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In 1823, John Oxley, a British explorer, sailed north from what is now Sydney to scout possible penal colony sites in Gladstone (then Port Curtis) and Moreton Bay.
At Moreton Bay, he found the Brisbane River.
He returned in 1824 and established a penal settlement at what is now Redcliffe.
The settlement, initially known as Edenglassie, was then transferred to the current location of the Brisbane city centre.
In 1839, transportation of convicts was ceased, culminating in the closure of the Brisbane penal settlement. ^[1]

In 1823, the Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Brisbane, instructed that a new northern penal settlement be developed, and an exploration party led by John Oxley further explored the Moreton Bay area. Oxley recommended Red Cliff Point for the new colony, reporting that ships could land at any tide and easily get close to the shore.
The settlement, along the banks of what is now called Humpybong Creek in Redcliffe town centre, consisted of small, temporary dwellings with gardens and vegetables planted.
However the lack of a reliable water supply, attacks by Aboriginal people, large mosquito numbers, and insufficient facilities for safe anchorage meant that the settlement needed to be moved after eight months.
The settlement relocated to the banks of the Brisbane River at North Quay, 28 kilometres (17.4 mi) south.
Redcliffe was then abandoned, with just a small number of dwellings remaining. Local Aboriginal people called these empty buildings "oompie bongs", anglicised to mean, in reverse, 'dead house', and the name was given to the entire Redcliffe peninsula.^[2]

In 1825, the Redcliffe colony was moved south to a peninsula on the Brisbane River, site of the present central business district, called "Meen-jin" by its Turrbal inhabitants.
At the end of 1825, the official population of Brisbane was "45 males and 2 females".
Until 1859, when Queensland was separated from the state of New South Wales, the name Moreton Bay was used to describe the new settlement and surrounding areas.
The colony was originally established as a "prison within a prison"—a settlement, deliberately distant from Sydney, to which recidivist convicts could be sent as punishment. It soon garnered a reputation, along with Norfolk Island, as one of the harshest penal settlements in all of New South Wales.
Over twenty years, thousands of convicts passed through the penal colony.
Hundreds of these fled the stern conditions and escaped into the bush. Although most escapes were unsuccessful or resulted in the escapees perishing in the bush, some succeeded in living as "wild white men" amongst the aboriginal people.
As a penal colony, Brisbane did not permit the erection of private settlements nearby for many years. As the inflow of new convicts steadily declined, the population dropped. From the early 1830s the British government questioned the suitability of Brisbane as a penal colony.^[3]