Brisbane: An 'earthly paradise' of 'utmost dread' 1824-1842

In 1823, the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Macdougall Brisbane, decided to create a new penal settlement so remote that the worst offenders could be sent there without fear of their making a successful escape. He gave his surveyor-general, John Oxley, orders to travel by sea and assess the suitability of Moreton Bay and two other locations further north, ‘as receptacles for convicts’. Oxley returned with a glowing report of Moreton Bay, and so it was that the city of Brisbane was born as a prison without walls