The Convict and the Compass – The Untold Story of Irish Political Convict and Colonial Surveyor James Meehan | Peter Bradley | 2025 [NEW – HCDJ]

James Meehan was sentenced at 26 for his role in an uprising against British rule in Ireland and arrived in Australia in 1800 as a convict servant to English explorer Charles Grimes.

Through talent and persistence he rose to become Acting Surveyor General of the New South Wales colony, working under five governors from 1800 to 1822.  Meehan was instrumental in mapping Sydney and its surrounds, planning the layout of the city, and leading early expeditions to the Hunter Valley, Port Phillip Bay, King Island and Van Diemen's Land.

His story sits at the intersection of two significant threads in Australian colonial history — the Irish political exile experience and the practical business of surveying and laying out a new colony. This is a substantial biography of a figure who shaped the physical map of colonial Australia while never quite escaping the convict stain.

BOOK DETAILS

• Hardcover with dust jacket.
• 600 pages, indexed.
• Published 2025.
• New.

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