Members there is a Handout for this talk in the 'Kent FHS Event Handout Archive' under KFHS Resources in the Members Area.
Helen Smith, our speaker, is Kent FHS’s member representative in Australian. Her interesting and detailed talk was full of hints and ideas as she went through sources to track the lives of our convict ancestors after they reached Australia.
Helen said she would not focus on UK sources in this talk although, we must not ignore what happened on the UK side. Transportees could be from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales plus other parts of the British Empire and their trials held in all of those places with about 20% taking place in The Old Bailey and these records are online.
Not all of those sentenced to be transported were sent to Australia, some were sent to places such as Bermuda, Gibraltar etc. Theft was the crime most likely to receive a sentence of transportation. However, some offences which carried the death penalty might be commuted to transportation, except for the most serious of crimes like murder. Helen advised that it is very important to know about a convict’s arrest, trial, conviction, and any appeals for clemency which she said are hugely interesting.
Useful too are the Prison Hulk Registers and the Transportation Registers. Convicts were held on Prison Hulks whilst awaiting transportation but about a quarter never got on a ship. They either died before they could take ship, were not fit enough to make the journey or served their whole sentence on a hulk. Therefore, it is most important to check that your ancestor actually departed before looking for them overseas.
The sentence we hear most often was 7 or 14 years, but some were given 10 years or even life. After serving a number of years convicts of good behaviour might have their sentence shortened. One might then assume they would have left for home. But this was often not the case. Some did not want to return, whilst those that did want to go back found the costs of travel prohibitive. Plus they also had to have an ‘absolute’ pardon. If they returned with only a ‘conditional’ pardon they could be arrested, given a further sentence and returned to Australia. Hence it was far easier to send for family to join them as free settlers.
Helen said it is essential to know the dates of your ancestor’s departure and arrival, the port they arrived at and the name of the ship on which they sailed. Convicts were ever after referred to in records with the name of the ship they arrived on after their name. Over the years a merchant ship might make several voyages to Australia and the voyage number will be noted by the name of the ship. If there was more than one ship with the same name each would carry another number to differentiate between them. There are Facebook sites for particular ships which could be worth investigating.
Between 1788 and 1868, 160, 000 convicts were transported to Australia. That is to: New South Wales 1788 -1842, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) 1804-1853, and Western Australia 1850-1868. All these areas have websites with useful data.
At first it was thought unnecessary to have any medical personnel on board the Merchant vessels used for transportation but on the first sailings there were so many fatalities that Royal Naval surgeons were appointed to serve on Merchant ships carrying convicts. James Quested, one of Helen's convict ancestors, served as a surgeon's assistant during his transportation. RN surgeons were responsible for the health of all those on board and also for recording details about a convict's health and behaviour plus noting down their physical description. Physical descriptions became quite important to the authorities as a means to keep track of people. There are RN surgeons’ records for 1817 to 1856 available on Ancestry, searchable by either convict or ship’s name.
Initially Australia was more like an open prison. As at first there was nothing there it was a start-up colony trying to be self-sufficient without knowing quite how to do it. Helen said that record keeping can be variable early on, although a lot more work on the first years has been carried out recently.
At first convicts could work for themselves, after their official day’s work was completed. Although, after 1822 they had to have served several years of their sentence and have a ticket of leave to be able to work for themselves.
Helen recommended two books to help understand the early years:
• Mollie Gillen ‘The founders of Australia 1989’
• Michael Flynn ‘The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790’.
Helen suggested starting your research with Newspapers as the first Australian papers carried absolutely everything, from shipping notices to court cases to government notices etc. Newspapers can be found on TROVE which she described as your friend! Trove is a free online collaboration between the National Library of Australia and hundreds of Partner organisations and it has a wealth of information to aid those researching ancestors in Australia
Another source Helen gave for the early years of the colony was the website of the Fellowship of First Fleeters. They have researched the descendants of those convicts who arrived on the First Fleet, 1788-1800..
Many convicts served their time without getting into trouble but for those that reoffended there were secondary places of penal servitude to which could be sent. There were several secondary penal colonies at; Norfolk Island, Van Diemen’s Land, Port Macquarie etc. Helen said they are well documented.
In Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) convicts were assigned to private settlers who took over the government’s responsibility for feeding and housing them. However, during hard times private settlers often returned their charges to the government to look after. Tasmanian Libraries has an online surname search database plus other useful topics.
Helen presented a case history of James Quested, giving an account of his life as a convict and after his sentence was completed and he was pardoned. This introduced us to the many and varied documents that could be generated during a person's time as a convict, and after being pardoned.
For many convicts their lives in Australia and those of their descendants were a vast improvement on how life might have been had they remained in the UK
At the end of the talk Helen took questions and was asked about the ending of Australia as a penal colony. Would the gold rush have had anything to do with it? Helen said the ending of the penal colony was the UK's prison reforms and the 1857 Act that abolished transportation. But by this time Australia had become reluctant to take more convicts as they wanted to move on from their penal colony image.
As to the gold rush it is significant if you have misplaced an ancestor in the mid-19th century. The reason could be because they left to search for gold. They had to have a permit to mine for gold and you may find them in records of permits. Helen suggested getting in touch with one of the History Groups in Western Australia to find out more about the gold rush. Several of the audience did have ancestors go missing in that period and were delighted to be told of another avenue of research to try.
This was an excellent talk and is to be recommended for anyone searching for convict ancestors in the Australian colonies. After the talk those who attended were sent a very informative handout.
Report by Tricia Baxter
Speakers Secretary for Kent FHS