military and convict use, storage facilities, hospitals, paths, roads, bridges and wharves, military fortifications and observation points. Macquarie’s initial dilemma was creating sufficient work to keep all arriving convicts employed, but this shortage of work was quickly reversed. The demand for skilled workers grew and it could only be met from arriving convicts and/or specially recruited immigrants. At the same time new manufacturing operations took shape. The government workers, wherever located, were to be victualled and fitted out with clothing and tools by the Commissariat and with the spread of settlement, Commissariats opened at Parramatta, Liverpool and Windsor, whilst Government Farms opened at Pennant Hills, Toongabbie, Rose Hill, and Emu Plains. The lumber yard was a catalyst for economic growth. Instead of thousands of unemployed prisoners wandering the streets of Sydney, by 1820 over 2,000 were behind the 8 foot exterior wall of the facility and working productively. They were contributing to the GDP instead of living off the government although in Treasury eyes convict labour and their output had no value. The obligation on the enterprises was, in a year such as 1817, to service and support over 16,000 convicts. Half of them were ‘assigned’ to private service. About 1,000 were under the control of the Female Factory in Parramatta. The balance was in government enterprise service. They may have been gardeners in the governor’s domain, street repairers, night watchmen, or land clearers or working in one of the GBEs. There were over 11 GBEs operating at that time, including the lumber, timber and stone yards, the shipbuilding and dock-yards, the commissariat, government farms and its livestock management, lime-making for mortar, the brick and tile yard, the hauling service, and the ferryboat across the harbour and up to Parramatta. The construction and road-making gangs also employed many convicts and supervisors. So the 8,000 convicts assigned to public (or government) service are not difficult to account for.

    Perhaps more important is their output. There was very little material in a government building that could not be made in one of the GBEs and convict labour was available for all construction work.

    Output across the GBEs included: farm produce, building products, clothing and furniture. In more specific terms these items included [meat (and livestock), grain for flour and bread, and building products – bricks and tiles, stone blocks, hinges, nails, timber products, hand carts, culvert piping, bridge strapping, wharf components, clothing, and furniture. In fact from the foundations up, local production filled most needs. Foundation stones, timber frames and cladding, bricks, window frames, roof framing and tiles, interior wall frames and cladding, floor joists, and floor boards, nails, hinges, metal vents, lime mortar and furniture. All items were made in the yards, and transported to the site. Due to the shortage of skilled workers one innovation of the Yard was prefabrication. Items were built, dismantled, transferred to the construction site, and re-assembled. However finished inventory was transferred to and despatched from the store to the construction site, with proper paperwork being completed. The lumber yard had clerical assistants at its main gate for keeping records of production and despatch, labour in use and raw materials on hand. Sadly these records no longer exist.

    Directly associated with the Lumber Yard was the Timber Yard. The Lumber Yard debarked and cut the logs into large sawn sections before transferring them to the timber yard, which extracted sawn timber of varying sizes and lengths (suitable for various uses). The only reason this dual operation makes sense is that there occurred a great deal of wastage in the processes which was then used in the lumber yard and barracks for burning and producing heat, and as fuel for the kilns. The logs were floated down the Lane Cove River and across the harbour to the Commissariat landing where they were stacked for natural drying before being moved over the sawpits. The logs, having partly dried in the sun, were rough sawn into large timber blocks of different lengths and then dried on racks under weights to minimise the twisting and splitting that occurred when native timbers dried. The moisture content of native timbers was high and best reduced through kiln-drying, untested until the 1830s. Governor Phillip had used timber cut from standing logs and the timbers twisted, warped and split after a short time in the sun. All his early work had to be rebuilt after the new timber was dried before being nailed into place. It took many years for the Colonial building supervisors to understand native timbers and how different they were from English timbers.

