ISBN: 9781526718372
Published: 7th November 2018
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £15.99
Format: Hardback
Blurb
In the eighty years between 1787 and 1868 more than 160,000 men, women and children convicted of everything from picking pockets to murder were sentenced to be transported ‘beyond the seas’. These convicts were destined to serve out their sentences in the empire’s most remote colony: Australia. Through vivid real-life case studies and famous tales of the exceptional and extraordinary, Convicts in the Colonies narrates the history of convict transportation to Australia – from the first to the final fleet.
Using the latest original research, Convicts in the Colonies reveals a fascinating century-long history of British convicts unlike any other. Covering everything from crime and sentencing in Britain and the perilous voyage to Australia, to life in each of the three main penal colonies – New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land, and Western Australia – this book charts the lives and experiences of the men and women who crossed the world and underwent one of the most extraordinary punishment in history.
My Review
The author charts the journey of criminals from court to colony during the eighty years of transportation from Britain to the Australian colonies. The biographies she presents show the variety of causes for transportation, the conditions in which people were kept before and during transportation, and the different outcomes for transportees. Some did well in Australia becoming wealthy and well-known once they received their freedom, but most lived in obscurity, or were in and out of the penal system as they may have, had they stayed in Britain.
I enjoyed this book and found the stories very affecting. I also enjoyed the detailed descriptions of life in prison, hulks, ships, penal colony and free life in colonial Australia.
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