Convicts in Australia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

During the late 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of convict

Convict

A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...

s were transported

Penal transportation

Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...

to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government. One of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a penal colony

Penal colony

A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...

to alleviate pressure on their overburdened correctional facilities. Over the 80 years more than 165,000 convicts were transported to Australia.

The number of convicts pales compared to the immigrants who arrived in Australia in the 1851-1871 gold rush

Australian gold rushes

The Australian gold rush started in 1851 when prospector Edward Hammond Hargraves claimed the discovery of payable gold near Bathurst, New South Wales, at a site Edward Hargraves called Ophir.Eight months later, gold was found in Victoria...

. In 1852 alone, 370,000 immigrants arrived in Australia. By 1871 the total population had nearly quadrupled from 430,000 to 1.7 million people. The last convicts to be transported to Australia arrived in Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

in 1868.

Reasons for transportation

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

, social injustice

Social injustice

Social injustice is a concept relating to the claimed unfairness or injustice of a society in its divisions of rewards and burdens and other incidental inequalities...

, child labor

Child labor

Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...

, harsh and dirty living conditions and long working hours were prevalent in 19th-century Britain. Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

' novels perhaps best illustrate this; even some government officials were horrified by what they saw. Only in 1833 and 1844 were the first general laws against child labor (the Factory Acts

Factory Acts

The Factory Acts were a series of Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to limit the number of hours worked by women and children first in the textile industry, then later in all industries....

) passed in the United Kingdom.

According to Robert Hughes in The Fatal Shore, the population of England and Wales, which had remained steady at 6 million from 1700 to 1740, rose dramatically after 1740. By the time of the revolt of the American colonies, London was overcrowded, filled with the unemployed, and flooded with cheap gin

Gin

Gin is a spirit which derives its predominant flavour from juniper berries . Although several different styles of gin have existed since its origins, it is broadly differentiated into two basic legal categories...

. Crime had become a major problem. In 1784 a French observer noted that "from sunset to dawn the environs of London became the patrimony of brigands for twenty miles around.

Each parish had a watchman, but Britain did not then have a police force as we know it. Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

avidly promoted the idea of a circular prison

Panopticon

The Panopticon is a type of building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched...

, but the penitentiary was seen by many government officials as a peculiarly American concept. Virtually all malefactors were caught by informers or denounced to the local court by their victims.

Due to the Bloody Code, by the 1770s, there were 222 crimes in Britain which carried the death penalty, almost all of them for crimes against property. Many even included offences such as the stealing of goods worth over 5 shillings, the cutting down of a tree, stealing an animal or stealing from a rabbit warren. For example, Michael Hammond and his sister, Ann, whose ages were given as 7 and 11, were reportedly hanged at King's Lynn

King's Lynn

King's Lynn is a sea port and market town in the ceremonial county of Norfolk in the East of England. It is situated north of London and west of Norwich. The population of the town is 42,800....

on Wednesday, 28 September 1708 for theft

Theft

In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

. The local press did not consider the executions of two children newsworthy. The Bloody Code died out in the 1800s because judges and juries thought that punishments were too harsh. Since the law makers still wanted punishments to scare potential criminals, but needed them to become less harsh, transportation became the more common punishment.

The Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

saw an increase in petty crime in Europe due to the displacement of much of the population, leading to pressures on the government to find an alternative to confinement in overcrowded gaols. The situation in Britain was so dire in fact, that hulks

Hulk (ship)

A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Although sometimes used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, the term most often refers to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment removed, retaining only its flotational qualities...

left over from the Seven Years War were used as makeshift floating prisons

Prison ship

A prison ship, historically sometimes called a prison hulk, is a vessel used as a prison, often to hold convicts awaiting transportation to penal colonies. This practice was popular with the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries....

.

Transportation was a common punishment handed out for both major and petty crimes in Britain from the seventeenth century until well into the nineteenth century. At the time it was seen as a more humane alternative to execution. Around 60,000 convicts were transported to the British colonies in North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

brought an end to that means of disposal, the British Government was forced to look elsewhere. After Captain Cook's famous voyage to the South Pacific

Oceania

Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...

in which he visited and claimed Australia in the name of the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

, he reported his findings to the government, and the British, for the first time, became aware of the existence of the continent of Australia.

New South Wales

Alternatives to the American colonies were investigated and the newly discovered and mapped East Coast of New Holland

New Holland (Australia)

New Holland is a historic name for the island continent of Australia. The name was first applied to Australia in 1644 by the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman as Nova Hollandia, naming it after the Dutch province of Holland, and remained in use for 180 years....

was proposed. The details provided by James Cook

James Cook

Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

during his expedition to the South Pacific in 1770 made it the most suitable.

On 18 August 1786 the decision was made to send a colonisation

Colonisation

Colonization occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area. The term, which is derived from the Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect", originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers dominated the term to describe the...

party of convicts, military, and civilian personnel to Botany Bay

Botany Bay

Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...

