150th Anniversary of the Arrival of Lieutenant Colonel George BarneyPrint Page

Two plaques commemorate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Lieutenant George Barney and party to establish a penal settlement in 1847. Lieutenant Barney arrived near the site on the 26th January 1847. An additional plaque was also unveiled at the site in January 1997 to commemorate the landing of Lieutenant de Winton and a further contingent of the 99th Regiment who arrived near the site on the 15th March 1847 to help establish the penal settlement. 

In 1822 John Bigge had recommended the establishment of a convict settlement at Port Curtis on the east coast of Queensland. The project had been revived several times, and as some difficulty was being experienced in finding work for time-expired convicts in Tasmania, it was now decided to try the experiment of sending them to a new area and giving them land and a certain amount of government help. Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby and William Ewart Gladstone, successive secretaries of state for the colonies, had fathered the project, and Gladstone had selected Barney as a man used to authority and with previous experience in Australia.

Barney arrived again in Sydney on 15 September 1846 in the William Hyde, and quickly surveyed the coast in a small steamer, and decided that Port Curtis was the most suitable place for a settlement. Returning to Sydney a barque, the Lord Auckland, was chartered, and on 8 January 1847 sailed with Barney and his family, various officials, and a small military force. The party arrived at an unfavourable period and there was much discomfort from the extreme heat. In the meantime there had been a change of ministries in England, Henry Grey, 3rd Earl Grey had succeeded Gladstone, and had promptly vetoed the whole project. News of this reached Barney on 15 April 1847 and the party returned to Sydney. Barney was criticised in some quarters, but the colony was never given a chance to succeed. In later years the thriving town of Gladstone, Queensland, was established on the site, and the harbour is one of the finest in Australia. 

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