Career
He was transported for seven years in 1790 for stealing. He is most remembered as the first postmaster in New South Wales. In 1797 after his sentence expired, Hunter granted him 50 acres (200,000 m2) in the Concord district, on which he established a farm, and was assigned two convicts to farm it in lieu of his salary as chief overseer.
The next year he purchased a spirit license and opened an inn in George Saint
In 1799 he was convicted of receiving stolen goods and sentenced to 14 years on Norfolk Island, in a trial that Governor Hunter believed was based on perjury and prejudice.
(Nichols had refused to assign more convicts than was correct to John Macarthur and other officers of the New South Wales Corps). Hunter suspended the sentence and referred the matter to England.
Eventually, in 1802, Governor King was instructed to grant him a free pardon. In the meantime, Nichols had added greatly to his landholdings and built a house and substantial buildings in lower George Saint He established a shipyard, and in 1805 built a ship "the Governor Hunter" which he used for trade.
He became a successful businessman.
Despite his earlier problems with the officers of the New South Wales Corps, he sided with them in the Rum Rebellion to depose Governor Bligh. Nichols" main duty as postmaster was to take control of mail as it arrived on the wharves. The mayhem that could occur when supply ships arrived, which was said to include unscrupulous people taking other people"s mail and selling it back to them, made a more secure and orderly system a necessity.
Nichols used his house in lower George Street, the Rocks, as the post office, going to newly arrived ships to pick up the mail and then posting a list of recipients outside his house.
When Governor Macquarie arrived in 1810 he also approved of Nichols, and appointed him principal superintendent of convicts. In his last ten years Nichols enjoyed the respect and friendship of most leading people in the colony.
His home was the scene of many social functions, including the Bachelors" Ball and the annual dinners to celebrate the foundation of the colony. He was a major supplier of meat to government stores and a generous subscriber to public causes.
On 11 September 1796 Nichols married Mary Warren, who died by drowning in October 1804.
On 18 February 1805, at the age of 34, Nichols married 18-year old Rosanna Abrahams (aka Rosetta Julian), daughter of Esther Abrahams (aka Esther Julian, de facto wife of George Johnston). They had three sons: Isaac David (1807–1867), "gentleman", George Robert (1809–1857), barrister and solicitor and politician in New South Wales, and Charles Hamilton (1811–1869). Shortly before Isaac Nichols died in 1819 he sent the two elder boys to England to be educated.
Their education was cut short and they returned to the colony in 1822.
Isaac David, described as "gentleman", declared himself insolvent in 1836 to escape his creditors. George became a solicitor and barrister and politician in New South Wales in the 1840s and 50s.
From 1848, Charles was the proprietor of Bell"s Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer. After Charles" death the Nichols family ceased to be publicly active.