Return to The World Upside Down Home Page
South view of Parramatta

Joseph Lycett (c.1775—1828)
South View of Parramatta, N.S.W. 1820
watercolour; 40.3 x 56.5 cm
T1633 NK6416/C

1803
February
2
Charles Grimes of the Cumberland explores the Yarra Valley and the site of Melbourne

5 George Bass leaves Port Jackson in the Venus. He is never heard of again

March
5 George Howe publishes the first issue of the weekly Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Australia's first newspaper

April
10 St John's Church, Parramatta, is opened. Samuel Marsden conducts the inaugural service

19 Father James Dixon is given conditional emancipation

May
15 The first authorised public Roman Catholic mass and the first Catholic in Australia are celebrated in Sydney by Father Dixon

June
9 Flinders arrives at Port Jackson, having circumnavigated Australia

August
10 Flinders sails for England on the Porpoise. The ship runs aground on Wreck Reef and Flinders returns to Port Jackson

September
11 Lieutenant John Bowen in the Albion arrives at the Derwent River with a party of forty-eight to found the first settlement in Van Diemen's Land. They settle at Risdon Cove, but abandon the site within a year

October
9 Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins arrives at Port Phillip and founds a settlement on the site of present-day Sorrento

10 Flinders leaves for England on the Cumberland. The ship however begins to leak. In December they are forced to stop at Mauritius, where Flinders is interned by the French. He remains there until June 1810

December
27
Convict William Buckley escapes from Port Phillip and lives for the next 32 years with a tribe of Aborigines

Other
The population of New South Wales is estimated at 7,016, Van Diemen’s Land 177. The Aboriginal population of Van Diemen’s Land is estimated at 3-4,000