Competing Arguments About the Foundations of Australia

Histories of Australia so often focus on what happened following the arrival of the First Fleet, that we often overlook the reasons for the sending of that First Fleet in the first place. Because prisoners from England’s overcrowded jails were transported to Australia, it is simple enough to say that this is the reason Australia was colonised. However as Geoffrey Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance suggests, there must have been far more to the decision than that, as the prospect of cultivating this land as a prison should not have been incentive enough to outweigh the concerns, potential risks, inconveniences and considerable expense involved in establishing a penal colony in New South Wales.

According to Blainey, Britain would have found it easier and less expensive to send its surplus of prisoners to one of its already established colonies in Canada or the West Indies. However the transport of convicts was not merely a case of getting rid of people, but of making use of convict labour – transported convicts became useful to Britain -whilst it was expensive to feed, keep, and guard prisoners in England, with no expectation of a return on the investment.

If England were to establish a colony in New South Wales, then it would have a presence in the south seas, and (as Blainey argues) most importantly, it would have access to strategic raw materials. The most important of these raw materials were flax – for making canvas, sailcloth and ship’s cables, and timber – especially the tall pines growing near the shores of New Zealand  and Norfolk Island – which could be made into ships' masts.

Norfolk Pines growing on the island's coast.

Image from the National Library of Australia - http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn4589991

Blainey makes a convincing argument that Australia’s worth lay in more than its apparently empty spaces for use as a remote prison settlement. If Britain established a colony in New South Wales, then they would have a new sea base from which they could conduct trade in the south-east, which could also be useful as a sheltering port in times of war. At this time, Britain’s relationship with its European neighbours was often uncertain, and as Britain was heavily reliant on its navy in order to exert power and influence, to trade and to maintain and expand its empire, access to materials such as flax and timber from a colony it controlled must have seemed an attractive prospect. Since the American revolution England had lost access to pine for masts from Maine and New Hampshire, and access to flax was also uncertain. Blainey compares the importance of flax and good timber to Britain’s military might, to the importance of oil and steel today.      

The Flax plant native to Norfolk Island.

Illustration by John Hunter.

Image from the National Library of Australia - http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an3187030 

As Deborah Gare and David Ritter, point out in their Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past Since 1788, Blainey’s arguments caused great controversy when The Tyranny of Distance was first published. It seems that a supply of flax and timber for British ships could not be the only reason for founding a colony so far from Britain, however Blainey does not argue that these are the only reasons for establishing the colony, only that they are important reasons which have often been overlooked. Blainey acknowledges that Australia was thought useful as a site for a convict colony; that a settlement in Australia afforded England certain trade opportunities and access to China, the Pacific and the East Indies; and that colonising Australia would continue Britain’s expansion of Empire. 

The fact is that many of these motives are interrelated. Establishing a penal colony in New South Wales would help Britain to ease the strain on its overcrowded prisons, yet the convicts could also be put to use in harvesting and preparing strategic raw materials such as timber and flax. These raw materials, a labour force and safe harbour were in turn essential to British trade and the expansion of Empire.