The Irish Vanguard: The Convicts of the Queen, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1791

Ireland, 1790. Crime is escalating, as hundreds of vagrants stroll the streets prostituting themselves and robbing others. Those already in gaol were digging their way out through the sewers, as others did the hangman’s jig. All the while, the idea of revolution was being bandied about too much for King George’s liking. more...

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Death or Liberty: The Convicts of the Britannia, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1797

Death would have been a better option that life on board the hell-ship Britannia. Its 200 or so convicts had faced a sadistic captain, starvation rations and savage punishments during their long journey from Ireland. Even the days heralding their arrival into Sydney brought severe hail and gale force winds. more...

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Of Infamous Character: The Convicts of the Boddingtons, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1793

The third book in a series of five, Of Infamous Character traces the lives of 145 convicts transported from Ireland to Botany Bay on board the Boddingtons in 1793. One of the smaller ships to arrive that decade, it nevertheless had a violent element to its cargo, and a large contingent of convicts form the north of Ireland. more...

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A Nimble Fingered Tribe: The Convicts of the Sugar Cane, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1793

September 1793 heralded the arrival in Sydney of 164 prisoners from Ireland aboard the Sugar Cane; mainly urban criminals and sturdy beggars, exiled by a British government eager to rid Ireland of its poor and homeless. more...

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A Desperate Set of Villains: The Convicts of the Marquis Cornwallis, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1796

A contemporary source called them the refuse and sweepings of the Irish jails. The Marquis Cornwallis transported 244 Irish male and female prisoners aged from 12 to 65 to Botany Bay in 1796, effectively exiling most of them from their homeland for the term of their natural lives. more...

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Pat Moore's Swamp: An Irish Family in Botany Bay

Convict Patrick Moore arrived in Sydney aboard the horror ship Britannia in 1797. Over the next 54 years his story, and that of his wife's Rose Green, would be one of hardship, and also reward. more...

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Trial Extracts

We have a rich database of information on trials and previous convictions in Ireland starting in 1780 that we often don’t publish in our books. This is currently being digitised, but in the meantime if you would like to know if we do hold additional information on your ancestor, please use the contact form. more...

Papers and additional information

We have a rich database of information from Irish and colonial records starting in 1780 that we often don’t have room for in our publications. This is currently being digitised, but in the meantime if you would like to know if we do hold additional information on your ancestor, please contact us. more...

The Origins of Irish Convict Transportation to New South Wales, by Bob Reece

In The Origins of Irish Convict Transportation to New South Wales Reece explores the pre-history of Irish convict transportation to New South Wales, which began with the Queen in April 1791. more...

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Dr William Bell's The Settlers' Guide, edited by Lois Sabine

Dislocated your jaw while praying? Insert a fork handle on either side of the mouth. Choosing a wet nurse? On no account pamper her or allow her to take on airs. more...

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Early Maps by Tony Campbell

In this brilliant array of early maps, municipal plans and sea charts from the 13th century to the 1850s, we are offered adventure, lessons in politics, history and philosophy, and a panorama of artistic creativity. more...

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Beneath the Chippendale Factory Wall, by Shirley Fitzgerald

When William Chippendale grew potatoes in the rich alluvial soil drained by the Blackwattle Swamp Creek he could scarcely have imagined what the place that bears his name would become. more...

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A Source of Inspiration and Delight: The Building of the State Library of NSW since 1826, by David J Jones

'An unfailing source of inspiration and delight' was how Havelock Ellis described the library over 100 years ago. Today's reader will delight in this lively and entertaining account of the State Library from its earliest days - in warehouses, 'dingy caverns' and 'awful dungeons' - to its latest elegant buildings in Sydney's Macquarie Street. more...

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The Port Stephens Story, by M A Bartlett

Port Stephens, north of Newcastle on the New South Wales central coast, had its name bestowed by Captain James Cook, when he sailed past it in May 1770. more...

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Paddock Full Of Houses: Paddington 1840-1890, by Max Kelly

Now a million-dollar suburb in Sydney's eastern suburbs, Paddington's origins are a little less glamorous. Paddock Full of Houses by Max Kelly traces the area's rise in fame, from its start as a village and the Rushcutter Valley gentry to its principal estates and the rise in infrastructure and public buildings. more...

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Colonial Buildings: Macarthur Growth Centre, by Helen Proudfoot

This book is an edited version of a detailed inventory of historic buildings and sites within the Macarthur Development Board area, compiled by Helen Proudfoot. more...

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Rum Rebellion, by H V Evatt

Seventeen years after the mutiny on the Bounty, Captain William Bligh arrived in New South Wales as the colony's new Governor. Among his specific instructions were to control the importation of spirits. more...

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The Shadows of Elisa Lynch: How a 19th-Century Irish Courtesan Became the Most Powerful Woman in Paraguay, by Sian Rees

In 1854 an ambitious courtesan met a South American general in Paris and returned with him to Paraguay. When he became president, she became his de facto first lady and together they changed the course of the country's history. more...

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Thomas Bock: Convict Engraver, Society Portraitist

Among early colonial artists, Thomas Bock can be seen as an archetype. Trained as an artisan in England, convicted and transported to early Tasmania, he reestablished an artistic career despite the convict stigma. more...

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The Paracensus of Australia 1788-1828

The Paracensus is a reconstruction mainly prepared by the consolidation of contemporary records about the people of that era and their families. Some family records and literary references are included. A few Maori and Aboriginal family records are also included. Sources on personal information about each of them are listed. more...

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1828 Census of New South Wales

This is a must-have record for anyone researching ancestors in the colony before 1828. Over 36,500 people are recorded on this CD. There are 12 searchable fields that can be interrogated separately or together. more...

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Australian Squatters by Hubert De Castella and CB Thornton-Smith

Of Swiss birth, de Castella was naturalised as a Frenchman to join the French army. He later left it for Australia to join his brother Paul in Victoria, and subsequently bought a station next to his brother's in partnership with another Swiss. While seeing Australia's landscape with a painter's eye, he enjoyed a vigorous outdoor life, happily combined with interludes in Melbourne, which he was prepared to defend as a thoroughly modern city. more...

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