. There were 775 convicts on board six transport ships. They were accompanied by officials, members of the crew, marines, the families thereof and their own children who together totaled 645. In all, eleven ships were sent in what became known as the First Fleet

First Fleet

The First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...

. Other than the convict transports, there were two naval escorts and three storeships. The fleet assembled in Portsmouth

Portsmouth

Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

and set sail on 13 May 1787.

The fleet arrived at Botany Bay on 20 January 1788. It soon became clear that it would not be suitable for the establishment of a colony, and the group relocated to Port Jackson

Port Jackson

Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...

. There they established the first permanent European colony on the Australian continent, New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, on 26 January. The area has since developed into Sydney. This date is still celebrated as Australia Day

Australia Day

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia...

.

There was initially a high mortality rate

Mortality rate

Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time...

amongst the members of the first fleet due mainly to shortages of food. The ships carried only enough food to provide for the settler

Settler

A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land and cultivate it, as opposed to nomads...

s until they could establish agriculture in the region. Unfortunately, there were insufficient skilled farmers and domesticated livestock to do this, and the colony waited on the arrival of the Second Fleet

Second Fleet (Australia)

The Second Fleet is the name of the second fleet of ships sent with settlers, convicts and supplies to colony at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson, Australia. The fleet comprised six ships: one Royal Navy escort, four convict ships, and a supply ship....

. The second fleet was an unprecedented disaster that provided little in the way of help and upon its delivery in June 1790 of still more sick and dying convicts, which actually worsened the situation in Port Jackson.

Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Bourke

Richard Bourke

General Sir Richard Bourke, KCB was Governor of the Colony of New South Wales, Australia between 1831 and 1837.-Early life and career:...

was the ninth Governor

Governors of New South Wales

The Governor of New South Wales is the state viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who is equally shared with 15 other sovereign nations in a form of personal union, as well as with the eleven other jurisdictions of Australia, and resides predominantly in her...

of the Colony of New South Wales between 1831 and 1837. Appalled by the excessive punishments doled out to convicts, Bourke passed 'The Magistrates Act', which limited the sentence a magistrate could pass to fifty lashes (previously there was no such limit). Bourke's administration was controversial, and furious magistrates and employers petitioned the crown against this interference with their legal rights, fearing that a reduction in punishments would cease to provide enough deterrence to the convicts.

Bourke, however, was not dissuaded from his reforms and continued to create controversy within the colony by combating the inhumane treatment handed out to convicts, including limiting the number of convicts each employer was allowed to seventy, as well as granting rights to freed convicts, such as allowing the acquisition of property and service on juries. It has been argued that the suspension of convict transportation to New South Wales in 1840 can be attributed to the actions of Bourke and other men like Australian-born lawyer William Charles Wentworth

William Wentworth

William Charles Wentworth was an Australian poet, explorer, journalist and politician, and one of the leading figures of early colonial New South Wales...

. It took another 10 years, but transportation to the colony of New South Wales was finally officially abolished on 1 October 1850.

If a convict was well behaved, the convict could be given a ticket of leave, granting some freedom. At the end of the convict's sentence, seven years in most cases, the convict was issued with a Certificate of Freedom

Certificate of freedom

A certificate of freedom was a document given to a convict in one of the Australian penal colony at the end of the convict's sentence. This stated that the convict was now a free person and could seek out employment or leave the colony....

. He was then free to become a settler or to return to England. Convicts that misbehaved, however, were often sent to a place of secondary punishment like Port Arthur, Tasmania

Port Arthur, Tasmania

Port Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, in Tasmania, Australia. Port Arthur is one of Australia's most significant heritage areas and the open air museum is officially Tasmania's top tourist attraction. It is located approximately 60 km south east of...

or Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...

, where they would suffer additional punishment and solitary confinement

Solitary confinement

Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...

Tasmania

In 1803, a British expedition was sent from Sydney to Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

(then known as Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...

) to establish a new penal colony there. The small party, led by Lt. John Bowen, established a settlement at Risdon Cove, on the eastern side of the Derwent River. Originally sent to Port Philip, but abandoned within weeks, another expedition led by Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins arrived soon after. Collins considered the Risdon Cove site inadequate, and in 1804 he established an alternative settlement on the western side of the river at Sullivan's Cove, Tasmania. This later became known as Hobart

Hobart

Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...

, and the original settlement at Risdon Cove was abandoned. Collins became the first Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land.

When the convict station on Norfolk Island was abandonded in 1807-8, the remaining convicts and free settlers were transported to Hobart and allocated land for re-settlement. However, as the existing small population was already experiencing difficulties producing enough food, the sudden doubling of the population was almost catastrophic.

Starting in 1816, more free settlers began arriving from Great Britain. On 3 December 1825 Tasmania was declared a colony separate from New South Wales

New South Wales

, with a separate administration.

