In 1767 Cesare Beccaria’s book of ‘Crimes and Punishments’ was published in England. Beccaria said: ‘Current punishments do not stop crime. Instead of making a terrifying example [by hanging] a few criminals we should punish all criminals and punish them fairly. We need punishments that fit the crimes. Instead of relying on the death penalty, criminals should be imprisoned and do hard labour that is visible to the public.’ For 80 years, from the 1780’s to the 1860’s, transportation to Australia was a vital part of the systems of punishments. Valentine Marshall was one of the 160,000 people sentenced to transportation to Australia as a punishment.
In the 1780’s the British government had faced a crisis. Transportation had already been in use as a punishment for 100 years. But the government could no longer transport convicts to America because the colonies had won their independence. Several colonies, including the West Indian islands were considered. The last was the scarcely known Australia, discovered by James Cook. There was little possibility of sending anyone to find out whether Australia would make a good convict settlement- the round trip would have taken 18 months.
The first fleet set sail for Australia in May 1787. Eleven ships left Portsmouth, carrying 1020 people of whom 736 were convicts… Eight months later, they landed in Australia. Forty-eight people had died on the voyage.
A typical convict arriving in Australia was a young man of 26 who had been convicted several times for theft, usually of food, clothing, or other goods of a small value.
Far more men than women were sent to Australia: 25,000 women were transported, about one-sixth of the total. Governments regularly used transportation as a punishment for rebels and protestors. Irish rebels were also frequently transported for refusing to accept British rule.
A letter by Richard Dillingham to his parents. He had been sentenced for taking part in protests in 1930-31. he was assigned as a gardener to the colony’s architect, a kind and considerate man. ‘As to my living I find it better than I ever expected thank God. I want for nothing in that respect. As for tea and sugar I could almost swim in it… I want for nothing but my liberty but it is not the same with all that come as prisoners.’
‘It is true that convicts are sent out here as punishments. But it is equally true that it is not in the interest of the master to make his service a punishment but rather to make the condition of the convict as comfortable as he could afford.’ An extract from a letter by Edward Carr, an official in Tasmania
Transportation was seen as a middle course in punishment between execution and fining. Between 1787 and 1868, 162,000 people were transported to Australia. Transportation ended in 1868.
Before: crimes against property were severely punished. With no national prison system, this meant that criminals who damaged or stole from property were often executed. Searching for a more humane solution led to the start of transportation.
After: With the end of transportation and reductions in the use of the death penalty, imprisonment in the new prisons in Britain became the usual punishment for petty crime.
ASHWORTH, Joseph 6th April 1841: Transported 10 years for stealing 4 pennies CLARKE, John 16th October 1828: Transported 7 years for stealing 2 coats Examples of crimes leading to transportation from Nottingham Court
By 1852, about 1,800 of the convicts had been sentenced in Wales. Many who were sent there could only speak Welsh, so as well as being exiled to a strange country they were unable to speak with most of their fellow convicts.
The transportation of convicts to Australia ended at a time when the colonies' population stood at around one million, compared to 30,000 in 1821. By the mid-1800s there were enough people here to take on the work, and enough people who needed the work. The colonies could therefore sustain themselves and continue to grow. The convicts had served their purpose.
Convicts being made to work in the colonies
An event of significance for the British government was the landing of James Cook at Botany Bay on the east coast of Australia in 1770. He claimed the land for the British and named it New South Wales. In 1788 Arthur Phillip established a penal colony at Sydney Cove for convicts transported from England, thus initiating English settlement in Australia.
An engraving showing the conditions inside of a convict ship