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Australian Convict History Death by Hanging For about 200 crimes, the penalty in late 18th-century Britain was death by hanging. Many convicted of these crimes had their sentence commuted to transportation to Botany Bay. Some of the crimes were: • inciting rioters to pull down a dwelling house • returning from transportation or being at large in England before the expiration of the term of transportation • stealing horses (geldings or mares) • concealing the birth of a bastard, by drowning or secretly burying thereof • forging any lottery ticket, or uttering, selling or disposing of any such false ticket • cutting down or destroying any trees planted in an avenue or growing in any garden, orchard or plantation • abducting an heiress • visiting France or any country occupied by France during the course of any war with France • opposing the reading of the riot act at any meeting of 12 or more people • being a bankrupt and attempting to conceal the fact • impersonating an Egyptian • committing piracy on the high seas • setting fire to one’s own house • theft of goods valued at 40 shillings or more • being a ship’s master and concealing that one’s ship has come from an infected place or has infection on board. Reprinted with permission of the Museum of Australia, Canberra. “Prisons Without Walls,” National Museum of Australia Canberra, Page 96 when desperate people struggled to feed their families; children became orphans or were left to fend for themselves. Crime surged and the issue of where to transport convicts became an urgent problem for Britain. Captain Cook came to the rescue. In the early 1600s, the Dutch had explored the area around what became Australia but, because it was far from civilization and viewed as not hospitable to agriculture, no one seemed interested in settling it. In 1770, Captain Cook took a closer look. Some of what he saw reminded him of Wales so he named it New South Wales and established claims to it for Britain. The British government established a convict colony there not only as a crime deterrent but also as a more severe punishment, since the land was undeveloped and far from the British Isles. The average convict had never been more than thirty miles from home; the prospect of transportation to an undeveloped country, halfway around the world, would surely instill great fear and be a powerful deterrent to crime. The first British fleet of eleven ships, carrying about 700 convicts, their children, 252 marines and their families, arrived in New South Wales in January 1788 after eight months at sea. Among the convicts in that first fleet was a 9 year-old boy who had stolen clothing and a pistol and an 82 year old woman who had been convicted of lying under oath. 7 Male convicts were usually repeat offenders but women were more likely to be transported for a first offense. 8 Unfortunately, there is not a complete list of theconvictsfromthefirstfleet.Womenmade up 25% of the early convicts transported to New South Wales. 9 Many of them were married; often, their children accompanied them so that they did not have to be sent to orphanages back home. There was no documentation in the official records of the children who traveled on the convict ships as having been on board or having arrived in New South Wales. Needless to say, these journeys were dangerous and some didn’t survive. The first fleet lost only 23 people on the voyage but in future years the death toll rose from disease or shipwreck. In 1835, for example, a convict ship (The Neva), carrying 240 Irish women and children from County Cork, went down near King Island. No one survived. The first fleet to arrive in New South Wales found a completely undeveloped island where no preparations had been made for the arriving prisoners and crew-members. There were no settlements of any sort. The 300,000 inhabitants of the country were nomadic aboriginals. Those first arrivals nearly starved to death in the two years before the next ships arrived. On June 3, 1790, the first ship of the Second Fleet, the Lady Juliana, arrived with 225 female convicts. The Lady Juliana was followed on June 20 by the Justinian, which brought the much needed provisions. By 1804, women convicts began living at “female factories,” the equivalent of a prison workhouse. The first one was a rough log building, at Parramatta. All female convicts went to the Factory upon arrival in New South Wales except those already assigned as servants. Women who had children kept them at the factory until the orphanages were established. Then, children over the age of four were taken from their mothers. 10 Most of the female convicts were eventually assigned as household servants, a more preferable circumstance to staying at the female factory. Convict Women The women were viewed as‘beyond redemption’belonging to a‘criminal class’ yet this is not reflected in the crimes for which they were transported with 91.2% charged and sentenced for theft. Nor can a case be made in identifying them as a criminal class with 65.3% having no prior convictions. Their major crime was poverty which was considered a reflection of their immoral character. The women were obliged to remain The Septs - Volume 32, Number 2 • An t-Alòredn (April) 2011
_____________________________________________________________ Australian Convict History until assigned, pardoned, granted a Ticket of Leave, or a Certificate of Freedom. 11 Fire destroyed the Parramatta Female Factory twice; it was rebuilt both times. In 1821, a new building, designed for 300 women, replaced the former overcrowded and inadequate log building. By 1842, it housed more than 1200 women in the worst of conditions. All the convicts suffered harsh conditions and brutal treatment. The women were used and abused by male jailers, convicts, military and settlers. James Mitchell, a free settler and ex-missionary turned trader, wrote in1815, “Surely no common mortal could demand treatment so brutal. Heaven give their weary footsteps, their aching hearts to a better place of rest, for here there is none. During governorship of Major Foveaux, convicts both male and female, were held as slaves. Poor female convicts were treated shamefully. Governor King being mainly responsible.” 12 The convicts commonly received a“Ticket of Leave” before their sentence was completed. It allowed them to live and work outside the factory but confined them to a specified area nearby. They supported themselves, thus relieving the government of the cost of their care. They could neither return to Ireland nor travel anywhere else until their sentences were completed. Another way out of the factories for the women was to marry. When women married, they gained immediate freedom from their sentences. Many married convicts or settlers. Some of the “arrangements” were forced while some occurred by simply lining the women up for display for the men who wanted wives. Officially, marriage was encouraged: authorities believed that married convicts would contribute to a more stable society and it relieved pressure on the female factory budgets. Even those who had married in their home country could legally marry in New South Wales if they had been separated from their spouse for seven years or more. Divorce was not an Irish Genealogical Society International option for most people until the late 1800s. Church of England clergy performed all convict marriages, no matter the religion of the bride and groom. In the early 1800s, the population consisted of convicts and military personal. Australia wanted and needed free settlers and single women to balance the overwhelmingly male population. Although the first free settlers arrived in 1793, free immigration continued at a slow pace in spite of the British government offering land grants. A major impediment facing immigration was the expense of travel from Europe to Australia, which was more than those of modest means could afford. In 1831, the British government began incentives in the form of assisted immigration to encourage women and poor people in the British Isles to come to Australia. Assisted immigration continued throughout most of the nineteenth century. 13 When transportation ended in 1868, about 40 percent of Australia’s English-speaking population was comprised of convicts. 14 Few convicts ever returned to Britain. They married, raised families, founded towns and helped build Australia. They provided the labor to build the infrastructure of the new country. They built roads, bridges, courthouses and hospitals and also worked for free settlers and small land holders. While you may not have an ancestor who was transported to New South Wales, remember that the average convict had five siblings. One of the siblings may be your ancestor. Finding a sibling who was a convict may provide the information on the family that you’ve been missing. There is a wealth of information on the Internet for family history researchers about transportation to Australia. Endnotes 1 “Convict Maid” from Australian Folk Songs, . The tune is based on “The Resources for Researchers • Claim A Convict . • Contemporary Post Colonial and Post Imperial Literature in English http://www.postcolonialweb. org/australia/austwomen4.html • Convict Creations • Convict Central. . • “The First Fleet,” Project Gutenberg Australia. . • National Museum of Australia Canberra . • New South Wales State Archives . • Parrametta Female Factory . Page 97
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