The Macquarie Harbour

Macquarie Harbour Penal Station

The Macquarie Harbour Penal Station was a notorious British penal settlement established on Sarah Island in the southern portion of Macquarie Harbour in what was Van Diemen's Land in , Australia....

penal colony on the West Coast of Tasmania was established in 1820 to exploit the valuable timber Huon Pine growing there for furniture making and shipbuilding. Macquarie Harbour had the added advantage of being almost impossible to escape from, most attempts ending with the convicts either drowning, dying of starvation in the bush, or (on at least two occasions) turning cannibal. Convicts sent to this settlement had usually re-offended during their sentence

Sentence (law)

In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...

of transportation, and were treated very harshly, labouring in cold and wet weather, and subjected to severe corporal punishment

Corporal punishment

Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...

for minor infractions.

In 1830, the Port Arthur

Port Arthur, Tasmania

penal settlement was established to replace Macquarie Harbour, as it was easier to maintain regular communications by sea. Although known in popular history as a particularly harsh prison, in reality its management was far more humane than Macquarie Harbour or the outlying stations of New South Wales. Experimentation with the so called model prison system took place in Port Arthur. Solitary confinement was the preferred method of punishment.

Many changes were made to the manner in which convicts were handled in the general population, largely responsive to British public opinion on the harshness or otherwise of their treatment. Until the late 1830s most convicts were either retained by Government for public works or assigned to private individuals as a form of indentured labour. From the early 1840s the Probation System was employed, where convicts spent an initial period, usually two years, in public works gangs on stations outside of the main settlements, then were freed to work for wages within a set district.

Transportation to Tasmania ended in 1853 (see section below on Cessation of Transportation).

Queensland

In 1823 John Oxley

John Oxley

John Joseph William Molesworth Oxley was an explorer and surveyor of Australia in the early period of English colonisation.October 1802 he was engaged in coastal survey work including an expedition to Western Port in 1804-05...

sailed north from Sydney to inspect Port Curtis

Gladstone, Queensland

- Education :Gladstone has several primary schools, three high schools, and one university campus, Central Queensland University. It is also home to CQIT Gladstone Campus.- Recreation :...

and Moreton Bay

Moreton Bay

Moreton Bay is a bay on the eastern coast of Australia 45 km from Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources...

as possible sites for a penal colony. At Moreton Bay he found the Brisbane River

Brisbane River

The Brisbane River is the longest river in south east Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay. John Oxley was the first European to explore the river who named it after the Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Brisbane in 1823...

which Cook had guessed would exist and explored the lower part of it. In September 1824, he returned with soldiers and established a temporary settlement at Redcliffe

Redcliffe, Queensland

Redcliffe is a residential suburb of the Moreton Bay Region in the north-east of the Redcliffe peninsula, approximately north-northeast of Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia...

. On 2 December 1824, the settlement was transferred to where the Central Business District

Central business district

A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...

(CBD) of Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

now stands. The settlement was at first called Edenglassie. In 1839 transportation of convicts to Moreton Bay ceased and the Brisbane penal settlement was closed. In 1842 free settlement was permitted and people began to colonize the area voluntarily. On 6 June 1859 Queensland became a separate colony from New South Wales

New South Wales

Western Australia

Transportation of convicts to Western Australia did not begin until 1850 and lasted until 1868. During that period, exactly 9668 convicts were transported to the colony, on 43 convict ship

Convict ship

The term convict ship is a colloquial term used to describe any ship engaged on a voyage to carry convicted felons under sentence of penal transportation from their place of conviction to their place of exile.-Colonial practice:...

s.

The first convicts to arrive in what is now Western Australia were convicts transported to New South Wales

New South Wales

, sent by that colony to King George Sound

King George Sound

King George Sound is the name of a sound on the south coast of Western Australia. Located at , it is the site of the city of Albany.The sound covers an area of and varies in depth from to ....

(Albany) in 1826 to help establish a settlement there. At that time the western third of Australia was unclaimed land known as New Holland

New Holland (Australia)

. Fears that France would lay claim to the land prompted the Governor of New South Wales, Ralph Darling

Ralph Darling

General Sir Ralph Darling, GCH was a British colonial Governor and Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831.-Early career:...

, to send Major Edmund Lockyer, with troops and 23 convicts, to establish a settlement at King George Sound. Lockyer's party arrived on Christmas Day, 1826. A convict presence was maintained at the settlement for nearly four years; in November 1830, control of the settlement was transferred to the Swan River

Swan River (Western Australia)

The Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow....

Colony, and the troops and convicts withdrawn.

In April 1848, Charles Fitzgerald

Charles Fitzgerald

Captain Charles Fitzgerald was the Governor of The Gambia from 1844 until 1847, then Governor of Western Australia from 1848 to 1855....

was appointed Governor of Western Australia

Governor of Western Australia

The Governor of Western Australia is the representative in Western Australia of Australia's Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The Governor performs important constitutional, ceremonial and community functions, including:* presiding over the Executive Council;...

