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Sunday, October 30, 2011

THINKING OUTSIDE THE SQUARE

I've just added a new page about the ex-convict in whose employ GEORGE MAWBEY was when he first appears on the Australian scene in 1836.This employer was SAMUEL ONIONS about whom there is a lot of information available.
What I have found so far demonstrates what a tough place Sydney was at that time.
Mr Onions was about to flog a young 14-year-old apprentice for insubordination when the boy retaliated and punched him in the shoulder.
This incident took place in King Street, now in the heart of the Sydney CBD, where Mr Onions had his ironmongering and blacksmithing business.
Wanting to get away from convicts may have been what prompted the newly married George Mawbey to go to South Australia.
This newly formed province did not take convicts from overseas, and even shipped its own local offenders to New South Wales when it was a penal colony.