The Convict Valley The Bloody Struggle on the Early Frontier 2022

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The Hunter Valley north of Sydney is not remembered for its convict past. And yet the convict history of the Valley reaches back to the earliest years of the British colony in NSW.

Escaping convicts were the first British subjects to visit and live in the area, and from 1804 Newcastle was established as a permanent convict outpost. The Convict Valley explores this early convict history and the interactions with local Aboriginal populations that shaped the story of the Hunter Valley from the first encounters until the end of the convict era in the 1840s and 1850s.

This talk will give an overview of the story, discuss the sources that were used to tell it and reflect on the aspects of that colonial period that remain in Newcastle and the Hunter.

About the speaker:

Mark Dunn is a public historian and has worked for over twenty years in heritage, conservation and archaeology. He is the former chair of the Professional Historians Association of NSW and ACT and the History Council of NSW and CH Currey Fellow at SLNSW in 2016. He completed a PhD in History through the University of New South Wales looking at the colonial Hunter Valley in 2015.

Mark is descended from convicts who settled in the Hunter and has spent close to ten years investigating the history, heritage and archaeology of the region. The Convict Valley is his first book and covers the history of the Hunter Valley in NSW between 1790 and 1850, investigating the lives, interactions and interconnectedness of the convict, Aboriginal and settler communities during this frontier colonial period.

It was shortlisted for the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards (Australian History) in 2021.