Colony of New South Wales

The Colony of New South Wales was the mother colony of Australia, the British penal settlement that grew into a nation, lasting from 1788 to 1901. On 18 January 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip's First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay with marines, officials and seven hundred convicts, and raised the flag at Sydney Cove. The colony that began in chains sprawled: at its greatest extent it claimed New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, the Northern Territory and even New Zealand, before daughters were carved off one by one. Wool made it rich, gold in 1851 made it crowded, and in 1856 London granted responsible government, with Stuart Donaldson as first colonial secretary. The convict stain faded as free settlers outnumbered the bond; Sydney turned from a gaol town into a harbour city of banks, universities and railways. On 1 January 1901 the colony federated with its sisters as a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Union Jack over Sydney gave way in precedence to a new federal flag.