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Cooee - Australia in the 19th Century

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Sydney was Australia’s oldest city, and Melbourne, because of its gold-wealth, was ‘marvellous’—but 19th-century Australia was also a country of villages and towns, which had initially developed at the limits of humans on horseback. From the 1850s, the railways extended the range of settlement, and towns also developed on rivers and coastal estuaries, allowing the trafficking of goods by water.

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C.M.
Roman Catholic Church and convent, Ipswich, Queensland, Australia c.1865
watercolour and pencil drawing; 24.8 x 47.0 cm
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Ipswich, in Queensland, was mined for limestone from 1827, and for a time rivalled Brisbane as a possible state capital.

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Shaw Brothers, photographers, Leederville,
Western Australia
Bunbury W.A. 1890s
albumen silver photograph; 16.0 x 20.0 cm
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Bunbury in Western Australia, founded in 1836, became a significant port and was an important coaling station for P&O shipping between Britain and Australia. These many levels of settlement contributed to a rich and burgeoning sense of community in the 19th-century nation.

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Paul Foelsche (1831–1914)
Allen & Co.’s Store, June 1883
albumen photograph; 16.5 x 21.5 cm
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The harsh environment forced some restrictions on the establishment of these townships. Northern Australia, for example, was largely inhospitable until around 1870, when Palmerston (later renamed Darwin) was established.

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Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833–1898)
Original design for Norfolk Island church windows [between 1870 and 1875]
five pen and watercolour drawings; each 20.8 x 30.2 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK196
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Australia also had responsibilities beyond the horizon. Remote Norfolk Island, 1500 km away, had been part of New South Wales since 1788.

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Unknown artist
Poonindie Mission Station, Port Lincoln, S. Australia 1853
pen and ink drawing; 28.0 x 44.5 cm
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Many Indigenous Australians were able to lead a traditional life beyond the reaches of European settlement. Others, through governmental bodies such as ‘protection’ boards, were gathered into European-style communities—such as at Corranderk in Victoria, or Poonindie in South Australia.