. He petitioned Britain to send convicts to Western Australia for labor. Britain had refused to send convicts for a fixed term, but offered to send out first offenders in the final years of their terms

Most convicts in Western Australia spent very little time in prison. Those who were stationed at Fremantle

Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...

were housed in the Convict Establishment, the colony's convict prison, and misbehaviour was punished by stints there. The majority of convicts, however, were stationed in other parts of the colony. Although there was no convict assignment in Western Australia, there was a great demand for public infrastructure

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

throughout the colony, so that many convicts were stationed in remote areas. Initially, most convicts were set to work creating infrastructure for the convict system, including the construction of the Convict Establishment itself.

In 1852 a Convict Depot was built at Albany, but closed 3 years later. When shipping increased the Depot was re-opened. Most of the convicts had their Ticket-of-Leave and were hired to work by the free settlers. Convicts also manned the pilot boat, rebuilt York Street and Stirling Terrace; and the track from Albany to Perth was made into a good road. An Albany newspaper noted the convict’s good behaviour and wrote, "There were instances in which our free settlers might take an example".

Western Australia's convict era only came to an end with the cessation of penal transportation by Britain. In May 1865, the colony was advised of the change in British policy, and told that Britain would send one convict ship

Convict ship

in each of the years 1865, 1866 and 1867, after which transportation would cease. In accordance with this, the last convict ship to Western Australia, the Hougoumont

Hougoumont (ship)

Hougoumont was the last convict ship to transport convicts to Australia.A three-masted full rigged ship of the type commonly known as a Blackwall Frigate of 875 tons gross on dimensions of 165.5 feet long, 34 ft beam and 23 ft depth of hold, Hougoumont was constructed at Moulmein, Burma...

, left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868.

Victoria

In 1803 two ships arrived in Port Phillip

Port Phillip

Port Phillip Port Phillip Port Phillip (also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay or (locally) just The Bay, is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne. Geographically, the bay covers and the shore stretches roughly . Although it is extremely shallow for...

which had been discovered and named by Lt. Murray in the Lady Nelson during the previous year. The ships were the Calcutta with 300 convicts under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, and the supply ship, Ocean. Collins had previously been Judge Advocate with the First Fleet in 1788. He chose Sullivan Bay near the present-day Sorrento, Victoria

Sorrento, Victoria

Sorrento is a township in Victoria, Australia, located on the shores of Port Phillip on the Mornington Peninsula, about one and a half hours south of Melbourne...

for the first settlement. It is some 90 km south east of present day Melbourne. About two months later the settlement was abandoned due to poor soil and water shortages and Collins moved the convicts to Hobart. Several convicts had escaped into the bush and were left behind to unknown fates with the hostile local aboriginal people. One such convict was the subsequently celebrated William Buckley

William Buckley (convict)

William Buckley was an English convict who was transported to Australia, escaped, was given up for dead and lived in an Aboriginal community for many years....

. He lived in the western side of Port Phillip for the next 32 years before finally giving himself up to the new settlers. His survival, against the perceived impossible odds, is the source of the well-known Australian phrase - "Buckley's Chance" ("You've got two chances - Buckley's and none!").

The Port Phillip

Port Phillip

District was officially sanctioned in 1837 following the landing of the Henty brothers

Edward Henty

See also Western District Edward Henty ,was a pioneer and first permanent settler in the Port Phillip district , Australia....

in Portland Bay in 1834, and John Batman

John Batman

John Batman was an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer who is best known for his role in the founding of a settlement which became Melbourne and the colony of Victoria.-Life:...

settled on the site of Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

.

Between 1844 and 1849 about 1,750 convicts arrived there from England. They were referred to either as "Exiles" or the "Pentonvillians" because most of them came from Pentonville

Pentonville

Pentonville is an area of north-central London in the London Borough of Islington, centred on the Pentonville Road. The area is named after Henry Penton, who developed a number of streets in the 1770s in what was open countryside adjacent to the New Road...

Probationary Prison. Unlike earlier convicts who were required to work for the government or on hire from penal depots, the Exiles were free to work for pay, but could not leave the district to which they were assigned. The Port Phillip District was still part of New South Wales at this stage. Victoria separated from New South Wales and became an independent colony in 1851.

Women

Approximately 20% of the transportees were women, for whom conditions could be particularly harsh. For protection, most quickly attached themselves to male officers or convicts. Although they were routinely referred to as courtesans relatively few had been prostitutes in England; prostitution, like murder, was not a transportable offense.

Political prisoners

Political prisoners made up a small proportion of convicts. They arrived in waves corresponding to political unrest in the British Isles

British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

. They included the First Scottish Martyrs in 1794; British Naval Mutineers (from the Nore Mutiny)

Spithead and Nore mutinies

The Spithead and Nore mutinies were two major mutinies by sailors of the Royal Navy in 1797. There were also discontent and minor incidents on ships in other locations in the same year. They were not violent insurrections, being more in the nature of strikes, demanding better pay and conditions...

in 1797 and 1801; Irish rebels in 1798

Irish Rebellion of 1798

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 , also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion , was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against British rule in Ireland...

