Never before or since has there been such an outlandish proposition—sail 10,500 miles and start a colony from scratch with just convicts.

By 1835, about 90 per cent of Sydney’s white population was either convicts, ex-convicts, the children of convicts, or those married to a convict. About 1,000 convicts (2.5 per cent of the population) fled inland and became bushrangers, and 4 per cent of the population was jailers.

How does that place end up as the land of the ‘fair go’? How does it become Australia? This is the story of how the Australian character developed through the prism of one family—the Lloyds.

Across many generations, they slowly cast off the emotional and iron chains that bound them when they first stepped ashore at Circular Quay. It is the story of Australia.