Talk:Benny Hill and Convicts in Australia: Difference between pages
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[[Image:Bill Thompson (Tasmanian convict).jpg|thumb|right|A studio photograph of Tasmanian convict Bill Thompson, showing the [[Uniform#Prison|convict uniform]] and the use of [[Fetters|leg irons]]. Dated 1870s.]]
'''Convictism in Australia''' occurred during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when large numbers of [[convict]]s were transported to the various [[:Category:Australian penal colonies|Australian penal colonies]] by the British government. One of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a [[penal colony]] to alleviate pressure on their overburdened [[Gaol|correctional]] facilities. The last convicts to be transported to Australia arrived in [[Western Australia]] in [[1868]].
==Reasons for transportation==
{{main|Penal transportation}}
The [[industrial revolution]] saw an increase in petty crime in Europe due to the displacement of much of the population, leading to pressures on the government to find an alternative to confinement in overcrowded gaols. The situation in Britain was so dire in fact, that derelict ships known as [[Hulk (ship)|hulks]] were used as makeshift floating prisons. Transportation was a common punishment handed out for both major and petty crimes in [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] from the seventeenth century until well into the nineteenth century. At the time it was seen as a more humane alternative to [[execution (legal)|execution]], which would most likely have been the sentence handed down to many of those who were transported, if transportation hadn't been introduced. Around 60,000 convicts were transported to the British colonies in [[North America]] in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When the [[American Revolutionary War]] brought an end to that means of disposal, the British Government was forced to look elsewhere. After [[Captain Cook]]'s famous voyage to the [[Oceania|South Pacific]] in which he visited and claimed [[Australia]] in the name of the [[British Empire]], he reported his findings to the government, and the British, for the first time, became aware of the existence of the continent of Australia.
==New South Wales==
{{main|History of New South Wales}}
Alternatives to the American colonies were investigated and the newly discovered and mapped East Coast of [[New Holland (Australia)|New Holland]] was proposed. The details provided by [[James Cook]] during his expedition to the South Pacific in 1770 made it the most suitable. The term 'Australia' was first used by [[Matthew Flinders]] about 1800, derived from the ancient mythological reference to 'Terra Australis', the Great South Land.
On [[18 August]] [[1786]] the decision was made to send a [[colonisation]] party of convicts, [[military]], and [[civilian]] personnel to [[Botany Bay]]. There were 775 convicts on board six transport ships. They were accompanied by officials, members of the crew, marines, the families thereof and their own children who together totaled 645. In all, eleven ships were sent in what became known as the [[First Fleet]]. Other than the convict transports, there were two naval escorts and three storeships. The fleet assembled in [[Portsmouth]] and set sail on [[13 May]] 1787.
The fleet arrived at [[Botany Bay]] on [[20 January]] [[1788]]. It soon became clear that it would not be suitable for the establishment of a colony, and the group relocated to [[Port Jackson]]. There they established the first permanent [[European]] colony on the [[Australian continent]], [[New South Wales]], on [[26 January]]. The area has since developed into [[Sydney]]. This date is still celebrated as [[Australia Day]].
There was initially a high [[mortality rate]] amongst the members of the first fleet due mainly to shortages of food. The ships carried only enough food to provide for the [[settlers]] until they could establish [[agriculture]] in the region. Unfortunately, there were insufficient skilled [[farmers]] and [[domesticated]] [[livestock]] to do this, and the colony waited on the arrival of the [[Second Fleet (Australia)|Second Fleet]]. The second fleet was an unprecedented disaster that provided little in the way of help and upon its delivery in June [[1790 in Australia|1790]] of still more sick and dying convicts, which actually worsened the situation in Port Jackson.
[[Richard Bourke|Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Bourke]] was the ninth [[Governors of New South Wales|Governor]] of the Colony of New South Wales between [[1831]] and [[1837]]. Appalled by the excessive punishments doled out to convicts, Bourke passed 'The Magistrates Act', which limited the sentence a magistrate could pass to fifty lashes (previously there was no such limit). Bourke's administration was controversial and furious magistrates and employers petitioned the crown against this interference with their legal rights, fearing that a reduction in punishments would cease to provide enough deterrence to the convicts.
Bourke, however, was not dissuaded from his reforms and continued to create controversy within the colony by combating the [[inhumane]] treatment handed out to convicts, including limiting the number of convicts each [[employer]] was allowed to seventy, as well as granting rights to freed convicts, such as allowing the acquisition of [[property]] and service on juries. It has been argued that the abolition of convict [[transportation]] to New South Wales in [[1840]] can be attributed to the actions of Bourke.
