Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

trial details and sentence. Medical records list illnesses,
hospital admissions and individual patient records.
Conditional and absolute pardons were listed, as were
convict marriage applications and deaths. Records were
kept of certificates of freedom and tickets of leave which
allowed a form of parole within the colony. Re-offending
and convictions within Australia were recorded. In
Van Diemen’s Land, registers listed descriptions of
the convicts’ physical appearances and their conduct.
There are also general administration and financial
management records both within Australia and with
Britain.
Although they were created and logged with bureaucratic
impersonality, the convict records are often deeply
personal. The records allow access to the life experience
of transported men and women by modern historians and
family descendants, in ways unparalleled in other mass
migrations. The detailed physical descriptions provide
a rare view of a broad segment of the British and Irish
population of the time and is an invaluable resource for a
wide range of demographic, medical and other research.
Picture of a Convict: The Story of Susan Courtney
The Convict Indent recorded prisoner details and one
of the entries from the 1820s is transcribed below. It relates
to a Londoner called Susan Courtney who was transported
to New South Wales colony.
Grenada 3rd (1825) Anderson Master
No. 19
Name – Susan Courtney alias Elizabeth Jones
Trade or calling – Nursery maid. Escaped from the Colony
in the Emerald 1823
Tried Where/When – from VDL about 2½ years ago came
in the Friendship husband John Peck lived at Nottingham;
London Septr 16 came more than 14 years since
Sentence – Life
Age – 32
Native place – London
Height – 5 Feet 2½ Inches
Colour of Eyes – Hazel
Hair – light brown
Complexion – fresh
Remarks – Well
To whom assigned –
300 The Convict Records of Australia
The story of Susan Courtney:
‘Susan Courtney was originally tried and convicted
for forgery on 16 April 1817 at Middlesex and sentenced
to 14 years transportation. She arrived in Sydney on the
Friendship in January 1818. She was then sent with other
prisoners on the Duke of Wellington to Van Diemen’s
Land. There she married John Peck and subsequently
managed to escape back to England.
Perhaps unwisely, Susan returned to her old haunts,
and was recognised in the street by William Nicols
‘one of the conductors of the Bow Street Night Patrol’.
She was apprehended (despite giving the false name
of Elizabeth Jones), and was tried on 10 September 1823 for
returning from transportation, and found guilty. She was
re-transported to New South Wales on the Grenada in 1825
with a life sentence.
Susan Courtney continued to cause problems for the
authorities. On 13 June 1826 she was sentenced to the
Female Factory for 3 months for being at large without