The little-known story of Australia’s convict women – Australian Geographic

Transported to a distant land for crimes of poverty, Australia’s female convicts were charged with the task to tame and have children with convict men.

It’s estimated that 164,000 convicts were shipped to Australia between 1788 and 1868 under the British government’s new Transportation Act — a humane alternative to the death penalty. Approximately 25,000 of these convicts were women, charged with petty crimes such as stealing bread.

“Half the women landed in mainland Australia and half in Tasmania.  Less than 2 per cent were violent felons. For crimes of poverty, they were typically sentenced to six months inside Newgate Prison, a six-month sea journey, seven to 10 years hard labour and exile for life. Clearly, the scope of their punishments far exceeded the scope of their crimes,” Deborah Swiss, the author of The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia’s Convict Women, tells Australian Geographic.

Prior to their voyage to Australia, most of the women were incarcerated at Newgate Prison in London, which Deborah says was often referred to as “the prototype of hell”. It was here that the women came into contact with Elizabeth Gurney Fry, the first internationally known female social reformer.

Elizabeth gained the nickname the ‘Angel of Prisons’ for her work with female inmates at Newgate, who she regularly visited for over three decades.

“Inside Newgate, [Elizabeth] set up a school room where children imprisoned with their mothers could learn to read and write. She also taught the female convicts how to sew so that they would have a skill once freed in Australia,” says Deborah.

According to Deborah, the Transportation Act had a very clear economic motive. “The British wanted to beat the French to colonise Australia because it was rich in timber and flax.  It was also social engineering in that the British government wanted to remove ‘the unsightly poor’ from their streets.

“The convict men were transported first and soon outnumbered women nine to one in Australia.  You can’t have a colony without women so the female convicts were specifically targeted by the British government as ‘tamers and breeders’.”

“The miracle of their story is that the vast majority of these women went on to become loving mothers and grandmothers. They became the founding mothers of modern Australia and 22 per cent of Australians today are descended from these remarkable convict women and men.”

Source: The little-known story of Australia’s convict women – Australian Geographic

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