If a convict was well behaved, the convict could be given a [[Ticket of Leave]] granting some freedom. At the end of the convict's sentence the convict was issued with a [[Certificate of Freedom]]. Convicts that misbehaved, however, were often sent to a place of [[secondary punishment]] like [[Port Arthur, Tasmania]] where they would suffer additional punishment and [[solitary confinement]].
==Tasmania==
[[Image:Port arthur outside.jpg|thumb|right|Port Arthur Prison Colony site]]
{{main|History of Tasmania}}
In 1803, the first British expedition was sent from [[Sydney]] to [[Tasmania]] (then known as [[Van Diemen's Land]]) to establish a new penal colony there. The small party, led by Lt. John Bowen, established a settlement at Risdon Cove. From this ___location a second expedition was sent to locate other suitable locations, and in 1804 the settlement at [[Sullivan's Cove, Tasmania]] was founded by Captain David Collins. This latter became known as [[Hobart]], and the original settlement at Risdon Cove was abandoned.
Starting in 1816, free settlers began arriving from [[Great Britain]] and on [[3 December]] [[1825]] Tasmania was declared a colony separate from [[New South Wales]].
The [[Macquarie Harbour Penal Station|Macquarie Harbour]] penal colony on the West Coast of Tasmania was established in 1820 to exploit the valuable timber [[Huon Pine]] growing there for furniture making and shipbuilding. Macquarie Harbour had the added advantage of being almost impossible to escape from, most attempts ending with the convicts either drowning, dying of starvation in the bush, or (on at least two occasions) turning cannibal. Convicts sent to this settlement had usually re-offended during their [[Sentence (law)|sentence]] of [[transportation]], and were treated very harshly, labouring in cold and wet weather, and subjected to severe [[corporal punishment]] for minor infractions.
In 1830, the [[Port Arthur, Tasmania|Port Arthur]] penal settlement was established to replace Macquarie Harbour, as it was easier to maintain regular communications by sea. Although known in popular history as a particularly harsh prison, in reality its management was far more humane than Macquarie Harbour or the outlying stations of New South Wales. Experimentation with the so called model prison system took place in Port Arthur. Solitary confinement was the preferred method of punishment.
Many changes were made to the manner in which convicts were handled in the general population, largely responsive to British public opinion on the harshness or otherwise of their treatment. Until the late 1830s most convicts were either retained by Government for public works or assigned to private individuals as a form of indentured labour. From the early 1840s the Probation System was employed, where convicts spent an initial period, usually two years, in public works gangs on stations outside of the main settlements, then were freed to work for wages within a set district.
Transportation to Tasmania ended in 1853 (see section below on [[#Cessation of transportation|Cessation of Transportation]]).
==
{{main|History of Queensland}}
[[Image:Commissariat 200.jpg|right|thumb|Commissariat Store completed in 1829 with convict labour]]
In [[1823]] [[John Oxley]] sailed north from [[Sydney]] to inspect [[Port Curtis]] and [[Moreton Bay]] as possible sites for a penal colony. At Moreton Bay he found the [[Brisbane River]] which Cook had guessed would exist and explored the lower part of it. In September [[1824]], he returned with soldiers and established a temporary settlement at [[Redcliffe]]. On [[2 December]] [[1824]], the settlement was transferred to where the [[Central Business District]] (CBD) of [[Brisbane]] now stands. The settlement was at first called [[Edenglassie]]. In 1839 transportation of convicts to Moreton Bay ceased and the Brisbane penal settlement was closed. In 1842 free settlement was permitted and people began to colonize the area voluntarily. On [[6 June]] [[1869]] Queensland became a separate colony from [[New South Wales]].
==Western
[[Image:freojail.jpg|thumb|right|A Fremantle prison facility built with convict labour]]
{{main|Convict era of Western Australia}}
Transportation of convicts to [[Western Australia]] did not begin until [[1850]] and lasted until 1868. During that period, over 9,000 [[convict]]s were transported to the [[colony]], on 43 [[convict ship]]s.
The first convicts to arrive in what is now [[Western Australia]] were convicts transported to [[New South Wales]], sent by that colony to [[King George Sound]] (Albany) in [[1826]] to help establish a settlement there. At that time the western third of Australia was unclaimed land known as [[New Holland (Australia)|New Holland]]. Fears that [[France]] would lay claim to the land prompted the [[Governor of New South Wales]], [[Ralph Darling]], to send [[Major Edmund Lockyer]], with troops and 23 convicts, to establish a settlement at King George Sound. Lockyer's party arrived on [[Christmas Day]], [[1826]]. A convict presence was maintained at the settlement for nearly four years; in November [[1830]], control of the settlement was transferred to the [[Swan River (Western Australia)|Swan River]] Colony, and the troops and convicts withdrawn.
