Darwin's Visit to Australia
carrying Charles Darwin, entered Port Jackson, dropping anchor at Sydney Cove. For the next two weeks, he enjoyed visiting a city of 23 000 which was overtaking London and Birmingham in speed of growth. It had seemed to Darwin, that much more had been achieved in this little place, in a “score of years”, than had been in South America over the same number of centuries.
On 26th January, Darwin visited a friend – a fellow voyager – the midshipman Philip Gidley King. Philip was from a wealthy and influential family, who lived near Penrith, in Dunheved (30 miles West of Sydney). Whilst here, Darwin was treated to a tour of Captain Philip Parker King’s estate, as well as discussing naturalism and the ins and outs of the colony. The following day, he lunched with the Hannibal Macarthurs (the Kings’ realtives by marriage) at their extravagant property overlooking the Parramatta River. Both of these families held strong anti-emancipist views about the ex-convicts. It was these influences that contributed to Darwin losing his initial starry eyed romantic outlook on Australia, and becoming much more conservative in his attitudes alongside those beliefs and opinions of Sydney’s elite free-settlers.
entertained thoughts of migrating there in search of gold.
Darwin’s primary goal in Sydney had been to document the impacts of a unique convict-based British society. His aristocratic sensibilities were bombarded at every turn – these ex-convicts had somehow managed to climb the social ladder. They enjoyed the luxuries of life, the gilded carriages and the beautiful big houses. Money was the driving factor behind all of their motives – they were obsessed with it. Darwin felt that, bookshops, fine music and other factors that made one civilized, were dispensed with. He felt that in future generations, this lack of moral fibre would continue to rub off.
Some soldiers at a nearby garrison endowed Darwin with some definitions of society.
- a ‘squatter’ was a freed convict who’d turned farmer, built a bark hut, and become rich in stolen goods and illegal spirits.
- A “crawler” was an assigned convict who’d run away to live by petty theft
- A “bushranger’ was an open villain who subsists by highway robbery
Hobart
The next stop on the trip was Hobart. Fortunately for Darwin there were more traditional English aristocrats here, and less of the new convict-turned aristocrat. A highlight of this stop, was dining with the naturalist George Frankland. Overall, Darwin thought that Australia was handicapped by such a harsh climate and a less than ideal social foundation, and that this would probably prevent it from developing into a second America.
Whilst Darwin was less than taken with the convict proportion of Australia’s population, he was pleasantly surprised by his interactions with Aboriginals. On 16th January Darwin embarked on a trip to the Blue Mountains. On his way, the entourage ran across the path of a group of young Aboriginal men. He felt that with their “good humoured and pleasant countenances”...
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