    From early records it appears that there were never sufficient local timbers to meet colonial demand so many British ships were still bringing in timber from Britain and the continent as ballast. Also, local supplies were used in growing quantities for transfer and sale in Britain. Although an import tax had been imposed on timber originating from colonial NSW, it was in great demand for naval purposes and as hardwood. The Timber Yard was an important aspect of supplying a substantial quantity of timber necessary for the colonial building program commenced during the Macquarie Administration. It was also the main timber operation in the Colony. Most preferred timbers were found in the Castle Hill and Pennant Hills area, so a second smaller timber yard was built adjoining the Pennant Hills forests. Ralph Hawkins in a study of the convict timber getters of Pennants Hills for the Hornsby Historical Society, details the names and occupations of all workers employed at the timber-getting establishment in the Hills area from the 1828 census. There were 166 convict workers who were employed as timber-fellers, wood and post splitters, sawyers, shingle makers, carpenters, charcoal burners, sawpit clearers and basket makers. Ten convicts were working with animals as bullock drivers, stock keepers and grass cutters, whilst others were blacksmiths and wheelwrights. As the finished products or cut timbers were moved by water, there were boatmen and wharf workers, as well as hut-keepers, barbers, shoemakers and tailors in the camp. Convicts were used on the administrative side, including 40 superintendents, overseers, watchmen, constables, clerks and a school teacher. The Commissariat victualled and provided supplies for all 166 workers. Provisions would be taken by boatmen returning from the Timber Yard after delivering a supply of product from the Pennant Hills establishment.

    The Female Factory in Parramatta was the receiving facility for female prisoners waiting processing and assignment to private masters. None were used in government work outside the female factory confines. During their stay at the facility their role was to spin and weave yarns for clothing and blankets. The House of Corrections, housing both males and females, was renamed the Female Factory in the early years of the 19th century. A new female facility building was commenced in 1817 completed by 1821 and was intended to house 300 females however some musters about that time record over 1,000 women were being housed, leading to critical overcrowding. Included in the amenities of the new facility was a hospital room, one for weaving cloth and four very small lodges for constables and overseers. There were rooms for a bake-house, kitchen, provisions and stores, storing wool, spinning and carding rooms and a large storeroom for wool and cloth ready for despatch.

    Government farms were another public enterprise which grew out of necessity. Governor Phillip had arrived in January of 1788 with only six months of rations and was expecting to convert seed brought with the First Fleet into wheat, barley and corn supplies for extending rations. Far from finding what Joseph Banks had described as ‘wonderful’ soil, Phillip found the conditions difficult, with the summer parching heat and violent rainstorms hindering his operations and damaging his crops. The earliest government farms were contained to the coastal areas until 1814, and were small. By 1818, there were 19 locations in the County of Cumberland and three in the Bathurst region. Farms were developed in stages reflecting the demand for grain, timber supplies and for cattle and sheep herds, and as they secured better quality soil for cultivation. Thus vegetable growing had alluvial soil at Emu Plains adjacent to the Nepean River, for timber the upper reaches of the Lane Cove River at Pennant Hills were chosen (the river being used to move the tree trunks from the forest to the Lumber Yard). The Cow Pastures, just west of the Nepean River were for cattle grazing and other farming locations were Castle Hills, Grose Farm, Longbottom Farm, Toongabbie and Field of Mars.

    The dockyards were the earliest form of staple industry in the colony. Locally built boats served intra-coastal towns with supplies, rations and collection of rural produce, and later met the needs of whaling and sealing. Over 70 boats of varying sizes were built annually in the Dockyard west of Circular Quay.

    The brick and tile yards were delivering over 30,000 bricks each week from locations in Sydney and Rose Hill. Even this didn’t meet the requirement for public buildings as specified by Greenway, so the first stone quarry was begun on High or George Street, opposite the end of Bridge Street and across from the Lumber Yard. A second quarry was at Pyrmont on Kent Street and a third was at Bennelong point. The stone quarries made a substantial contribution to the development of Sydney town and many buildings still stand because Sydney Sandstone was used.

    I introduced the GBEs with a definition. It will bear repeating in different terms to ensure accuracy. My definition is that by nature the GBEs were government sponsored, administered and financially supported; they used government labour and raw materials (as opposed to buying in raw materials) and most output was consumed by government building and construction activities, public works and infrastructure. Thus GBEs were a government instrumentality and practiced government policy.

