Newcastle and Hunter Valley

Convict and Colonial History

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Free Settler or Felon is an on-going project gathering details of the lives of people who resided in the Hunter Valley, Newcastle and Central Coast in the early days of settlement.

Use the Search box on the left to access information about Hunter Valley Convicts, Settlers, Soldiers and Townsfolk.

Use the Search Box below to search the whole site.

Follow the Links to find out more about Convict Ships, Medical Practitioners, Convict Ship Surgeons, Inns and Hotels, Bushrangers, Priests and Pastors, Hunter Valley Placenames, Australian Slang and more



Convict Ships - Alphabetical list of Convict Ships arriving in New South Wales, Norfolk Island, Western Australia and Van Diemens Land between the years 1788 and 1862

Convict Ship Surgeons - Surgeons who were employed on convict ships to Australia in the years 1788 - 1862

Convict Ships by Year - Arrival of Convict Ships by Year

Free Settler Ships - Free Settler and Immigrant Ships arriving 1821 - 1842

The First Fleet - The First Fleet brought the first convict ships to Australia in 1788 in a voyage that took over eight months to complete

Bushranger Index - Early bushrangers in the Hunter Valley were mostly men desperate to escape Newcastle penal settlement where they had been sent for colonial indiscretions. Later when the Penal Settlement closed and the Valley was opened for settlement the bushrangers were mostly convicts who escaped from estates and farms or from road gangs

Inns & Hotels - Newcastle and Hunter Valley Inns and Hotels Index and Publicans Index

Hunter Valley Settlers - Index to Settlers who took up land in the early days of the colony

Convict Coal Miners - Convicts sent to Newcastle to work in the coal mines in the first years of the settlement

Medical Practitioners Index of some of the men and women who worked as medical practitioners in the Hunter Valley prior to 1900

Military Officers - Notes about some of the Officers who served or settled in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley in the first half of the 19th Century

Law and Order - A list of men who served as Magistrates, Chief Constables and Constables in Newcastle, Hunter Valley and Brisbane Water

Scourgers - Names of some of the Scourgers employed in New South Wales in the convict years

Indigenous Notes - Articles about customs and ceremonies of indigenous people in the Hunter Valley region as described by various explorers, clergymen, settlers

Placenames - Notes on the Origins and Locations of Place Names in Lake Macquarie and the Hunter Valley region

Female Convicts - Over fifty-two years from 1788 to 1840 when transportation of convicts came to an end, more than 12,000 women were transported to New South Wales. A woman transported on the Charlotte in 1788 could potentially have been great grandmother to one of the last sent on the Surry in 1840

Obituaries of Newcastle and Hunter Valley folk before 1900

Convict Names - Unusual male and female convict names

Mounted Police - Horse patrols were the forerunners of the Mounted Police. They were established in the Hunter Valley and at Bathurst when Sir Thomas Brisbane was Governor in response to Bushrangers who terrorised the districts in 1825

Newcastle History - Links by date

Maitland History - People and Places 1820s - 1850s

Lake Macquarie - Links

Hunter Valley History

Colonial History

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