What was the name of the penal labor colony established in 1788 off the coast of australia?

Convicts were sent to Australia to work as a form of punishment. The work depended on the crimes the convicts had committed. The most severe criminals were sent to prisons or penal stations. The rest worked as servants for free settlers.

Work at the penal stations was severe, and living conditions were poor. Criminals were forced to work from sunrise to sunset. If they disobeyed or tried to escape, they were whipped, chained in irons, or even executed.

The convicts assigned to free settlers were responsible for doing whatever their masters needed to have done. For male convicts, this included hard physical tasks such as cutting down trees and constructing buildings. Female convicts often did domestic work such as cooking and cleaning.

Convicts with special skills—such as leather work, blacksmithing, or carpentry—were tasked with building the colonies. Some female convicts were sent to what was known as convict female factories. These were places of hard labor where they made materials such as spun wool or flax.

Diet

Convicts who worked for the government were given rations, or food allowances. These rations varied from year to year depending on what was available. For example, one year the convicts were given beef, salt pork, flour, cornmeal, tea, sugar, and salt. At other times they were given peas, rice, oatmeal, and sometimes green vegetables. Female convicts were given smaller rations than males. Convicts who worked for free settlers were fed by their masters.

Clothing

Convicts were issued clothing by the British government once they arrived in Australia. The clothes of both male and female convicts were called “slops.” For males, slops were generally a striped cotton shirt, canvas trousers, waistcoat, shoes, gray wool jacket, and cap. For females, slops were a petticoat, plain dress, handkerchief, shoes, stockings, apron, and a bonnet or cap. On Saturdays, convicts at penal stations had to wash their clothes so they were clean for church on Sunday.

The first British settlement at Sydney Cove in 1788 was a convict colony. The eastern half of Australia was named New South Wales in 1804.

Western Australia

Just under 10,000 British convicts were sent directly to the colony in the 18 years to 1868. They were used by local settlers as labour to develop the region. On January 9, 1868, Australia's last convict ship, the Hougoumont unloaded the final 269 convicts.

South Australia

The British province of South Australia was established in 1836, and in 1857 it became self-governing with Adelaide as its capital. Around 38,000 immigrants had arrived and settled in the area by 1850.

Victoria

In 1851 Victoria (Port Phillip District) separated from New South Wales and became a seperate colony with Melbourne as its capital. The first attempt at settlement was made in 1803 by Lieutenant David Collins but the harsh conditions forced him to move on to Tasmania where he eventually settled Hobart in February 1804. It was not until the 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.

Van Diemen's Land - Tasmania

The Hobart colony settlement of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) was established in its own right in 1825 and officially became known as Tasmania in 1856. In the 50 years from 1803-1853 around 75,000 convicts were transported to Tasmania. By 1835 there were over 800 convicts working in chain-gangs at the infamous Port Arthur penal station, which operated between 1830 and 1877.

Queensland

In 1824 a convict settlement was established at Moreton Bay on the Brisbane River. It seperated from NSW and became the colony of Queensland in 1859 with Brisbane as its capital.  Around 2,280 convicts were sent to the settlement between 1824 and 1839 (15 years). The first free European settlers moved to the district in 1838 and others followed in 1840.

The main inhabitants of 'Brisbane Town', as it was known, were the convicts of the Moreton Bay Penal Station until it was closed in 1839.

Northern Territory

In 1825 the area occupied today by the Northern Territory was part of the colony of New South Wales. It was first settled by Europeans in 1824 at Fort Dundas, Port Essington. In 1863 control of the area was given to South Australia. Its capital city, Darwin, was established in 1869, and was originally known as Palmerston. On 1 January 1912, the Northern Territory was separated from South Australia and became part of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Oil painting of two British convicts in Sydney | © Adam Jones / Wikimedia Commons

Today, one in five Australians is the descendant of a convict. The Culture Trip sails back to the 18th century to find out why.

In 2018, Sydney is one of the most sparkling cities on the face of the Earth, but behind the glittering harbour and golden beaches hides a history that’s surprisingly sordid. The British established Australia’s oldest city in the late 18th century as a penal colony to house its surplus of petty criminals — a murky past that continues to leave its mark on the country today.

Why did Britain have so many crooks?

In the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution created a generation of urban poor — people who moved from farms to overcrowded cities with no work and money. Crime soared in these squalid Dickensian conditions, as many families were forced to steal to survive. British prisons reached their capacity, so authorities shunted thousands of criminals into hulks — disused ships that shouldn’t sail but could float in harbours housing prisoners.

When these hulks filled up, transportation became the answer. Serious crimes like murder and rape were punishable by death, but petty offences — such as stealing anything worth more than one shilling, the average day’s wage — were deemed worthy of a one-way ticket to some foreign corner of the globe.

Why did the British choose Australia?

The British first sent prisoners to America, but as the War of Independence reached its conclusion in 1782, the old colonial power was left with nowhere to discard their crooks … until they saw a solution Down Under.

The east coast of New Holland had been mapped by Captain James Cook on his voyage in 1770, so the British thought this territory — despite being inhabited by Indigenous people for 60,000 years — was the perfect dumping ground for their excess criminals. An eight-month boat trip 10,000 miles across the sea soon became the punishment for thieving a bag of sugar or a loaf of bread.

The first Australian convicts arrived on the First Fleet in 1788, part of the 1,500-strong colonisation party that included military and civilians. Admiral Arthur Phillip founded the penal colony of New South Wales on January 26, 1788 — still the controversial date of Australia’s national day — and set convicts to work according to their skills, planting the seeds of the first European settlement to colonise the Australian continent.

Convict life

Conditions in those early years were tough — food was in short supply, and farmers who knew how to get the most out of the harsh Australian conditions were even rarer. Governor Lachlan Macquarie was the first to imagine Sydney and NSW as something more than a penal colony in the early 19th century, encouraging reformed convicts to participate in society and shape the free settlement that has flourished over the subsequent two centuries.

Emancipated convicts were burdened by a heavy social stigma, but contributed significantly to the nascent British colonies in Australia. Opposition to transportation grew with increasing numbers of free settlers in the 1830s, but it took until 1868 for the last convict ship to pull into Western Australia. By then, Australia’s population had reached one million, and could sustain itself without relying on convict labour.

More than 160,000 convicts — 80% men, 20% women — were transported to Australia from the British Isles between 1788 and 1868. The British sent criminals to NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and WA, but freed convicts soon spread their footprint across the country, and these days, one in five Australians is the descendant of a convict.

The convict legacy

At first, the fledgling Australian colonies were ashamed of their criminal roots and tried to shake off the association, but today, Australians take a perverse pride in their convict history. Throughout the 20th century, historians helped change the perception of convicts both by highlighting the injustice of transportation — an excessive punishment for trivial crimes committed by desperate, impoverished people — and by telling the stories of iconic convicts such as seminal Australian novelist Henry Savery and architect Francis Greenway.

There’s no more famous convict celebrity than Ned Kelly, an Irish bushranger whose battles with the British elite — including his final bloody shoot-out with police and eventual hanging in 1878 — have imbued him with Robin Hood status in Australian folklore. This rebellious convict past is seen as a key ingredient in Australia’s roguish, ‘larrikin’ national character.

These days, Australia is peppered with convict sites that preserve and celebrate the tales of the country’s convict era. Australia is home to 11 UNESCO Heritage Listed convict sites — Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, Port Arthur in Tasmania and Fremantle Prison in WA are all compelling attractions for history buffs to visit.

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