In 1826, George Boyle White, then just twenty-four years old, arrived at Sydney Cove from Calcutta. He had served as navigator in the East India Company for seven years. While employed for a short time as a clerk in the Colonial Secretary's office he learned the skills of a land surveyor. Appointed assistant surveyor in the Surveyor General's Department he set out Maitland and other major towns in the Hunter Valley region. Surveyor General, Thomas Mitchell, appointed White second-in-charge of his first expedition into the interior. In his report on the expedition Mitchell judged White to be "an accurate and indefatigable surveyor". * * * It is a general custom in old Ireland for her children to see the old year out and the new year in and although some thousands of miles from the "Gem of the Sea" I am stickler for old customs and in the due observance of this one. I found myself at that witching hour of night when the bell tolls 12 sauntering about the streets of our metropolis.... G B White Daiary: 1 January 1844 When I surveyed Richmond in 1827 George Bowman ... kept a little grog shanty in the main street of Richmond....Rum was the only liquor to be had. On the occasion I used to treat my assistants, all convicts, to a daily dram at a cost of 3/-. G B White Diary: 9 January 1875