New South Wales arrives in
Botany Bay, 21 January 1788, by
William Bradley (1802). shows the co-existence of
convicts, soldiers and free settlers. Alternatives to the American colonies were investigated and the newly discovered and mapped East Coast of
New Holland was proposed. The details provided by
James Cook 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 party of convicts, military, and civilian personnel to
Botany Bay under the command of Captain
Arthur Phillip, who was appointed as
Governor of the new colony. 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. Other than the convict transports, there were two naval escorts and three storeships. The fleet assembled in
Portsmouth and set sail on 13 May 1787. The eleven ships arrived at Botany Bay over the three-day period of 18–20 January 1788. It soon became clear that the bay would not be suitable for the establishment of a colony due to "the openness of this bay, and the dampness of the soil, by which the people would probably be rendered unhealthy". Phillip decided to examine
Port Jackson, a bay mentioned by Captain Cook, about three
leagues to the north. On 22 January 1788 a small expedition led by Phillips sailed to Port Jackson, arriving in the early afternoon: The second fleet was a disaster and provided little in the way of help. In June 1790 it delivered additional sick and dying convicts, affected by the rigors of the lengthy journey. The situation worsened in Port Jackson.
Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Bourke was the ninth
Governor of the Colony of New South Wales, serving between 1831 and 1837. Appalled by the excessive punishments doled out to convicts during their imprisonment and work assignments, 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. 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. He continued to combat the inhumane treatment of convicts, and limited the number of convicts assigned to each employer to seventy. There was limited oversight of treatment of assigned convicts. Bourke granted rights to convicts who were freed after serving their sentences, such as allowing them to acquire property and serve 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 like-minded men, such as Australian-born lawyer
William Charles Wentworth. 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 a convict's sentence, seven years in most cases, the convict was issued with a
Certificate of Freedom. He was free to become a settler or to return to England. Convicts who misbehaved, however, were often sent to a place of secondary punishment, such as
Port Arthur, Tasmania, or
Norfolk Island, where they would suffer additional punishment and
solitary confinement.
Norfolk Island Within a month of the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove, a group of convicts and free settlers were sent to take control of
Norfolk Island, a small island east of the coast of New South Wales. More convicts were sent, and many of them proved to be unruly. In early 1789 they made a failed attempt to overthrow Lieutenant
Philip Gidley King, the island's commandant. There were other hazards: was wrecked on one of the island's reefs while attempting to land stores.
Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) convict settlement, Tasmania In 1803, a British expedition was sent from Sydney to
Tasmania (then known as
Van Diemen's Land) 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 Phillip, 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, and the original settlement at Risdon Cove was abandoned. Collins was appointed as the first Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land. When the convict station on Norfolk Island was abandoned in 1807–1808, the remaining convicts and free settlers were transported to Hobart and allocated land for resettlement. However, as the existing small population was already having 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, with a separate administration. , 1833 The
Macquarie Harbour 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 ended with fugitive convicts either drowning, dying of starvation in the bush, or (on at least three occasions) turning cannibal. Convicts sent to this settlement had usually re-offended during their
sentence of transportation. They were treated very harshly, labouring in cold and wet weather, and subjected to severe
corporal punishment for minor infractions. Several hundred non-indigenous black convicts were transported to Van Diemen's Land, some as punishment for speaking or acting against the British Empire. Most of these black convicts had been enslaved, and were transported for resisting their enslavement. In 1830, the
Port Arthur 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 of their treatment. Until the late 1830s, most convicts were either retained by the 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. They were then freed to work for wages within a set district. Transportation to Tasmania ended in 1853 (see section below on
Cessation of Transportation). Records on the individual convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land or born there between 1803 and 1900 were being digitised as part of the
Founders and Survivors project.
Port Phillip District (Victoria) 's transportation and escape to live with the
Wathaurong in 1803, as depicted by 19th-century Aboriginal artist
Tommy McRae. In 1803, two ships arrived in
Port Phillip, which
Lt. John Murray in the
Lady Nelson had discovered and named the previous year. The under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel Collins transported 300 convicts, accompanied by 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 for the first settlement - some 90 km south 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 local aboriginal people. One such convict, the subsequently celebrated
William Buckley, lived in the western side of Port Phillip for the next 32 years before approaching the new settlers and assisting as an interpreter for the indigenous peoples. A second settlement was established at
Westernport Bay, on the site of present-day
Corinella, in November 1826. It comprised an initial 20 soldiers and 22 convicts, with another 12 convicts arriving subsequently. This settlement was abandoned in February 1828, and all convicts returned to Sydney. The
Port Phillip District was officially sanctioned in 1837 following the landing of the
Henty brothers in Portland Bay in 1834, and
John Batman settled on the site of
Melbourne. 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 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.
Moreton Bay (Queensland) In 1823
John Oxley sailed north from Sydney to inspect
Port Curtis and
Moreton Bay as possible sites for a penal colony. At Moreton Bay, he found the
Brisbane River, 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. On 2 December 1824, the settlement was transferred to where the
Central Business District (CBD) of
Brisbane 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 colony separate from
New South Wales. In 2009 the Convict Records of Queensland, held by the
Queensland State Archives and the
State Library of Queensland was added to UNESCO's Australian Memory of the World Register.
Western Australia gatehouse. The prison was built using convict labour in the 1850s. Although a convict-supported settlement was established in Western Australia from 1826 to 1831, direct transportation of convicts did not begin until 1850. It continued until 1868. During that period, 9,668 convicts were transported on 43
convict ships. The first convicts to arrive were transported to
New South Wales, and sent by that colony to
King George Sound (Albany) in 1826 to help establish a settlement there. At that time the western third of Australia was unclaimed land known as
New Holland. Fears that France would lay claim to the land prompted the
Governor of New South Wales,
Ralph Darling, 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 over four years. On 7 March 1831 control of the settlement was transferred to the
Swan River Colony, and the troops and convicts were withdrawn. In April 1848,
Charles Fitzgerald,
Governor of Western Australia, petitioned Britain to send convicts to his state because of labour shortages. Britain rejected sending fixed-term convicts, but offered to send 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 were housed in the
Convict Establishment, the colony's convict prison, and misbehaviour was punished by stints there. The majority, 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 throughout the colony, so that many convicts were stationed in remote areas. Initially, most offenders 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 crewed 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 their commendable behaviour and wrote, "There were instances in which our free settlers might take an example". Western Australia's convict era 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 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,
Hougoumont, left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868. ==Women==