After 93 nights in the
Mary Wade
The youngest ever convict to be transported to Australia at the age of 11. Her hideous crime was that she stole another girls clothes and for that she was sentenced to death by hanging.
was the youngest female convict, at 13, on the First Fleet.
From 1788, for more than 50 years, convicts were transported from Britain to New South Wales. These included children as young as nine years of age. What was life like for these children who had been sent to the other side of the world for crimes like petty theft?
The youngest convict on the First Fleet was 13-year old John Hudson. He was convicted for breaking and entering and was sentenced to seven years in prison and transportation to Australia for his crime.
Dorothy Handland (c. 1720- ), who, by 1786, was separated from her second husband and worked as 'an old clothes woman' (dealer), was estimated by Surgeon Bowes to be aged 82, and was recorded at Newgate Gaol as 60, was found guilty on 22 February 1786 at the Old Bailey, London, of perjury.
Child convicts
Children as young as 9 years were transported to Australia as convicts. 20% of the transported convicts were under 20 years. The age given on records is usually the only way to tell if a convict was a child.
Home Children was the child migration scheme founded by Annie MacPherson in 1869, under which more than 100,000 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. The programme was largely discontinued in the 1930s, but not entirely terminated until the 1970s.
The victims of this misguided scheme have sometimes been described as 'orphans of the empire' but few were actually orphans. They were more often just trapped in poverty or been stranded by broken homes. About 10,000 British children were sent to 26 child migrant centres in six Australian states.
It is estimated there were about 50 children on the First Fleet when it arrived at Botany Bay. Over 20 children were born at sea during the eight-month voyage.
There were 50 children aboard the Morley Convict Ship in 1820. A list of the clothing shows that male children had a blue jacket made from Kersey cloth, a waistcoat, trousers, three shirts, two pairs of stockings, a woollen cap, a neckerchief and a pair of shoes.
Five child convicts under the age of 16 arrived with the First Fleet. ''More than 160,000 convicts were ultimately transported to Australian colonies on about 800 ships,'' writes Harris. ''As many as 25,000 were under 18, with between 10,000 and 13,000 young boys dispatched to Van Diemen's Land. ''
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.
The Last Convict is an historical novel based on the life of Samuel Speed, who believed himself to be – and is widely accepted as – the last transported convict to survive in Australia. He died in November 1938, on the eve of the Second World War and within the lifetime of many people still living.
Samuel Terry (c. 1776 – 22 February 1838) was deported as a criminal to Australia, where he became a wealthy landowner, merchant and philanthropist. His extreme wealth made him by far the richest man in the colony with wealth rivaling that of England.
The disappearance of Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont on Australia Day in 1966 became one of the country's enduring mysteries and remains unsolved. The children — aged 9, 7 and 4 — left their Somerton Park home for a day at Glenelg beach, but never came home.
In Australia, between 1910 and the 1970s*, governments, churches and welfare bodies forcibly removed many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. These children became known as the Stolen Generations.
The Bringing Them Home report (produced by the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families in 1987), says that "at least 100,000" children were removed from their parents.
Children do their best when they are supported, nurtured and loved; when they can go to school, play with friends and sleep in their own bed each night. Yet right across Australia, children as young as 10 are arrested, charged with an offence, hauled before court and locked away in prison cells.
During the second period, from 1814 to 1842, just over 5400 female convicts arrived. In 1840, the number increased significantly when transportation to New South Wales ceased, and all female convicts were shipped to Van Diemen's Land.
South Australia was an experimental British colony and the only Australian colony which did not officially take convicts.
John Patrick Hannan is an Irish prison fugitive who holds the record for the longest escape from custody. In December 1955, Hannan escaped Verne Prison, located on the Isle of Portland, along with his fellow inmate Gwynant Thomas. Assuming he is still alive, Hannan has been on the run for over sixty years.
Overall, the majority of crimes committed by convict women within the colony resulting in punishments by the magistrates were offences against Good Order and Convict Discipline: absconding, being drunk and disorderly, insolence, assault, refusing to work, being out after hours, immoral conduct, pilfering.