Page 78 - All About History - Issue 11-14

Transportation was a legal way of sending and six criminal transports housing 736 convicts rabble he was presented with, he was appalled
convicted criminals abroad to labour in the new in total. The fleet’s admiral was Arthur Phillip, a at the treatment the courts had meted out to the
colonies. The act allowed for two categories of working-class military man who had ascended prisoners while their fate was decided.
punishment for two different types of offence: through the merchant navy from apprentice at 13, Although the cramped
for those that would normally receive ‘Benefit before giving up his civilian rank to join the Royal conditions that awaited them
of Clergy’, the judge could hand out seven years Navy as a seaman two years later. He was a self- below deck could hardly be
of overseas labour instead of a branding or a taught navigator and excelled in other maritime considered comfortable,
whipping. Capital crimes could be repealed at the disciplines, which gave him a distinct edge over his Philip had hoped that each
discretion of the judge and, if he was in a merciful peers and allowed him to take charge of his own convict was at least being
mood, a death sentence could be reduced to a fleet as admiral aged 50. He was also a disciplined, given the best chance of
minimum 14-year transportation sentence. It solved far-sighted and pragmatic leader who believed surviving the journey that
the pressing issues of cheap labour in the new slavery would only hinder the progress of the new their ‘pardon’ afforded
world, removed criminals from the streets and colonies, yet wasn’t afraid to use the hangman’s them: the sorry
emptied jails; for the British government it seemed noose to make an example of those convicts who state that they
like the perfect solution. Thus Britain forged its broke the rules repeatedly. were marched
new colonies on the blood and sweat of convicts. Only a few of those aboard had been given from the jail
This was such a popular form of punishment that transportation sentences for violent crimes
50,000 people were transported to America from that would otherwise have necessitated a
1718 to 1786, and when the American Revolution death penalty. Among those guilty of lesser
broke out, making transportation to New England crimes were 70-year old Elizabeth Beckford, given
impossible, Britain didn’t consider changing its seven years for stealing a wheel of cheese, 11-year
policy but simply looked to a vast wilderness old James Grace, transported for stealing ribbon,
brimming with opportunity on the far side of the and nine-year old John Hudson, a chimney sweep
world: Australia. also given a disproportionately harsh sentence
The ‘First Fleet’, as it’s now known, set sail for for common larceny. Admiral Phillip had hoped
Australia on 13 May 1787 and consisted of 11 ships: for tradesmen to set up the new colony but not Captain James Cook
claimed Australia for Britain
two armed Royal Navy vessels, three supply ships only was he dismayed by the largely unskilled

People in 18th-century Britain used the term ‘criminal’
in much the same way we do today: someone who
committed a crime and was taken to court was a
‘criminal’ and was referred to as such. It didn’t matter
if they were a starving waif stealing an apple from a
grocer’s stall for the first time, the branding didn’t
distinguish them from a highwayman, murderer or
career house breaker. This wasn’t just a semantic quirk,
it was generally held that anyone who would stoop
to commit a crime was already morally bankrupt and
was starting a spiral down into a life of villainy, if they
weren’t there already there.
There was a real underclass of criminality that had
developed as a result of a justice system that didn’t
believe in rehabilitation and simply flogged, branded,
executed or gave hard labour to miscreants and
hardened lawbreakers alike. In the filthy, crowded
cities of 18th-century Britain and with no social
security net or hint of state support short of the
dreaded workhouses, certain types of criminal stuck
together. Prostitutes, beggars, thieves, con men
(or mountebanks, as they were known) and more,
benefited from a hierarchy that was formed, from
which a kind of ‘master’ criminal was drawn.

Admiral Arthur Phillip was the
first governor of New South
Wales, and founder of Sydney

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