Convict Transportation
The decision to send British convicts to Australia.
The British government's decision to colonise a newly discovered land in the south began the transportation to Australia of convicts considered the dregs of society.
Between 1788 and 1868, about 160,000 people were herded onto ships in Great Britain and launched on the perilous sea voyage to an unknown land almost 12,000 miles away on the other side of the world. Labelled as ‘convicts’, these people had been convicted of crimes ranging from murder to petty theft and had, as a result, been sentenced to transportation to Australia.
A system of banishment, transportation provided a convenient way for the British government to rid itself of criminals. Since the Transportation Act of 1718, Britain had been sending convicts to its American colonies. However, when the War of Independence, also known as the American Revolutionary War, began in 1775, convict transportation to America had to end.
Convict overflow
This created an overflow problem in British gaols. There was an increasing amount of crime, especially in the cities, to which people were attracted in growing numbers to work in factories spawned by the Industrial Revolution. Not everyone found work, and those who did often found it hard to exist on their small wages. Even for those who were not naturally inclined to law-breaking, theft was often the only means of survival. The denser population of the cities also resulted in more crimes of violence and therefore, more convicts.
Penalties were harsh, with more than 200 offences, including stealing, carrying the death penalty but, despite this, the prisons were filling up. Keeping a great number of people in gaol indefinitely was not an acceptable option in Britain where the gaols were then designed more for passive offenders such as debtors than for active criminals such as thieves and murderers. Also a problem was the fact that gaols were not seen as places of rehabilitation. People released from them could be expected to offend again, a situation that posed a problem for the future.
A New Convict Prison
In 1770 the English navigator, Captain James Cook, had charted and explored eastern areas of the country now known as Australia. He named one of the areas New South Wales and claimed possession of part of it on behalf of the British Crown.
As a prison for convicts, this distant colony had great attraction for the British government. It was so far away that there was little chance of many of the miscreants ever returning. Although it was far from fully explored it was also obviously big, with plenty of space for many offenders. The fact that the land had its own indigenous inhabitants with their own complex legal and social structure was not a problem for the British government. In its view, this country could be described as “uncultivated or desert” and so the law of terra nullius applied. This meant it was unowned land where the British law could apply as soon as it was colonised.
Launching the First Fleet
Some historians believe there were other, or additional, reasons for the selection of New South Wales as a prison for Britain’s convicts. It has been suggested, for example, that it could have been regarded as a useful place for the cultivation of mast timber and flax. Even if that is so, it seems undeniable that the distant and spacious south land would make a convenient dumping ground for unwanted convicts. The decision was made, a fleet was prepared and the 11 ships which made up the First Fleet set out on their historic voyage. Eighty years of convict transportation to Australia had started.