In April [[1848]], [[Charles Fitzgerald]] was appointed [[Governor of Western Australia]]. He petitioned [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] to send convicts to Western Australia for labor. Britain had refused to send convicts for a fixed term, but offered to send out first offenders in the final years of their terms.
Most convicts in Western Australia spent very little time in [[prison]]. Those who were stationed at [[Fremantle, Western Australia|Fremantle]] were housed in the [[Convict Establishment]], the colony's convict prison, and misbehaviour was punished by stints there. The majority of convicts, however, were stationed in other parts of the [[colony]]. Although there was no convict assignment in [[Western Australia]], there was a great demand for public [[infrastructure]] throughout the colony, so that many convicts were stationed in remote areas. Initially, most convicts were set to work creating infrastructure for the convict system, including the construction of the Convict Establishment itself.
In 1852 a Convict Depot was built at Albany, but closed 3 years later. When shipping increased the Depot was re-opened. Most of the Convicts had their Ticket-of-Leave and were hired to work by the free settlers. Convicts also manned the pilot boat, rebuilt York Street and Stirling Terrace; and the track from Albany to Perth was made into a good road. An Albany newspaper noted the convict’s good behaviour and wrote, "There were instances in which our free settlers might take an example".
Western Australia's [[convict era]] only came to an end with the cessation of penal transportation by Britain. In May [[1865]], the colony was advised of the change in British policy, and told that Britain would send one [[convict ship]] in each of the years [[1865]], [[1866]] and [[1867]], after which transportation would cease. In accordance with this, the last convict ship to Western Australia, the [[Hougoumont]], left Britain in [[1867]] and arrived in Western Australia on [[10 January]] [[1868]].
== Victoria ==
It was not until the [[Edward Henty|Henty brothers]] landed in Portland Bay in 1834, and [[John Batman]] settled on the site of [[Melbourne]], that the [[Port Phillip]] District was officially sanctioned (1837).The first immigrant ships arrived at Port Phillip in 1839.
Between 1844 and 1849 about 1,750 convicts arrived there from England. They were referred to either as "Exiles" or the "Pentonvillians" because most of them came from [[Pentonville]] Probationary Prison. Unlike earlier convicts who were required to work for the government or on hire from penal depots, the Exiles were free to work for pay, but could not leave the district to which they were assigned. The Port Phillip District was still part of New South Wales at this stage. [[Victoria, Australia|Victoria]] separated from New South Wales and became an independent colony in 1851.
== Cessation of transportation ==
[[Image:CessationMedallion.jpg|thumb|right|Medallion issued to all Tasmanian school children following the cessation of transportation in 1853]]
With increasing numbers of free settlers entering New South Wales and Van Diemens Land by the mid-1830s, opposition to the transportation of felons into the colonies grew. The most influential spokesmen were newspaper proprietors who were also members of the Independent Congregation Church such as [[John Fairfax]] in Sydney and the Reverend [[John West]] in Launceston, who argued against convicts both as competition to honest free labourers and as the source of crime and vice within the colony. The anti-transportation movement was seldom concerned with the inhumanity of the system, but rather the ''hated stain'' it was believed to inflict on the free (non-[[emancipist]]) middle classes.
Transportation to New South Wales ended in 1840, by which time some 150,000 convicts had been sent to the colonies. The sending of convicts to Brisbane in its Moreton Bay district had ceased the previous year, and administration of [[Norfolk Island]] was later transferred to Van Diemens Land.
The continuation of transportation to [[Van Diemens Land]] saw the rise of a well-coordinated anti- transportation movement, especially following a severe economic depression in the early 1840s. Transportation was temporarily suspended in [[1846]] but soon revived with overcrowding of British gaols and clamour for the availability of transportation as a deterrent. By the late 1840s most convicts being sent to Van Diemens Land (plus those to [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]]) were designated as "exiles" and were free to work for pay while under sentence. In 1850 the [[Australasian Anti-Transportation League]] was formed to lobby for the permanent cessation of transportation, its aims being furthered by the commencement of the [[Australian gold rushes]] the following year. The last convict ship to be sent from England, the ''St. Vincent'', arrived in 1853, and on 10 August 1853 Jubilee festivals in [[Hobart]] and [[Launceston, Tasmania|Launceston]] celebrated 50 years of European settlement with the official end of transportation.
Transportation continued in small numbers to [[Western Australia]]. The last convict ship to arrive in [[Western Australia]], the [[Hougoumont]], left [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] in [[1867]] and arrived in Western Australia on [[10 January]] [[1868]]. In all, about 164,000 convicts were transported to the Australian colonies between 1788 and 1868.