, 1803, 1848

Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848

The Young Irelander Rebellion was a failed Irish nationalist uprising led by the Young Ireland movement. It took place on 29 July 1848 in the village of Ballingarry, County Tipperary. After being chased by a force of Young Irelanders and their supporters, an Irish Constabulary unit raided a house...

and 1868; Scots Rebels (1820); Yorkshire Rebels

Yorkshire West Riding Revolt of 1820

The Yorkshire West Riding Revolt of April 1820 was an uprising planned by working class radicals. It is thought to have been associated with Scottish uprisings, and occurred just as those arrested in the Peterloo Massacre and other reform demonstrations of 1819 were coming to trial...

(1820 and 1822); leaders of the Merthyr Tydfil rising of 1831; The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Tolpuddle Martyrs

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of 19th century Dorset agricultural labourers who were arrested for and convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. The rules of the society show it was clearly structured as a friendly society and operated as...

(1834); Swing Rioters

Swing Riots

The Swing Riots were a widespread uprising by agricultural workers; it began with the destruction of threshing machines in the Elham Valley area of East Kent in the summer of 1830, and by early December had spread throughout the whole of southern England and East Anglia.As well as the attacks on...

and Machine Breakers (1828–1833); Upper Canada rebellion

Upper Canada Rebellion

The Upper Canada Rebellion was, along with the Lower Canada Rebellion in Lower Canada, a rebellion against the British colonial government in 1837 and 1838. Collectively they are also known as the Rebellions of 1837.-Issues:...

/Lower Canada Rebellion

Lower Canada Rebellion

The Lower Canada Rebellion , commonly referred to as the Patriots' War by Quebeckers, is the name given to the armed conflict between the rebels of Lower Canada and the British colonial power of that province...

(1839) and Chartists

Chartism

Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...

(1842).

Cessation of transportation

With increasing numbers of free settlers entering New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land by the mid-1830s, opposition to the transportation of felons into the colonies grew. The most influential spokesmen were newspaper proprietors who were also members of the Independent Congregation Church such as John Fairfax

John Fairfax

John Fairfax , English-born journalist, is notable for the incorporation of the major newspapers of modern day Australia.-Early life:...

in Sydney and the Reverend John West in Launceston, who argued against convicts both as competition to honest free labourers and as the source of crime and vice within the colony. The anti-transportation movement was seldom concerned with the inhumanity of the system, but rather the hated stain it was believed to inflict on the free (non-emancipist

Emancipist

An emancipist was any of the convicts sentenced and transported under the convict system to Australia, who had been given conditional or absolute pardons...

) middle classes.

Transportation to New South Wales ended in 1840, by which time some 150,000 convicts had been sent to the colonies. The sending of convicts to Brisbane in its Moreton Bay district had ceased the previous year, and administration of Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island

was later transferred to Van Diemen's Land.

The continuation of transportation to Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land

saw the rise of a well-coordinated anti- transportation movement, especially following a severe economic depression in the early 1840s. Transportation was temporarily suspended in 1846 but soon revived with overcrowding of British gaols and clamour for the availability of transportation as a deterrent. By the late 1840s most convicts being sent to Van Diemen's Land (plus those to Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

) were designated as "exiles" and were free to work for pay while under sentence. In 1850 the Australasian Anti-Transportation League

Australasian Anti-Transportation League

The Australasian Anti-Transportation League was a body established to oppose Penal transportation to Australia. Beginning in Van Diemen's Land in the late 1840s, it had branches in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Canterbury...

was formed to lobby for the permanent cessation of transportation, its aims being furthered by the commencement of the Australian gold rushes

Australian gold rushes

the following year. The last convict ship to be sent from England, the St. Vincent, arrived in 1853, and on 10 August 1853 Jubilee festivals in Hobart

Hobart

and Launceston

Launceston, Tasmania

Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...

celebrated 50 years of European settlement with the official end of transportation.

Transportation continued in small numbers to Western Australia. The last convict ship to arrive in Western Australia, the Hougoumont

Hougoumont (ship)

, left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868. In all, about 164,000 convicts were transported to the Australian colonies between 1788 and 1868 on board 806 ships. Convicts were made up of English and Welsh (70%), Irish (24%), Scottish (5%) and the remaining 1% from the British outposts in India and Canada, Maoris from New Zealand, Chinese from Hong Kong and slaves from the Caribbean.

Only South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

and the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

had never accepted convicts directly from England but they still accepted ex-convicts from the other states. Many convicts were allowed to travel as far as New Zealand to make a new life after being given limited freedom, even if they were not allowed to return home to England. At this time the Australian population was approximately 1 million and the colonies could now sustain themselves without the need for convict labour.

