It's estimated that 164,000 convicts were shipped to Australia between 1788 and 1868 under the British government's new Transportation Act — a humane alternative to the death penalty. Approximately 25,000 of these convicts were women, charged with petty crimes such as stealing bread.
About 20,000 or 12.3% of the convicts transported to Australia were women.
Between 1788 and 1868 more than 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia. Of these, about 7,000 arrived in 1833 alone. The convicts were transported as punishment for crimes committed in Britain and Ireland.
Petty theft, fraud and violence were all common misdemeanours which could have resulted in a transportation sentence of 7 or 14 years. More serious offences, often tried at London's Old Bailey, were likely to be met with a transportation life sentence. Around one in seven convicts transported to Australia were women.
Until 1782, English convicts were transported to America. However, in 1783 the American War of Independence ended. America refused to accept any more convicts so England had to find somewhere else to send their prisoners. Transportation to New South Wales was the solution.
The women would be employed in 'factories' (equivalent of the English workhouse) but often had to find their own accommodation, and would be under great pressure to pay for it with sexual services. In this way, all the women convicts tended to be regarded as prostitutes.
Floggings were given to both men and women, although the flogging of women was stopped by British law in 1791.
On 30 March 1789 Ann Martin was sentenced to 25 lashes, reduced from 30 lashes, for creating a disturbance at night. Later in our convict history, female convicts would receive other punishments instead of flogging. They could be put in solitary confinement and have only bread and water.
Mary Wade (17 December 1775 – 17 December 1859) was a British teenager and convict who was transported to Australia when she was 13 years old.
Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia.
The Hougoumont, the last ship to take convicts from the UK to Australia, docked in Fremantle, Western Australia, on January 9, 1868 – 150 years ago. It brought an end to a process which deposited about 168,000 convicted prisoners in Australia after it began in 1788.
Convict women were employed in domestic service, washing and on government farms, and were expected to find their own food and lodging. Punishment for those who transgressed was humiliating and public. Exile itself was considered a catalyst for reform.
Beth - The Story of a Child Convict, is an incredibly moving tale inspired by the experiences of Elizabeth Hayward, the youngest female convict on the First Fleet and the journals of naval officer William Bradley and Arthur Bowes Smyth, the surgeon and artist also onboard.
Women were usually chosen as servants, wives or housekeepers to the officers with lodging. Some women became partners or wives to other convicts. Women became hut keepers to groups of convict men. Some women were sent to work as a punishment for breaking the rules.
Clothing in the Female Factories
Documents from the time tell us that these convicts were given: petticoats, jackets, aprons, shifts (smocks), caps, handkerchiefs, stockings, shoes and straw bonnets. They'd be made from cheap, coarse material.
By far the most common crime that led to transportation was petty theft or larceny. Historians estimate that roughly a third to three-fifths of the male convict population came under the category of 'other larcenies'.
After 93 nights in the Newgate Prison Mary set sail for Australia. King George III was declared mad. As a result, many waiting to be executed were instead bound for transportation to the penal colony of Australia. At 10 years old, Mary took voyage, the youngest ever convict, aboard the Lady Juliana.
Free settlers were moving to Australia, and convicts were increasingly employed to work for them. As convicts either finished their sentence, or were pardoned, they were able to earn a living and sustain themselves through jobs and land grants.
Frederick John White was a private in the British Army's 7th Hussars. While serving at the Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow, in 1846, White touched a sergeant with a metal bar during an argument while drunk. A court-martial sentenced him to 150 lashes with a cat of nine tails.
flogging, also called whipping or caning, a beating administered with a whip or rod, with blows commonly directed to the person's back. It was imposed as a form of judicial punishment and as a means of maintaining discipline in schools, prisons, military forces, and private homes.
The first recorded African-diaspora settlers were black convicts, eleven in number, transported by the British, on the First Fleet of 1788. On their release, many bought land and brought up families in the area of Pennant Hills in western Sydney.
Convicts were married by banns having first sought official permission. These registers record the names of the parties applying for permission to marry, their ages, the date of permission or refusal, ship of arrival, sentence, whether free or bond, and the name of clergyman.
In June 2022, women comprised 7 per cent of Australia's overall prison population (3,008 women, 837 of them imprisoned in NSW).
South Australia was an experimental British colony and the only Australian colony which did not officially take convicts. But naturally some former convicts made their way to South Australia. Men who had completed their sentences came to settle here, usually hiding their convict past if possible.