With convicts making up 70 per cent of the First Fleet passengers, and many thousands of others arriving over the years, there was a readymade labour-force to construct buildings, roads, bridges, etc in addition to agricultural tasks.

And so it was with early Tamworth, our town getting underway in 1834 with the Australian Agricultural (AA) Company bringing 6000 sheep to their 'Killala' headquarters of their Peel's River settlement, the name Tamworth being first used in 1836.

Soon after arrival at what is now our suburb of Calala, the Company set about erecting buildings to house their stores, employees and what soon grew to 200 assigned convicts.

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The convicts were housed along gently sloping land from 'Killala' to what is now Ebsworth Street (named after the Company's long-serving book-keeper). The location provided access to river water but far enough away to largely prevent flooding. The convict housing was also close to a number of places where the river could be forded.

With incomplete records of Tamworth's first cemetery, established by the AA Company immediately behind today's Ibis Styles Motel, it is quite likely that a number of the early convict workforce are amongst the 105 people buried there.

The Company's headquarters shifted from 'Killala' to 'Goonoo Goonoo' Station in 1841, with convicts also buried in what now remains of the original cemetery there, for some years devastated by flooding on the edge of Goonoo Goonoo Creek.

When the AA Company was established in 1824 in England, with 27 members of the British Parliament being shareholders, the agreement was that the Company was to pay rent for their million acre land grant for 20 years, but this would be remitted if the Company employed 600 convicts in the first five years, 1000 after 15 years and 1400 after 20 years.

In its combined Peel River/ Warrah/ Port Stephens land holdings, in 1838 the Company had a total workforce of 503, of which 403 were assigned convicts and 48 convicts that had progressed to a Ticket-of-Leave that afforded them a certain degree of freedom, with a total of 85,000 sheep under their control.

Bubbogullion Station (later Bective), bordering Goonoo Goonoo Station, also had an assigned convict workforce from 1838. Government returns for the period July to December, 1840 by the first Liverpool Plains Commissioner for Lands Edward Mayne, then based at Somerton, showed 1155 Europeans (1078 male/ 77 female) living on 130 Stations, with almost 50 per cent being convicts (507 male/ six female).

By 1845 there were considerably less convicts assigned to the AA Company, yet a 50 per cent increase in sheep numbers, with corresponding increases of cattle and horses. This was due to colonial government employment pressures elsewhere.

Several convicts turned to bushranging in the Peel Valley and beyond in those early days, including Edward Davis and his 'Jewboy' gang, Wilson, 'Coxen's Tom', 'Long Ned' and Bradish & Branigan. Early Nundle settler Cann (Cann's Plains) had his ill-treated assigned convicts join with local bushrangers in 1840 to rob his house and throw all his farming equipment into a deep hole ('Cann's Hole') in the Peel River.

We have a very good record of 19 convicts assigned to the AA Company who were working in the Tamworth area, courtesy of the 1837 Census/Muster. Some of these, having gained their Conditional Pardon, went on to play a further role in the growing town of Tamworth. Michael Davitt was one of these, a Catholic born in Ireland in 1796, working there as a labourer.

Tried and sentenced for seven years transportation for taking an unlawful oath, on sentencing Davitt was 5'7" tall with a dark pockpitted complexion, brown hair and grey eyes. He was transported to NSW in 1827. In 1828 he was assigned to the AA Company in Port Stephens as a labourer, receiving a Conditional Pardon in 1842, then coming to Tamworth where he bought three by 1/2 acre lots in the first AA Company land auction in West Tamworth in 1850.

The majority of those assigned to the AA Company in this 1837 Census record were in their 20's, but one, Edward Ingle (born 1774) was 59 when transported and 63 on arriving at 'Killala'. John Niblett (18), Thomas Hunton (22) and Michael Rooken (22) were all assigned to work for the AA Company Surgeon Dr John Stacy. Henry Williams (23) was assigned in 1837 to work for James White, the AA Company Supervisor of Cattle, White having briefly opened Tamworth's first store on the other side of the river in 1835, before regaining AA Co. employment.

Amongst other convicts working at the Peel's River settlement in 1837 included William Butler (34), James Callaghan (24), Martin Carey (22), Francis Clough (25), William Cope (47), James Crawfield (49), James Dahy (26), Charles Fox (22), Thomas Hall (22), William Jones (34), John Robinson (22), William Thompson (21) & William Vyse (23).

Perhaps our most famous local convict, who had only a brief stay around Tamworth, before being sent to Newcastle for AA Co. coalmining duties, was Irishman Frank MacNamara (alias Frank the Poet), who was assigned here as a shepherd in 1838. Said to be written whilst he was here was his iconic poem 'A Convict's Tour to Hell'.

Whilst working around Tamworth, writing as 'The Irish Bard', he refers to "...the Plains of fair Killala" and ".. by the fair Peel's evergreen side" and also, in referring to himself - ".. We yet shall hear his merry songs, On fair Killala's plain Kind, Heaven shall avenge the wrongs, Of our much injured swain." Then later in Newcastle he wrote his poem 'For the Company Underground'.

Talented, but an absolute rebel, MacNamara was then in and out of gaol and iron-gangs, working in a boat crew, bushranging with several other escaped convicts, served time on Cockatoo Island and Port Arthur. He eventually received a Full Pardon in 1849 and died an alcoholic near Mudgee in 1861 at age 50.

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