Notable convicts transported to Australia

Esther Abrahams
Esther Abrahams
Esther Abrahams was a Londoner sent to Australia as a convict on the First Fleet. She later married George Johnston, who was briefly governor of the colony after leading the Rum Rebellion.- Transportation :...

— one of the few Jewish convicts (about 1,000 in all) and common law wife of a leader of the Rum Rebellion.
Samuel Barsby — first convict to be flogged
Billy Blue
Billy Blue
Billy Blue or William Blue was an Australian convict. Although Billy Blue’s place and date of birth are uncertain, convict records suggest he was born in Jamaica around 1767.-Conviction:...

— established a ferry service
James Blackburn
James Blackburn (architect)
James Blackburn was an English civil engineer, surveyor and architect best known for his work in Australia, to which he had been sentenced for forgery...

— Famous for contribution to Australian architecture and civil engineering
William Bland
William Bland
Dr. William Bland was a transported convict, medical practitioner and surgeon, politician, farmer and inventor in colonial New South Wales, Australia.-Early life:...

— naval surgeon transported for killing a man in a duel; he prospered and was involved in philanthropy, and had a seat in the legislative assembly.
Mary Bryant
Mary Bryant
Mary Bryant was a Cornish convict sent to Australia. She became one of the first successful escapees from the fledgling Australian penal colony.-Life:...

— famous escapee
William Buckley
William Buckley (convict)
William Buckley was an English convict who was transported to Australia, escaped, was given up for dead and lived in an Aboriginal community for many years....

— famously escaped and lived with Aboriginal people for many years
John Cadman
John Cadman (Convict)
John Cadman worked as a publican in England, before becoming a convict and being transported to Australia.-Outline of life:...

— had been a publican, as a convict became Superintendent of Boats in Sydney; Cadmans Cottage is a cottage granted to him.
Martin Cash
Martin Cash
Martin Cash was a notorious convict bushranger known for escaping twice from Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land...

— Famous escapee and bushranger
William Chopin
William Chopin
William Chopin was a convict transported to Western Australia. After gaining his Ticket_of_leave#Australian_convicts he worked as a chemist and later as an illicit abortionist....

— a convict whose work in prison hospitals in Western Australia grounded him in chemistry; on receiving a ticket of leave he was appointed chemist at the Colonial Hospital, but preferred to open his own chemist shop. He was later convicted as an abortionist.
Daniel Connor
Daniel Connor
Daniel Connor was a convict transported to Western Australia, who became one of the wealthiest men in the colony.Daniel Connor was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1831. Nothing is known of his early life, but on 20 June 1850 he was sentenced to seven years transportation for sheep stealing...

— successful merchant.
Daniel Cooper
Daniel Cooper (convict and merchant)
Daniel Cooper was a convict transported to New South Wales who became a successful merchant, financier, shipowner and shipping agent....

— successful merchant.
John Davies
John Davies (publisher)
John Davies co-founded the Australian newspaper The Mercury.Davies was a Jew born in London. He was transported to Hobart, Australia as a convict in August 1831, for ordering candles on someone else's account...

— co-founded The Mercury newspaper.
Margaret Dawson
Margaret Dawson
Margaret Dawson was a convict on the First Fleet sent from Britain to New South Wales in 1787. She had a long-term relationship with the surgeon, William Balmain, and was one of Australia's 'founding mothers' whose descendants still live in Australia and Britain.She came from Liverpool and in...

— First Fleet
First Fleet
The First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...

er, "founding mother"
John Eyre — painter and engraver
William Field (Australian pastoralist)
William Field (Australian pastoralist)
William Field was a Tasmanian pastoralist, meat contractor and publican. Born in Enfield, near London, he spent his early working life as a farmer and butcher...

— notable Tasmanian businessman and landowner
Francis Greenway
Francis Greenway
-References:* *...

— famous Australian architect
William Henry Groom — successful auctioneer and politician, served in the inaugural Australian Parliament.
Laurence Hynes Halloran
Laurence Hynes Halloran
Laurence Hynes Halloran was a convict who became a pioneer schoolteacher and journalist in Australia, founder of the Sydney Grammar School.-Early life:...

— founded Sydney Grammar School.
William Hutchinson
William Hutchinson (Superintendent)
William Hutchinson was a British convict who was transported to the Australian colonies, ultimately to become a successful public servant and businessman.Hutchinson was by trade a butcher in England...

— public servant and pastoralist.
John Irving — doctor transported on First Fleet, was the first convict to receive an absolute pardon.
Mark Jeffrey
Mark Jeffrey
Mark Jeffrey was an English convict transported to Australia. He was known as "Big Mark", the grave digger on the Isle of the Dead Cemetery at Port Arthur, Tasmania. While a living alone on the island for several years he dug his own grave, which he carefully tended, patting down the sides with a...