    The most fundamental question is ‘since the vast majority of historians omit even the mentions of GBEs, how do we know they existed in the colonial economy’? Well, the omission of the GBEs by mainstream historians is not questioning their existence, but is a failure by them to comprehend the importance of government-assigned convict workers, and their productive labour.

    Evidence of their existence comes from:

    1. Commissioner Bigge reported convicts were assigned to government service

    2. The Bigge Report also tells of the high number of convicts in these enterprises and of their organisation, equipment, work centres and output achieved

    3. We know from official records (in the HRA and HRNSW) of the existence of the Lumber and timber yard, stone quarries, government farms, naval yard and convict workhouses

    4. So primary records show the GBEs existed, however, the terminology government business enterprise is mine.

    Also there is no definitive evidence that the commissariat carried out the production planning. This conjecture is mine reached after extensive research, although I repeat again that I found no official document that stated that production planning for the government lumber yard was carried out by the commissariat, but we do know that Lt G.T.W.B. Boyes was the deputy commissary-general of planning. Filling such gaps is the responsibility of a researcher into new areas of history

    Thus the existence of the GBEs is anecdotal rather than contained in official instructions. On the point about production planning, who decided what to make? As pointed out above, my conjecture is integral. There is plenty of anecdotal confirmation that the main planning work came from within the commissariat. However that is not to say that it managed any aspect of the GBEs other than planning. Majors Druitt and Ovens reporting separately on structural improvements to the GBEs, both noted that the commissariat allocated resources, tools usage and storage facilities of finished product.

    However, it is interesting that the senior public servant of the day, William Lithgow, as the Colonial Auditor-General, makes no independent audit of any GBE. (Refer G.W. Beckett William Lithgow –First colonial Auditor-General – a Biography – Colonial Press 2004). Thus the puzzle deepens, however by the best and most subjective analysis; I must conclude that the commissariat had a division within its organisation established to carry out production planning for the GBEs with its first recognised superintendent and Deputy Commissary-General, being Lt G.T.W.B. Boyes.

    The GBEs impacted on many aspects of the colonial economy, including entrepreneurship, capital inflows, the growth of the secondary sector, the development of worker skills and locally, refinement of the piecework and task-work system, but mostly on the GDP between 1800 and 1835. Between 1802 and 1820 over 18,300 man-years of government-assigned convict labour was contributed to the GBEs, with a combined output value of over ₤3 million. This is a necessary addition to the GDP of the colony of NSW and allows a conclusion to be drawn that the secondary/manufacturing and construction sector of the economy outperformed the agricultural economy before 1835

    Goal

    From its commencement in 1788, the aim of the Colony of New South Wales was self-sufficiency even though it had been set up to solve the problem of Britain’s overcrowded prisons. By 1823, the British Government had decided that it would limit its direct expenditure to the transportation of the convicts and their supplies while in transit; the Colonial Administrators would be responsible for the convicts’ security, food, clothing and accommodation in the Colony. Furthermore, proceeds from the sale of Crown land were to be the exclusive reserve of the British authorities rather than the colonists. The Governors were therefore forced to look for ways in which the Colony could help to support itself through working the convicts to create food, minerals (e.g. coal production), roads, housing and public buildings. Other convicts were assigned to landowners on a fully-maintained basis, thus saving the British Treasury a great deal of money.

    This policy of maintenance of convicts by the Government created the need for an accounting by the Colony to the British Parliament. This led to the appointment in 1824 of a Financial Controller/Colonial Accountant to prepare monthly and annual despatches to the British Colonial Secretary. Following self-government in 1856, the procedures changed as the Colony became fully responsible for its own economic planning and fiscal management.

