Inscription Number:. Year of Inscription:. Physical Location:. Queensland State Archives. State Library of Queensland. In mid-June the men came across a wide river which they followed upstream for several kilometres.
This was the first European encounter with the Brisbane River. Over the next four days they located the mouth of the river, which Oxley named after the Governor of New South Wales, and rowed about 80 kilometres upstream.
Oxley returned to Sydney on 6 December to report that Redcliffe Point was a suitable site to start a penal settlement. On 12 September the Amity arrived at Redcliffe. Within a few months it became clear that Redcliffe Point's environment was not suitable for a permanent settlement, and so a decision was made to relocate to the banks of the Brisbane River.
As Surveyor-General, Oxley was responsible for finding a settlement location and on his surveys of the Brisbane River, he had favoured two sites: near present-day Breakfast Creek and Milton. They found a suitable location a few bends up the river from Breakfast Creek. There is no written evidence indicating why Miller made this decision or even the precise date that Brisbane Town was founded. By the settlement had about convicts, but Brisbane was little more than an encampment of rough slab and timber dwellings.
The third commandant, Captain Patrick Logan, who took up his position in March replacing Captain Peter Bishop, who had a brief but ineffective term after Miller , began a program of public works, replacing temporary structures with stone buildings.
Around a windmill at Spring Hill was built to grind corn and wheat into flour. The windmill had two sets of millstones: one powered by wind sails, the other driven by a treadmill which served the additional purpose of punishing convicts, something that Logan notoriously pursued with exceptional brutality. They were required to labour from dawn until sunset, and misbehaviour was punished by being fettered with leg irons, receiving up to lashes or enduring time on the treadmill.
It was common for convicts in leg irons to work the treadmill in shifts of up to 14 hours. In Allan Cunningham became the first European to discover the fertile country of the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane. Moreton Bay Penal Settlement acted as a brake on European development because no one was allowed within 80 kilometres of Brisbane without special permission. As a result, farmers faced problems selling their produce in Brisbane, or purchasing supplies.
From the s, would-be landowners, entrepreneurs and merchants from the south of Australia asked the colonial government to open all of Moreton Bay to free settlers.
The government did not need much convincing. John Oxley Library. Moreton Bay Penal Settlement to Extract from the chronological register of convicts at Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, 28 December Queensland State Archives. Digital Image ID John Oxley Library Brisbane Guest blogger Queensland State Archives Moreton Bay Convicts Moreton Bay Penal Settlement 2. Australian Memory of the World Register 1. Moreton Bay convicts 2. Add new comment. Your name Your name Your name.
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