[4] Cunninghame had previously been the editor of the Sydney Citizen[5] but Hawksley, an English Catholic radical, wrote the majority of the paper's editorial content.
One month earlier, Edward Hawksley, in collaboration with Henry Parkes, Richard Hipkiss, J K Heydon, Francis Cunninghame, Angus Mackay, Benjamin Sutherland and other radicals, formed the Constitutional Association to press for democratic government.
David Kemp in his book, Land of Dreams: How Australia Won Its Freedom, notes that the group initially formed to promote Robert Lowe as a "people's candidate" in the Legislative Council elections of that year.
[6][7] It supported radical voices like Daniel Deniehy, Charles Harpur, Adelaide Ironside, Robert Lowe and John Dunmore Lang.
"[9] They published at least one literary work under the imprint Hawksley and Cunninghame: Raymond, Lord of Milan, a Tragedy of the 13th Century by Edward Reeve (1851), a play in verse, which was well received by several critics.
He edited and published the Sydney Chronicle (1846-1847) and the short-lived Daily News with Charles St Julian before working with Francis Cunninghame on the People's Advocate.
Not long after arriving in Sydney, the family settled into rented accommodation at 60 Susannah Place, The Rocks, where their next child, another daughter Ellen, was born in 1844.
The family’s home has been preserved and now forms part of the Museum of The Rocks, with the living room and bedroom of the dwelling decorated in the style typical of the 1840s.