Page 7 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

2.

E DUC AT I 0 N

He appointed convicts as Magistrates, i.e. 'Andrew Thompson
to Hawkesbury' , and hi.s announcement of 'his intention to appoint Simeon
Lord to the first vacancy in Sydney'. He also appointed convicts to
high Government positions. For instance the first trustees on the Turnpike
Road from Sydney to the Hawkesbury were, Thompson, Lord and Marsden.
The Rev. Marsden declined rather than serve with convicts. Still, this
type of outlook by Macquarie had a broad and significant effect.

By the early 1820's, observers from England noted, how 'NATIVE
BORN' were · beginning to differ from the early migrant, both in appearance
and speech. CURRENCY LADS and CURRENCY LASSES, (the native born), were
tall in person, slender of limb, fair in complexion, capable of great
feats of physical strength, but ungainly in their movements. By
temperament, quick to anger, though not vindictive to t .hose who provoked
them. In speech, they copied the flash or giddy language of their convict
parents, but in addition they were developing a distinctive pronunciation
of their own. Some believed that since Australia was a CONVICT COLONY,
whose wealth and civilisation had been created by convict labour, it
belonged to the convicts and their descendants; and that the settlers and
emigrant free workers were all "BLOODY FOREIGNERS". A tradition that was
later fed by ardent patriotism and a vision, "what native-born could
achieve" in a country, that did not inherit the old world evils of social
class, poverty and wars.

Soon settlers and bush workers alike had acquired new standards
of values. Away from the consolations of religions, un~ouched by the
traditions and conventions of the old European society, they found in
"MATESHIP", the comfort to offset the loneliness of their lives, and to
jointly protect themselves from dangers. An observer of the time wrote in
the Sydney press:-

"There is a great deal of mutual regard and trust
engendered by two or three men, or even small
communities, working together in the solitary bush;