    A Brief Overview of the Government Store

    The first storekeeper arrived with Governor Phillip and the First Fleet. Andrew Miller had been appointed whilst the Fleet was preparing to sail, initially to take responsibility for the loading and recording of requisitioned stores. Upon arrival in Sydney Cove, Miller’s first task was to erect a stores tent, secure it as far as possible, and commence unloading from the ships the stores that would be required during the first few weeks. These stores and provisions included such items as tents, pots and cooking utensils, blankets, hospital equipment and supplies and tools for clearing the land and erecting tents. Little was known about local conditions and Phillip’s plan to have a wooden storehouse built within a few weeks could not be accomplished. He had tried to anticipate a wide range of obstacles and challenges, but encountering a difficult landscape and understanding characteristics of the local forestry proved the most difficult of all. In their various reports, Cook, Banks and Matra all praised the local timbers after only a cursory evaluation but, with no expertise amongst his crew or the convict population, Phillip’s task of clearing timber and using it for construction was almost impossible.¹

    Upon their arrival, Phillip relied on Miller to operate the most basic of stores and without burdening him with limiting rations as he anticipated that the second Fleet store ships would be carrying provisions for the next full year. Miller’s biggest task was the security of the provisions; the remaining items were then to be unloaded so that the ships could return to naval service. Phillip later prepared a rationing program for Miller so that the provisions would last six months, the time Phillip thought the Second Fleet was behind his own.

    The stress of establishing the commissary for the new settlement and acting as private secretary to the governor eventually broke Miller’s health and he wanted to return home. However, he was not to see his home again; he died during the sea voyage back to England.

    Miller’s successor, John Palmer, had sailed as purser aboard Phillip’s flagship, Sirius. He had joined the Navy at the age of nine and participated in a series of voyages to many parts of the world, including North America where he married into a wealthy colonial family. After the founding of the colony, and with the expectation that he would soon return to England, Palmer sailed with the Sirius to the Cape Colony and Batavia on a mission to purchase food for the struggling, and hungry, colony of NSW. Whilst shipping provisions from Sydney to Norfolk Island, the ship struck an uncharted submerged rock just southeast of the Island and sunk. Palmer was saved, but the Sirius and its cargo was lost and Phillip found a new posting for Palmer in Sydney, replacing Miller as chief store-keeper. It was a further seven years before Palmer sailed for England, but he soon returned to the colony with his wife and sister, Sophia. The Palmer family became financially secure with a magnificent walled estate, carved from the rocky terrain of Woolloomooloo Bay, just east of Farm Cove. Sophia was to shortly marry Robert Campbell thus forming a most strategic alliance between the colony’s first successful trading house (Campbell & Co, the chief supplier of stores to the colony) and the chief procurer of provisions for the colonial store (John Palmer).²

    Governor Phillip was active in most facets of the initial colonial administration, especially the planning for the new settlement and the difficult challenge of feeding the people. He found the soil conditions around Sydney Cove were unsuitable for vegetables, grain and fruit. The vegetable patches located in the Governor’s Domain failed to provide the produce desired, and Phillip was constantly looking for new, more fertile, locations. Travelling up what was to become known as the Parramatta River; he located more fertile soil, and what appeared to be a suitable clay reserve, on the south bank of the River; he named the area Rose Hill. Phillip planned a new settlement at the head of the river which he named Parramatta. Phillip recorded that, ‘the soil is more suitable for cultivation than the hungry sand covering the hills near Sydney’³. It was imperative to grow food as quickly as possible and Parramatta offered the additional advantages of a constant supply of fresh water and a means of transporting food by boat rather than having to build building a road.

    During the Palmer administration of the stores, new settlements had to be served in addition to Norfolk Island established in 1789. Settlements were developed and serviced by branch stores in areas such as Hobart (1802), Port Dalrymple (later Launceston, 1802), Liverpool (1803), Hawkesbury (Windsor, 1802) and Bathurst (1814). The role of the main store in Sydney was constantly changing as was its location. All the stores required personnel and organisation as well as a good supply of clerical assistance and many of these roles were set-aside for trusted convicts and ticket-of-leave men. The reason for the use of convicts in a sensitive and secure area of government was straightforward. As Butlin has established, the cost of convict labour was a charge against the English Treasury and not included in the appropriation to the colony, so the use of convicts as workers for the government kept government civil salaries understated and artificially low. It was Commissioner Bigge who reviewed the workforce and, observing the number of convicts employed within government and thus civil service ranks, became aware of the understatement of costs in the colony. Butlin adds, ‘as public employees, a great deal of convict labour was engaged on farming and public infrastructure construction and thus avoided being charged as a direct cost to the colony. It was more convenient, however, to transfer them into the labour market. The use of convicts as public Servants, in the sense of filling positions in the normal operations of government, has a special interest!’

