Convicts & Colonials: Growing Up

Childhood in Ipswich from 1830s to 1850s
Growing up in Limestone (now Ipswich) in the period after the convict settlement closed, to the 1850s, was very different to the lives of children today. Families were often very large, so there were plenty of brothers and sisters to play with, but toys were often a luxury. In the 1840s, toys included bats, balls, stumps for cricket drums, trumpets. There were rattles, gumrings and humming tops for the very young.

Most children in the very early years of Ipswich were taught be private teachers. These were usually educated people who set up a simple school, often in their own home. Sometimes they were the only teacher, sometimes they employed assistants.

In 1847 their were approximately two hundred and ten adults and ninety children in the Ipswich area. Most of the children attended a day school.

By 1857 the population of Ipswich had grown to 2500 people. That year, up to 150 children attended the Congregational Sunday Schools annual festival. The following year, after the annual festival of Ipswich Congregational Sunday Schools, 200 people went to Mr. Kilner's home for entertainment. A paddock adjoining the property provided space for the sports and gambols of the juveniles, whose appetites thus quickened were afterwards gratified with an abundant supply of tea, cake &c.