Transportation to Australia

In a modern context, the idea of exiling criminals to the other side of the world may seem rather extreme and unnecessary, but throughout the nineteenth century, the transportation of criminals from Britain to Australia was a common practice. Between 1787 and 1868, hundreds of thousands of convicts would be transported to Australia, for crimes significantly varying in severity. Why were convicts sent to Australia, how did they get there, and how did this practice eventually end? Let's find out.

Transportation to Australia: crime and punishment summary

Throughout the 18th century, the harsh “bloody code” was still enforced across the UK. This gave provision for strict punishments for even the most minor of crimes, such as theft. With so many crimes carrying the death penalty, the British justice system faced moral and logistical dilemmas.

With the colonisation of North America, a new alternative punishment emerged: transportation. Compared to the death penalty, this had several significant advantages.

• Firstly, it was unsustainable to execute so many criminals, but much easier to transport them to far colonies.
• Morally, it gave criminals a second chance at life, which bizarrely was in line with the justice reforms of the era.

Although exile to the colonies seems harsh in a modern context, it was somewhat progressive in comparison to the alternative the Bloody Code insisted on: execution.

It also helped the British Empire populate new colonies, and more importantly, allowed British society to get rid of undesirable criminals.

Why were British prisoners sent to Australia?

As previously discussed, transportation was attractive for several reasons, but why use transportation instead of imprisonment?

• When transportation to Australia began in the 1780s, prisons were still uncommon.
• Prisons in the 18th century largely consisted of localised holding cells, that were not meant to hold prisoners for prolonged periods. Their purpose was to hold apprehended criminals until they could be punished.
• This was an era before punishment focused on the rehabilitation of criminals, and harsh punishments were used instead, intended to deter potential criminals.
• Much like execution, transportation would remove undesirable criminals from society, and hopefully deter others.

By the mid-nineteenth century, modern victorian prisons such as Pentonville began to become a common part of the justice system. Consequently, transportation became less common before ending altogether by the 1860s.

Gang of convicts in Sydney 1830, Wikimedia Commons

Who was transported to Australia?

• Between 1787 and 1868, 162,000 convicts would be sent to Australia.
• 80% of those convicts transported were guilty of theft, with many being repeat offenders.
• Another significant bulk of the convicts would be those involved in protest movements, such as the Luddites, the Scottish Radicals or the Chartist movement. Although depriving these movements of their leadership in Britain, it would fuel several uprisings in the Australian colonies.
• Only 15% of those transported were women, causing issues in the new colonies.

Transportation of convicts to America and Australia: beginnings

Transportation is usually associated with Australia but was originally practised in the North American colonies. Transportation first began in 1654, but upon the formal end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 and American independence, North America was no longer a viable option for convict transport.

Conveniently, Captain James Cook claimed Australia for Great Britain in 1770. To compensate for the loss of the American colonies, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the first fleet, commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip to set up a new penal colony in Botany Bay, New South Wales on Australia’s east coast. The first fleet arrived in Australia in 1788.

Portrait of Captain James Cook, Picryl

The First Fleet

From the free settlers' point of view, transportation became a major issue.

• When transportation first commenced in the 1780s, Australia was largely uninhabited by European settlers.
• Almost one hundred years later, after the arrival of hundreds of thousands of convicts and settlers, the free settlers were not too impressed with the constant influx of new convicts, blaming them for crime and unrest in the settlements.
• It was also difficult for free settlers to obtain employment, competing with convicts who were paid nothing.

Additionally, Australia had become a nation in its own right and therefore did not want to remain the destination of British convicts.

A combination of all these factors led to the complete abolition of transportation as a punishment in 1868.