Convicts slept in hammocks that were folded away each morning. Each ward had a large wooden tub that served as a communal toilet. The convicts had to carefully carry these tubs outside daily to be emptied and cleaned. Each of the wards held up to 60 men.
Convicts were housed below decks on the prison deck and quite often further confined behind bars. In some cases they were restrained in chains and were not allowed on deck except for limited fresh air and exercise. Conditions were cramped and they slept on hammocks.
About 50,000 convicts eventually passed through the gates. This included many boys who slept in hammocks in the sleeping wards, ate in the mess halls, attended the barracks court when they misbehaved and was sometimes punished there too.
In the semi-dark, the men would have rested in their hammocks chatting, telling stories or quietly smoking their pipes. The night's entertainment was over and it was time to get some sleep before going back to work.
Convicts were not locked away while still under sentence; they lived in their own freestanding cottages, among family or friends, with a private garden to be farmed in their own time. Once their sentence had been served, they received, if they wished, 30 acres of land.
By 1826, convicts at the barracks were eating something different for breakfast – a plain-tasting porridge called 'hominy'. It was made from corn and was boiled over a fire. Convicts called their midday meal 'dinner', and they often returned from their worksites to eat it at 1pm.
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.
Convicts got up at sunrise and worked hard for up to 10 hours a day. All convicts were sentenced to hard labour as part of their punishment and could be forced to work at just about any manual task such as timber cutting, brick making or stone cutting.
But other factors were also at play. For a time, spirits were used in barter and convicts were part-paid in rum. In this way, rum became a currency of the colony - hence the term “a rum state”.
Some convicts were employed as overseers, to control the gangs of convict workers, and others were even paid to do more responsible jobs, like being a constable, a guard, or a scourger – the man who whipped the other convicts as punishment!
What was it like inside a convict's house? Convicts were often quite comfortable. They lived in two or three roomed houses, shared with fellow convicts or with a family.
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.
The conditions, as they were at the beginning of the new colony, were conducive to making women convicts as sex objects for men: convicts, marines and officers. Besides giving or receiving sexual favours women had to work as labourers and servants for the officers under back breaking and harsh conditions.
Convicts washed their clothes on Monday and Friday using soap and water from the Barracks well. They may have hung the clothes up in the yard to dry. However, shirts were often stolen, so some convicts simply wore their newly washed shirts and let them dry on their backs.
Convicts Food
Convicts ate bread,hardtack,salted beef or pork,peas,oatmeal,butter,cheese. They also ate rise,fruit,vegetables.
Convicts were a source of labour to build roads, bridges, courthouses, hospitals and other public buildings, or to work on government farms, while educated convicts may have been given jobs such as record-keeping for the government administration. Female convicts, on the other hand, were generally employed as domestic ...
The alcohol beverages most commonly consumed by Australians are bottled wine (34%), regular strength beer (19%), and bottled spirits/liqueur (15%).
Here in Australia we lowered the drinking age from 21 to 18 in Western Australia on July 1, 1970 while the corresponding date for Queensland was February 18, 1974. In South Australia the drinking age was lowered from 21 to 20 years with effect from December 19, 1968, and then to 18 years as from April 8, 1971.
As punishment for even more serious crimes, or for repeated misbehaviour, a convict could also be whipped, or 'flogged', with a cat-o'-nine-tails.
Small balconies are attached to each cell, where the prisoners sit into the night, chatting with neighbours. Most are in bed by 7:30pm.
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.
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.
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.
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.