The Old Bailey and the Transportation Act

In 1718 the first Transportation Act allowed the courts in Britain, including the Old Bailey, to sentence felons guilty of offences to seven years transportation to America.

The Act also allowed those guilty of capital offences and pardoned by the King to be sentenced to transportation, and it established returning from transportation as a capital offence.

Under the terms of the Act, those sentenced to death could be granted a royal pardon on condition of being transported for fourteen years or life. From 1739, a number of such cases appear in the Old Bailey Proceedings.

In 1776 transportation was halted by the outbreak of war with America. Although convicts continued to be sentenced to transportation, male convicts were confined to hard labour in hulks on the Thames, while women were imprisoned (often in Newgate prison).

In 1787, transportation resumed with a new destination: Australia. This was seen as a more serious punishment than imprisonment, since it involved exile to a distant land.

In the early nineteenth century, as part of the revisions of the criminal law, transportation for life was substituted as the maximum punishment for several offences which had previously been punishable by death.

Transportation to Australia

Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet, comprising 11 ships and around 1,350 people (including a 'cargo' of around 780 British convicts), arrived at Botany Bay between 18 and 20 January 1788. However, this area was deemed to be unsuitable for settlement and they moved north to Port Jackson (Sydney harbour) on 26 January 1788.

The Second Fleet's arrival in 1790 provided badly needed food and supplies. However, the newly arrived convicts were too ill, with many near to death, to be useful to the colony. The Second Fleet became known as the 'Death Fleet' - 278 of the convicts and crew died on the voyage to Australia, compared to only 48 on the First Fleet.

Twenty per cent of these first convicts were women, including our famous ancestor, Mary Wade.

From 1788 to 1823, the Colony of New South Wales was officially a penal colony comprised mainly of convicts, marines and the wives of the marines. (The first free settlers did not arrive until 1793.)

While the vast majority of the convicts to Australia were English (70%), Irish (24%) or Scottish (5%), the convict population had a multicultural flavour. Some convicts had been sent from various British outposts such as India and Canada. There were also Maoris from New Zealand, Chinese from Hong Kong and slaves from the Caribbean.

Most of the convicts were thieves who had been convicted in England. Only those sentenced in Ireland were likely to have been convicted of rural crimes. Transportation was an integral part of the English and Irish systems of punishment. It was a way to deal with increased poverty and the severity of the sentences for larceny. Simple larceny, or robbery, could mean transportation for seven years. Compound larceny - stealing goods worth more than a shilling (about $AUS50 in today's money) - meant death by hanging.

Men had usually been before the courts a few times before being transported, whereas women were more likely to be transported for a first offence. The great majority of convicts were working men and women with a range of skills.

When the last shipment of convicts disembarked in Western Australia in 1868, the total number of transported convicts stood at around 162,000 men and women. They were transported here on 806 ships.

The transportation of convicts to Australia ended at a time when the colonies' population stood at around one million, compared to 30,000 in 1821. By the mid-1800s there were enough people here to take on the work, and enough people who needed the work. The colonies could therefore sustain themselves and continue to grow. The convicts had served their purpose.

read more about the transportation of convicts to Australia.

read more about convicts and their way of life after they arrived in Australia.