On the 9th of January 1868, the Hougoumont, the final convict ship to carry prisoners to Australia, reached Fremantle, Western Australia.
While the prisoners might have felt a mix of excitement and fear, the intense heat would have been something they were unaccustomed to… and that’s before realizing the dangers that lurked everywhere.
During the 89-day voyage, one convict, a rapist from Manchester, died… one might call that a ‘good death’.
Thanks to the relatively high number of literate convicts from the cohort of political prisoners from Ireland, known as the Fenian Rising, the journey even produced its own newspaper: The Wild Goose. All seven handwritten issues of this publication are preserved in the State Library of New South Wales. Interestingly, most convicts were likely illiterate… so who exactly were the Fenian Rising writing for… that’s the Irish for you…
The remarkable legacy of the convict period illustrates that transportation was not as terrible as its reputation suggests. Many prisoners received medical care and food, and their children often emerged notably taller and stronger – debunking the notion that the sun solely shaped the Aussie footballer into a towering figure (with the exception of Hayden Ballantine, of course).
In fact, some individuals committed crimes that were premeditated to secure a lighter sentence and avoid poverty in Britain or to reunite with family members.
The Hougoumont had its own history of penal transportation. Originally, it was owned by Duncan Dunbar, who provided nearly a third of the ships that conveyed convicts between 1840 and 1868. Under Luscombe of London’s direction, it set sail from Sheerness, located on the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary, on September 30, 1867, navigating along the southern coast of Britain to Portland in Dorset to gather more convicts, finally departing from Portsmouth on October 12 with 280 convicts and 108 passengers, captained by William Cozens.
Among the convicts were 62 Fenians, with 17 from the military, a group that violated an agreement between the United Kingdom and Western Australia, igniting a brief panic in Fremantle. The presence of military Fenians also breached the UK’s unwritten policy against transporting military prisoners.
This last group of convicts marked the conclusion of a significant era in Australian history. From 1788 to 1868, over 165,000 convicts were sent to Australia, with 10,000 of those arriving in Western Australia.
Currently, it is estimated that two million Britons and four million Australians can trace their ancestry back to convicts.
Without the labour of convicts, who arrived with the First Fleet in 1788, Australia may have struggled as a British colony, particularly after 1810, when convict labour became increasingly vital for building colonial infrastructure such as roads, causeways, bridges, courthouses, and hospitals.
By the end of penal transportation, Australia had expanded to a population of over 1 million, compared to merely 30,000 in 1821, making it sufficiently large to achieve self-sufficiency and growth.
Although the legacy of convict transportation may cast a shadow over Australia, it is undeniable that the country would not be what it is today without them.
by
Professor P.T. Brown