— wrote famous autobiography
Jørgen Jørgensen
Jørgen Jørgensen
Jørgen Jørgensen was a Danish adventurer during the Age of Revolution. During the Action of 2 March 1808 his ship was captured by the British. In 1809 he sailed to Iceland, declared the country independent from Denmark and pronounced himself its ruler...

eccentric Danish adventurer influenced by revolutionary ideas who declared himself ruler of Iceland, later became a spy in Britain.
Henry Kable
Henry Kable
Henry Kable was born in Laxfield, Suffolk, England. Kable was known for being a businessman, but was convicted of burglary at Thetford, Norfolk, England, on 1 February 1783 and sentenced to death. This was commuted to transportation for fourteen years to America, but the American Revolution meant...

— First Fleet convict, arrived with wife and son (Susannah Holmes, also a convict, and Henry) filed 1st law suit in Australia, became wealthy businessman
Lawrence Kavenagh
Lawrence Kavenagh
Lawrence Kavanagh was a convict bushranger known for escaping from Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land with Martin Cash and George Jones....

— notorious bushranger
Bushranger
Bushrangers, or bush rangers, originally referred to runaway convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities...
John (Red) Kelly — Irish convict & father of bushranger Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly
Edward "Ned" Kelly was an Irish Australian bushranger. He is considered by some to be merely a cold-blooded cop killer — others, however, consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class.Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish...
Solomon Levey
Solomon Levey
Solomon Levey was a convict transported to Australia in 1815 for theft who became a highly successful merchant and financier, at one time issuing his own banknotes in New South Wales. His success in New South Wales triggered the migration of many relatives. His brother Barnett was the first free...

— wealthy merchant, endowed Sydney Grammar School.
Simeon Lord
Simeon Lord
Simeon Lord was a pioneer merchant and a magistrate in Australia. He became a prominent trader in Sydney, buying and selling ship cargoes. Despite being an emancipist Lord was made a magistrate by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, and he became a frequent guest at government house. His business...

— was a pioneer merchant and a magistrate in Australia
Nathaniel Lucas
Nathaniel Lucas
Nathaniel Lucas was a convict transported to Australia on the First Fleet. His occupation was listed as carpenter.-Life:Lucas was born in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, to parents John Lucas & Mary Bradford in 1764....

— one of first convicts on Norfolk Island, where he became Master carpenter, later farmed successfully, built windmills, and was Superintendent of carpenters in Sydney.
John Mitchel
John Mitchel
John Mitchel was an Irish nationalist activist, solicitor and political journalist. Born in Camnish, near Dungiven, County Londonderry, Ireland he became a leading member of both Young Ireland and the Irish Confederation...

— Irish nationalist
Francis "Frank the Poet" McNamara
Frank the Poet
Frank the Poet was a convict, transported to New South Wales from Ireland, who composed cheeky improvised verse expressing the convict's point of view. In 1832 he was convicted of larceny, and sentenced to seven years transportation...

— composer of various oral convict ballads, including The Convict's Tour to Hell
John Mortlock — former marine
Thomas Muir convicted of sedition for advocating parliamentary reform; escaped from N.S.W and after many vicissitudes made his way to revolutionary France.
Isaac Nichols
Isaac Nichols
Isaac Nichols was a convict on the Third Fleetwho became a successful businessman and was appointed the first Postmaster of New South Wales in 1809. 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...

— entrepreneur, first Postmaster
Kevin Izod O'Doherty
Kevin Izod O'Doherty
Kevin Izod O'Doherty was an Irish Australian politician.-Biography:O'Doherty was born in Dublin on 7 September 1823, although other sources indicate that he may have been born in June 1824 and Charles Gavan Duffy, in his My Life in Two Hemispheres, states that O'Doherty was still under age when he...

— Medical student, Young Irelander who was transported for treason.
Robert Palin
Robert Palin
Robert Thomas Palin was a convict transported to Western Australia. His execution in 1861 was the only time in the convict era of Western Australia that Ordinance 17 Victoria Number 7 was used to secure the capital punishment of a convict for a crime not normally punishable by death.Born around...

— once in Australia, committed further crimes, and managed to be executed for a non-capital offense.
Alexander Pearce
Alexander Pearce
Alexander Pearce was an Irish convict who was transported to Van Diemen's Land for theft. He escaped from prison several times, but eventually was captured and was hanged and dissected in Hobart for murder....

— cannibal escapee
Joseph Potaskie — first Jewish pole to come to Australia.
William Smith O'Brien
William Smith O'Brien
William Smith O'Brien was an Irish Nationalist and Member of Parliament and leader of the Young Ireland movement. He was convicted of sedition for his part in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848, but his sentence of death was commuted to deportation to Van Diemen's Land. In 1854, he was...

— famous Irish revolutionary; sent to Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...

in 1849 after leading a rebellion in Tipperary
Tipperary
Tipperary is a town and a civil parish in South Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 4,415 at the 2006 census. It is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, and is in the historical barony of Clanwilliam....
John Boyle O'Reilly
John Boyle O'Reilly
John Boyle O'Reilly was an Irish-born poet, journalist and fiction writer. As a youth in Ireland, he was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or Fenians, for which he was transported to Western Australia...

