Another in the series of early development and construction in 1800’s Australia.
Enjoy.
LENTON HISTORY – CONVICT WORKS PART 1
Introduction
Above is a photo of the Sydney Opera House which I will refer to later in this article.
We have now had two articles about the ancestry of the Lenton family, of which my wife Diane is a descendant. Three ancestors were convicts so I thought that in this article it would be interesting to see how convicts were employed.
Previous articles
In my first article about the Lenton family I said that it was clearly impractical for all convicts to be continuously kept under guard, nor was it necessary because 80% of the convicts had only been transported for larceny, not for crimes of violence.
Quite a few of the convicts were skilled stonemasons and carpenters who were deployed on public works.
The system therefore evolved of some convicts being pardoned and appointed to administrative positions and others, like Lenton ancestors James Moore and probably John Wild referred to in previous articles, being assigned to “masters”.
On the other hand intransigent convicts were kept in chains on roadworks and, often, construction of public buildings etc, being kept locked up at night in jails or stockades.
In my second article about the Lenton family I described how John Wild was punished for stealing clothes in Sydney Town, being sentenced to a flogging of 100 lashes and six months in an iron gang.
This leads me to interrupt my dissertation on the Lenton family with an account of the range of works for which convicts were often employed.
Early convict works
I nitially, bearing in mind that for the first five years of settlement (during which there were two droughts) the only people landing in Sydney were convicts and soldiers, there was a strong emphasis on land clearing, farming and building rudimentary houses. High quality hardwood was abundant and was used almost universally for houses, bridges (including a bridge on Bridge Street), wharves, stockades, a navigation beacon on South Head etc. High quality softwood (cedar) was also abundant.
An exception was a small stone fort built at Dawes Point in 1791 to protect the colony from France during the Napoleonic Wars.
The Sydney area was dominated by sandstone, which was very resistant to excavation. A classic example was the huge amount of work involved in excavating tanks in the bed of the Tank Stream to hold the colony’s water supply. The sandstone outcropping throughout the colony made road construction by convicts very laborious.
On the other the sandstone was excellent for building purposes, and was far more resistant than the sandstock bricks baked on Brickfield Hill. Sandstone was used to advantage when the colony had passed beyond its infancy and more permanent structures were needed.
But first I need to describe two of the major influences in colonial architecture, Governor Macquarie and Francis Greenway.
Governor Macquarie
Briefly, Major General Lachlan Macquarie (1762 –1824), shown in the above illustration, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator from Scotland. Macquarie served as the fifth Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821, and had a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony.
He is considered by historians to have had a crucial influence on the transition of New South Wales from a penal colony to a free settlement and therefore to have played a major role in the shaping of Australian society in the early nineteenth century.
I will be mentioning him frequently in this article and later articles.
Francis Greenway
Francis Howard Greenway (1777 -1837) was an English-born architect who was transported to Australia as a convict for the crime of forgery. In New South “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales”Wales
He worked for the Governor, Lachlan Macquarie, as Australia’s first government architect.
He became widely known and admired for his work, displayed in buildings such as St Matthew’s Church, Windsor, St James’ Church, Sydney, Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (as it is now known).
I will start with buildings and bridges constructed during Macquarie’s term of office and then talk about roads.
Hyde Park Barracks
Here is a photo of the imposing building now known as Hyde Park Barracks, in the middle of Sydney. Designed by Greenway it was originally built in 1817 to accommodate soldiers, later becoming a Womens’ Asylum. It is now a museum which houses historic displays and documents.
St James Church
St James’ Church is an Anglican parish church in King Street close to Hyde Park Barracks. Consecrated in 1824 it became a parish church in 1835. It was designed in the style of a Georgian town church by Greenway and its memorials provide a record of important elements of Sydney’s history.
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Below is a photo of the modern-day Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Originally commissioned by Governor Macquarie in 1815 as the stables (no, this is not a printing error!) for the proposed Government House, the oldest Conservatorium building was designed by Greenway.
Being in the Gothic Picturesque architectural style, the building was described as a “palace for horses” and demonstrates the romantic vision of Governor Macquarie.
Perhaps it also demonstrates that the Governor loved horses. But what would he have thought if someone told him that his stables would be used a century later for teaching music?
It is the only example of a Gothic building designed by Greenway still standing. Its cost and apparent extravagance was one of the reasons Macquarie was recalled to Britain.
Additional buildings
Additional buildings included:
(a) Sandstone warehouses built in 1810 at West Circular Quay for the Commissariat
(b) The General Hospital (1811-1816), Supreme Court Building (1823), Macquarie Lighthouse (1818), and
(c) Fort Macquarie (1817) with 15 guns, now the site of the iconic Opera House (see photo at top of this article).
