Barbara Malpass Edwards - Australias Most Notorious Convicts: From thieves and bushrangers to murderers and cannibals

On 13 May 1787, the First Fleet set sail for Botany Bay in nine rented ships escorted by two naval vessels, carrying 759 convicts of whom approximately 25 died during the voyage. Amongst the others on board were three future governors, a medical group, an Anglican priest, a few more military administrators, four companies of marines (plus their wives and children), and sailors. For an expedition intended to set up a new colony, which would be self-supporting and eventually profitable, nobody had thought to include people skilled in farming or experts in the growth of flax. (Supposedly, one of the main reasons for the colony was the constant supply of good quality flax for the production of superior canvas for the navys fleets.) There were no specially-commissioned master craftsmen on board and no basic farming equipment, such as a plough.

There are many reasons given for this curious voyage and those that followed, and the purposes behind them, so before we can look at some of the more questionable members of their cargoes, we need to look at why they were sent to terra nullius in the first place.

Up until the American War of Independence talk about settling the new Great South Land was just that, talk. There were good reasons to take it onresources, such as flax for canvas and timber for building, were attractive to the navy, as was the idea of protecting trade routes to merchants. There were many more reasons for not doing sodistance, cost and unnecessary administrative problems. In addition, the problems of prisons and convicts being sent across the Atlantic could no longer be ignored. In the mid-to late-1700s, Britain was still a pre-industrial economy; there was a lot of money around, but development was not a general consideration except for personal gain, and in modern terms the economy was stagnant.

Only three cities outside of London had a population of a round 25, 000, and although places like Manchester were growing rapidly, only one in five of the total population lived in a large town. Early stages of the Agrarian Revolution dramatically changed farming practices. The development of machinery necessitated larger fields and hedges were dragged out and whole villages were flattened to accommodate the greater land blocks now needed for agriculture. The homeless, unemployed and unemployable, skilled and unskilled moved to the towns where the slums grew and the resources were stretched. Work in the cities was still restricted by guilds and the professions, so there was little employment to be found and the spread of income for any one year was very wide indeed. Making modern-day comparisons is difficult, but if we take the standard of one Australian dollar for one loaf of bread, then the rich could buy 70,000 loaves a year; a tradesman 1125 loaves a year; and the poor would have to survive on 152.5 loaves a year.

Poverty in Ireland was indescribable and some Irish migrants joined relatives in the north of England, cornering the market in the brute-strength work of digging canals (navvies) and, eventually, laying tracks for the developing railway system. Added to this huge labour force and the hungry unemployed would be the unwanted public servants and soldiers sent home from the new America.

To steal a loaf of bread in such times could condemn one family to starvation; not to steal it could starve your own children. The simplest of crimes might earn a penny and a mug of gin would smother the pain of hunger. It was a frightening and dirty time and solutions were demanded.

Offenders have been banished from their home countries throughout time, partly to prevent their rise to hero status when they received extreme punishment but, in the main, because to be sent away from your own people was believed to dishonour them as much as the offender. After the American War of Independence, British felons had to stay home and unusable ships (hulks) became sleeping quarters for prisoners who were used for public labour during the day. These first hulks were operated by a private contractor who had been involved in the transportation of prisoners and bond servants to the Americas and was now, presumably, out of pocket. He was responsible for feeding, clothing and disciplining the convicts, but had no involvement in the public works for which they were used as unpaid labour.

Up until that point, transported men had been given money to establish a new life in America when their time was up, and a similar scheme worked with the hulks. This money was to be received in part by the prisoner on release and the remaining part on proof of a reputable life lived for some time in everyday society. Conditions were hard; rock breaking was considered work for the feeble and unwell and disease spread like wildfire in the overcrowded working conditions. Many did not live long enough to collect the money owed. Some boys as young as ten years of age were locked in the fetid hulks at night; at this time being a child was simply a stage in becoming able to serve society, and until you were old enough, herding geese and watching pigs was your apprenticeship.