==Legacy==
The history of convictism in the British Australian colonies is etched into the minds of most [[Australians]] even today. The lasting effects of the long dead practice are still felt in some areas of life. Many Australians can accurately trace their [[lineage]] back to [[colonial]] times, and most cases being related to one of the original British convicts invokes a sense of [[patriotism|national pride]].{{Fact|date=February 2007}} It should be remembered that these convicts were, for the most part, not violent criminals, but rather petty thieves, other non-violent offenders or supporters of Irish independence.{{Fact|date=March 2007}} This attitude is, however, a relatively new phenomenon in Australia. Until after the [[Second World War]] most Australians felt a sense of shame about the existence of British Convicts in what is now Australia, and many did not even attempt to investigate their families' origins, for fear that they could be descended from criminals. This was known as the ''Convict Stain'' attitude, and it made research all the more difficult. In recent decades community attitudes have changed, and many Australians with convict ancestors are now more comfortable to investigate and discuss their past.
[[Kingdom of Great Britain|British]] and [[Ireland|Irish]] convicts and ex-convicts, became an important [[social class|class]] in Australian society, because they were the most significant source of [[unfree labour|labour]] until the mid-19th century.
Not all Australian settlements were official [[penal colony|penal colonies]] and most were established by free settlers, looking for opportunities.
==Famous convicts transported to Australia==
*[[Esther Abrahams]] - one of the few [[Jewish]] convicts.
*[[Billy Blue]] - established a ferry service.
*[[Mary Bryant]] - famous escapee.
*[[William Buckley (convict)|William Buckley]] - famously associated with Aboriginal people.
*[[Martin Cash]] - Famous escapee and bushranger
*[[Margaret Dawson]] - [[First Fleet]]er, "founding mother".
*[[Francis Greenway]] - famous Australian architect.
*[[Mark Jeffrey]] - wrote famous auto-biography
*[[Lawrence Kavenagh]] - notorious [[bushranger]]
*[[John Mitchel]] - Irish nationalist
*[[Francis McNamara]], aka [['Frank the Poet']] - composer of various oral convict ballads, including ''[[The Convict's Tour to Hell]]''
*[[John Mortlock]] - former marine
*[[Aaron Burr]] - Trialled for Witchcraft after ritually murdering 3 officers and 5 men in New South Wales.
*[[Wade & Sean Cardilini]] -Italian Convicts who worked closely with Aaron Burr.
*[[John Boyle O'Reilly]] - Famous escapee and writer; author of ''[[The Moondyne]]''
*[[William Redfern]] - one of the few surgeon convicts.
*[[Mary Reibey]] - operated a fleet of ships.
*[[James Ruse]] - successful [[farmer]]
*[[Henry Savery]] - Australia's first novelist, author of ''[[Quintus Servinton]]''
*[[D'Arcy Wentworth]], highwaymen and father of [[William Wentworth]], who was born at Norfolk Island.
*[[Joseph Wild]] - [[explorer]]
*[[William Smith O'Brien]] - Famous Irish revolutionary- sent to Van Diemen's land in 1849 after leading a rebellion in Tipperary
*Daniel Herbert - Built the amazing Ross bridge and was a skilled stone mason
*[[Samuel Barsby]] - First convict to be flogged
*Red Kelly - Irish Convict & father of Bushranger [[Ned Kelly]]
==References==
* Alexander, Alison. Editor. The Companion to Tasmanian History. Hobart, 2005. ISBN 1-86295-223-X
* Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships, 1787–1868, Sydney, 1974.
* Pardons & Punshments: Judge's Reports on Criminals, 1783 to 1830: HO (Home Office) 47, volumes 304 & 305, List and Index Society, The National Archives, Kew, England, TW9 4DU
* Gillen, Mollie, The Founders of Australia: a biographical dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1989.
* Gordon Greenwood, Australia: A Social and Political History, Angus and Robertson 1955.
* [[Robert Hughes (critic)|Hughes, Robert]], [[The Fatal Shore]], London, Pan, 1988.
* A Pictorial History of Australia, Rex & Thea Rienits, Hamlyn Publishing group, 1969.
* Robson, Lloyd. History of Tasmania, 2 Volumes.
* Edward Shann, An Economic History of Australia, Georgian House 1930.
* John West, History of Tasmania, 1852
== See also ==
*[[Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania]]
*[[Convict era of Western Australia]]
*[[Port Arthur, Tasmania]]
{{commons|convicts}}
==External links==
*[http://www.atmitchell.com/journeys/law/justice/convict/convict.cfm/ Convict life - State Library of NSW]
*[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ The National Archives (UK)]
*[http://www.historicalbany.com.au/ The Albany Historical Society]
[[Category:Convictism in Australia]]
[[Category:Convictism in Australia| ]]
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