KURRAJONG CONVICTS GET A BAD RAP

"...The Kurrajong district is extremely fertile, and in many parts cultivation is carried out to the summits of the mountains. It is of course thickly populated, but the settlers are of the lowest class, and amongst the most vicious and depraved in the whole colony." Diary of Mrs Felton Mathew, wife of a surveyor, 1834.

Well, at the time Mrs Mathew made this observation of the local inhabitants, the Irish-born JOSEPH DOUGLASS and his wife and family had been living at Kurrajong Heights for 10 years. His next door neighbours, convicts SHERWOOD and LANE, had been there for five after purchasing their block of land from another ex-convict, ROBERT FORRESTER.

JOB WILSON had married in 1813 and had subsequently been granted 50 acres which he called Rocklands near the current location of the North Kurrajong Public School. MATHEW PITMAN had petitioned for land which he called Lindley Farm at the far end of what is now Hermitage Road, Kurrajong Hills.

This gives some idea of who Mrs Mathews may have been talking about, or had in mind, when she made that entry in her diary.

Back in those days, the term 'Kurrajong" applied to a much wider area than it does today, extending from the present Kurrajong township along Bell's Line of Road as far as Bilpen.