Much later, after excavating 20 wheat silos on Cockatoo Island (established as a convict jail from 1839) the convicts met their match in 1843 when they attempted to excavate Argyle Cut, which linked the eastern and western sides of the main ridge. Later, Council employees took over, blasting the rock.
Bridges
At first glance a reader might conclude that building bridges was hardly noteworthy. These days they are merely expanses of boring reinforced concrete, but in colonial days they had a character of their own, as you will see.
Lennox Bridge, Parramatta 1836-9
This single span sandstone bridge of 23 metres was constructed with convict labour across the Parramatta River. Modified slightly, it remains a rare example of early nineteenth century engineering. It was designed by David Lennox, who became famous for his bridges.
But who was David Lennox?
David Lennox
David Lennox arrived in Sydney in 1832. He was experienced in bridge building under the famous engineer Thomas Telford having worked on a stone bridge across the Severn in Gloucester. After the death of his wife, he sought employment in the colony, arriving as an unassisted migrant in 1832. His talents were soon recognised and he was appointed as Superintendent of Bridges, becoming the first skilled bridge builder on the mainland.
Any doubts about his ability were dispelled after his design and construction of a horseshoe shaped bridge at Lapstone (1833) and the 110 feet clear span bridge at Lansdowne over Prospect Creek (1834-1836).
Lennox Bridge, Glenbrook
This is a photo of the picturesque Lennox Bridge, Glenbrook, which opened in 1833 and is the oldest surviving stone arch bridge on the Australian mainland. It was also unusual because it was built on a curve, as can be seen from the photo.
It crosses Lapstone Creek on the road known as Mitchells Pass. A nearby quarry is thought to have been created for the purpose of providing stone for the bridge.
The bridge, now closed, served the main route to the Blue Mountains for 93 years until 1926, when the Great Western Highway was re-routed.
The turnoff to the picturesque Mitchells Pass was not well signposted, so it was a handy way of avoiding heavy traffic. I used it often in the 1960s before the bridge was closed.
Lansdowne Bridge
Bridges are not just functional, they can also be scenic and engineering attractions. Lansdowne Bridge was built by convicts from 1834 to 1836 and is considered to be one of the finest examples of Colonial Architecture in Australia. The sandstone arch has the largest span of any surviving masonry bridge in Australia and the size, appearance and durability of this bridge make it an outstanding example of colonial engineering.
The bridge carries the Hume Highway across Prospect Creek. It was designed and built from 1834 to 1836 by David Lennox.
The clear sandstone span is 110 feet long while the clearance above water level is a deceptive 76 feet at the centre.
These statistics would be largely wasted on modern-day car drivers who would hardly be aware that they were even crossing a bridge.
In 1832 the Surveyor-General at the time, Sir Thomas Mitchell, commissioned Lennox for the princely sum of A£1,083 to build the bridge. The excellent sandstone used in the bridge was found in a quarry only 11 kilometres (6.8 miles) from the proposed site of the bridge, allowing workers to row a punt to transport the stone to the construction site. This provided the solution to the common problem of finding suitable stone and a simple means of transporting it.
A convict mutiny
However some of the convicts employed at the quarry were obviously less than enthusiastic about breaking rocks. In July 1833 Lennox told Mitchell of a mutiny that had occurred at the quarry while he had been away on an inspection tour. Some of the convicts had rebelled and had consumed the contents of a nearby liquor still, where spirits were distilled. Returning to the camp drunk they threatened to kill the supervisor and destroy the camp and quarrying equipment. The police from Liverpool were called and arrested the offenders. Retribution at Liverpool Court was swift and savage; those who were spared the iron gang received up to fifty lashes of the “cat”.
Roads
Road construction was one of the main occupations of convicts. However two roads stand out as being the most significant. One was the road over the Blue Mountains and the other was the road linking the colony with the Hunter Valley (the Great North Road).
The Blue Mountains Road
While you cruise effortlessly in your car, train or bus from Sydney, over the Blue Mountains to Bathurst, spare a thought for the intrepid traveller of yesteryear.
The Blue Mountains were first crossed in 1813 by Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson. The following year William Cox, a magistrate and private contractor, was commissioned by Governor Macquarie to build a road from Emu Plains (at the foot of the Blue Mountains) to Bathurst. It was to be four metres wide and 170 kilometres long, and finally had over a dozen wooden bridges.
Cox, with a gang of handpicked convicts, completed this remarkable feat in six months. The convicts were then granted their freedom as a reward.
I had always assumed that this road was built by a mere handful of men and that it was very rough and ready. However Cox’s diary presents a different picture, which I will describe to you in a later article.
Conclusion
In a later article I will tell you more about the Blue Mo
