HIST1051 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Myall Creek Massacre, Bushranger, Metropolitan Police Service
• Week Three
• Lecture 3.1: Convict Lives
• Convict Lives
•
• LECTURE SUMMARY
• This lecture: Convict Lives
• Many of the ideas Australians have about convicts are not well founded
• Historians use evidence but still come up with a variety of versions of convict lives
• Current understandings are that convicts were ordinary working class Britons and that the
penal system was generally well run and orderly, although harsh
• FOCUS QUESTIONS
1) Who were the convicts?
2) What factors meant that convict experience was not all the same?
3) How did the convict period affect Australia?
• Old Sydney Town, Somersby
• Flogging and the historian
• Seen by many as emblematic of the convict experience
• Drawing upon the written records of the convict period, historians conclude that it was not:
• many convicts were not flogged at all;
• it was used as part of the system of organised punishments, not at will;
• also part of naval, military and school discipline
• Seeing floggings as central to convict experience excludes the well behaved, the female, the
majority
• Academic historians seek balance, placing issues in their contemporary context, being
particular not over generalising
• Who were the convicts?
• Hungry and desperate people who stole a handkerchief or a loaf of bread to feed their
families?
• Find out using the Old Bailey online:
• https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/
• Isaac Goldfinch, 1788
• But how typical was he?
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• Changing views of convicts
• Many people who lived at the same time as the convicts thought they were awful, violent,
ignorant and best forgotten. Fear that a convict stain would mark Australia
• 1920s – George Arnold Wood - suggests that it was not the convicts who were bad, but their
society. They were victims of social change and harsh laws
• 1950s and 60s -Manning Clark – reads contemporary records and concludes they were a
criminal class, with no skills other than lying, stealing, prostitution
• More recent understandings
• Convict Workers (1989) – process information in NSW convict records called indents to
develop statistical profile of convicts, 1817–1840: 80% male; mean age 26; convicted of
theft in a city; more literate than the British average; have skills; no dependents
• Women – Deb Oxley finds they were domestic workers – prostitution was not a
crime punished by transportation
• Since 2000 – convicts as immigrants, members of families, people with free will who shape
their own lives
• Shared Convict Experience
• Begins with conviction by a British court, then time waiting for transportation in a gaol or
hulk
• The journey out – took many months; held below decks – cramped, dark, unhealthy
• Fed on rations similar to those provided to sailors and marines
• Shocking death rate on Second Fleet led to better regulations to manage health of convicts
• Some convicts made to work on the voyage
• In the colonies
• Convicts do the heavy work of clearing, road building, construction, farming
• Retain some freedom – work for government only until 3 pm, then on their own until
evening muster
• In Sydney, live in Rocks area
• Accommodation not provided until 1819 when Hyde Park Barracks opened
• Assignment
• Initially, the government was the only employer of convict labour, but as free people built up
property holdings and businesses, they also wanted convict workers
• Convicts were formally assigned to work for employers in exchange for food, clothing and
shelter, and a small annual payment
• Generally preferred to remaining in government employment
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Skilled workers in demand
• Government retains most who are highly literate to work as clerks; also agricultural
labourers
• Government can find little work for female convicts but readily assigned to cook, clean and
launder
• Punishment
• Those who accepted their situation and completed their work had lives not unlike people in
similar positions in Britain, many of whom were also bound to their employers
• Convicts who talked back, would not work, drank excessively or committed new crimes were
treated harshly by being flogged, put on short rations, sent to secondary penal settlements
or being executed
• The first place to which convicts were transported for committing crimes in Australia was
Newcastle, from 1820s Port Macquarie
• Norfolk Islad ad Va Diee’s Lad
• Relations with Indigenous Australians
• Instructions from British government to be friendly while dispossessing the Aboriginal
people
• Convicts on the front line – friends, victims, assailants
• Jealous of Aboriginal freedom
• Dangers for Aboriginal people: lose country, subject to violence and disease
• Female Convicts
• A minority of transported convicts, approx. 1 in 6
• Included to try to normalise the populations of NSW and VDL but treated as a problem
once here
• Most found guilty of theft
• Confined in female factories which served as places of employment, gaols, labour and
marriage markets and lying in hospitals
• Bigge reforms
• NSW thought to be losing its power to deter crime by late 1810s
• British Government sent JT Bigge to investigate, report on state of colonies, how to renew
fear of them
• Recommends greater regimentation, harsher secondary penal settlements, chain gangs,
isolation of convicts on rural properties
• Convicts sent in much larger numbers post 1820
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Isaac goldfinch, 1788: but how typical was he, changing views of convicts, many people who lived at the same time as the convicts thought they were awful, violent, ignorant and best forgotten. Fear that a convict stain would mark australia: 1920s george arnold wood - suggests that it was not the convicts who were bad, but their society. In the colonies: convicts do the heavy work of clearing, road building, construction, farming, retain some freedom work for government only until 3 pm, then on their own until evening muster. In sydney, live in rocks area: accommodation not provided until 1819 when hyde park barracks opened, assignment. Newcastle, from 1820s port macquarie: norfolk isla(cid:374)d a(cid:374)d va(cid:374) die(cid:373)e(cid:374)"s la(cid:374)d, relations with indigenous australians. Instructions from british government to be friendly while dispossessing the aboriginal people: convicts on the front line friends, victims, assailants.