    A list of some of the main provisions and supplies that arrived with the First Fleet indicated the role and difficulties facing the storekeeper. In addition to foodstuffs, supposedly sufficient for the first six months, some of the provisions and supplies which were shipped with the First Fleet in 1787, were:

    TABLE 2.1 Supplies sent with the First Fleet

    The complete list⁵ of articles sent with the First Fleet was much longer and represented a storeman’s nightmare if records of issues and returns were to be maintained. For instance, the unloading of stores and provisions for immediate use commenced on 7 February but; since the settlement held over 1,000 people, there was obviously not sufficient bedding, blankets, cooking utensils, or eating utensils for everyone⁶. The allowance of clothing for a male convict for a year was equally inadequate; although raw cloth, needles and cotton had arrived with the Fleet and female convicts could be encouraged to hand sew clothing if necessary. The records show that the total costs of all male and female convict clothing was only £4,144.

    In ‘Botany Bay Mirages’, Alan Frost has raised the question of whether the inadequate quantity of tools and supplies was deliberate, or merely poor planning. A case can be made for improper planning rather than deliberate mismanagement. Phillip was left in sole charge of the voyage and received very little guidance, support or interest from the Secretary of State’s office, the Naval Board or the commissariat division of the British Treasury.⁷ It is unlikely that, after a fairly ordinary career as a naval officer, Phillip would suddenly have reverted to poor leadership. Indeed, he had commented to the Naval Board that the vessels allotted to the Fleet were not adequate in size or number. He also questioned the short amount of time allowed for the planning process, but received no worthwhile response. Clearly, this was not regarded as a voyage of high importance compared with British naval activities in other parts of the world. So, the fact that Phillip used a great deal of judgment and commonsense, speaks volumes for his quiet confidence and determination that he was the most suitable choice as the head of this mission.

    For the first storekeeper, local circumstances were such that the supplies brought from England needed to be carefully protected against theft and loss. The tools, in particular, were to be issued daily and returned each evening; however according to Marjorie Barnard, within 14 days of arriving in the colony, over one-third of the tools loaned out for chopping trees and clearing land had been lost, stolen or deliberately concealed from the storekeeper.⁸ The chief cause was the unwillingness of convicts to work; removing the tools meant they were unable to chop firewood or cut timber framing for the new camp. As a way of keeping the tools in repair, Miller had set up forges on the banks of Sydney Cove and used iron and steel pieces brought out as ballast to forge new tools and replace lost items. Watkin Tench in his ‘Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay’ provides some useful insights into the conditions faced by Phillip and Miller. In November 1788 he noted: ‘Temporary, wooden stores, covered with thatch or shingles into which the cargoes of all the ships have been lodged, are completed, and a hospital erected’.⁹ However, the stores were not to remain as such for long as the end of one such building was converted into a temporary church for Sunday services. These frail structures were neither fire-proof nor rat-proof and the summer of 1789 saw the end to these temporary structures when Phillip designed a new, sturdier and more permanent store in a location closer to the settlement’s military camp. Later in 1789, Tench recorded that ‘the storehouse was finished at Rose Hill (by then renamed Parramatta). It was 100 feet by 24 feet and was built of local brick, deep red in colour, but not as durable as the Sydney product’.¹⁰

    Displaying rare frustration, Phillip wrote to Assistant Secretary of State, Phillip Stephens, in August 1790 Leather is needed for soles for men’s shoes and materials for mending them. Shoes here last but a very short time, and the want of these materials and thread to mend the clothing will render it impossible to make them serve more than half the time for which they were intended’. The following month Phillip wrote to Nepean, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and made two observations: ‘I cannot help repeating that most of the tools sent out were as bad as ever’ and, ‘the wooden ware sent out were too small; they are called bowls and platters, but are not larger than pint basins. There was not one that would hold a quart’.¹¹

    Tench also described the development of the new town of Rose Hill and the buildings adjacent to the store: ‘the new stone barracks is within 150 yards of the wharf, where all boats from Sydney unload. In addition there is an excellent barn, a granary, an enclosed yard to

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