— Famous escapee and writer; author of The Moondyne
William Redfern
William Redfern
William Redfern was a leading surgeon in early colonial New South Wales.-Early life:Redfern appears to have been born in Canada and raised in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England...

— one of the few surgeon convicts
Mary Reibey
Mary Reibey
Mary Reibey was an Englishwoman who was transported to Australia as a convict but went on to become a successful businesswoman in Sydney.-Early life:...

— operated a fleet of ships
James Ruse
James Ruse
James Ruse was a Cornish farmer who, at the age of 23, was convicted of breaking and entering and was sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia. He arrived at Sydney Cove on the First Fleet with 18 months of his sentence remaining...

— successful farmer
Henry Savery
Henry Savery
Henry Savery was a convict transported to Port Arthur, Tasmania and Australia's first novelist. It is generally agreed that his writing is more important for its historical value than its literary merit....

— Australia's first novelist; author of Quintus Servinton
Robert Sidaway
Robert Sidaway
Robert Sidaway , a convict of the First Fleet, was transported to Australia for stealing in 1788. Robert is known for being baker for the British Marines of Sydney and opening the first theatre in Sydney in 1796.-Life:...

— opened Australia's first theatre
James Squire
James Squire
James Squire , a convict transported to Australia, is credited with the first successful cultivation of hops in Australia at the turn of the 19th century, and is also considered to have founded Australia's first commercial brewery in 1798, though John Boston appears to have opened a brewery making...

— An old hand of the First Fleet and Australia's first brewer and cultivator of hops.
William Sykes
William Sykes
William Sykes may refer to:* Bill Sykes, Member for Benalla in the Victorian Parliament* William Sykes , convict transported to Western Australia* William Sykes , Anglican clergyman* William Sykes , businessman...

— historically interesting because he left a brief diary and a bundle of letters.
John Tawell
John Tawell
John Tawell was a British murderer. In 1845, he became the first person to be arrested as the result of telecommunications technology....

— served his sentence, became a prosperous chemist, returned to England after 15 years, and after some time murdered a mistress, for which he was hanged.
Samuel Terry
Samuel Terry
Samuel Terry was transported to Australia as a criminal where he became a wealthy landowner, merchant and philanthropist. His extreme wealth made him by far the richest man in the colony and compared with the wealth of the richer in England...

— wealthy merchant and philanthropist.
James Hardy Vaux
James Hardy Vaux
James Hardy Vaux was an English-born convict transported to Australia on three separate occasions. He was the author of Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux including A Vocabulary of the Flash Language, first published in 1819, which is regarded as both the first full length autobiography and first...

— author of Australia's first full length autobiography and dictionary.
Mary Wade
Mary Wade
Mary Ann Wade was only 11 years old when transported to Australia as the youngest convict aboard the Lady Juliana as part of the Second Fleet...

— Youngest female convict transported to Australia (11 years of age) who had 21 children and at the time of her death had over 300 living descendants.
Joseph Wild
Joseph Wild
Joseph Wild was an early explorer of Australia. He was sentenced on 21 August 1793 in Chester for burglary, together with his brother, George. Both were transported to Australia as convicts in 1797, arriving in Port Jackson on the ship the Ganges on 2 June...

— explorer
Solomon Wiseman
Solomon Wiseman
Solomon Wiseman was a convict, merchant and ferryman. The town called Wiseman's Ferry, New South Wales, Australia is named after him....

— merchant and operated ferry on Hawkesbury River hence town name Wisemans Ferry.

Sources

Alan Frost, Botany Bay: The Real Story, Collingwood, Black Inc, 2011, ISBN 9781863955126
Alexander, Alison. Editor. The Companion to Tasmanian History. Hobart, 2005. ISBN 1-86295-223-X
Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships, 1787–1868, Sydney, 1974.
Pardons & Punshments: Judge's Reports on Criminals, 1783 to 1830: HO (Home Office) 47, volumes 304 & 305, List and Index Society, The National Archives, Kew, England, TW9 4DU
Gillen, Mollie, The Founders of Australia: a biographical dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1989.
Gordon Greenwood, Australia: A Social and Political History, Angus and Robertson 1955.
Hughes, Robert
Robert Hughes (critic)
Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...

, The Fatal Shore
The Fatal Shore
The Fatal Shore. The epic of Australia's founding, by Robert Hughes, published 1987 by Harvill Press, is a historical account of the United Kingdom's settlement of Australia as a penal colony with convicts. The book details the period 1770 onwards through white settlement to the 1840s, when...

, London, Pan, 1988.
A Pictorial History of Australia, Rex & Thea Rienits, Hamlyn Publishing group, 1969.
Robson, Lloyd. History of Tasmania, 2 Volumes.
Edward Shann, An Economic History of Australia, Georgian House 1930.
John West, History of Tasmania, 1852

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.