Australian History: More Jails needed
When Cook returned home, England was going through some tough times. The country life was changing. Small, poor farmers were losing their land. They had nowhere to grow crops or graze their animals. Many lost their jobs because new machines were invented to do their work. Many people were out of work. Others didn’t earn enough to live on, even though they worked for long hours in terrible conditions in factories and mines. In the 1770’s there were about 9million people in England and 1 million of them were very poor.
This led to an increase in crimes and criminals. About one in every twenty persons was a criminal. The prison system was becoming overcrowded. They were damp, dirty, stinking, unhealthy places. Men, women and children were crowded in together and small time thieves were herded in with hardened criminals. Toilets were just open trenches at the side of the cells. Sometimes prisoners had to be chained up because their prison walls were crumbling. Things went from bad to worse. In 1775 the American colonies went to war with Britain because they wanted become independent. They won the war and in 1783 refused to take any more of England’s prisoners. The prisons became even more overflowed. As prisons became more and more crowded, the English government had to come up with ideas to solve the problem. It was decided that Botany Bay in New South Wales would make a good place for a convict dump. Joseph Banks and James Matra sailed to New South Wales with James Cook. Botany Bay, they both thought, had all the advantages the British government wanted. An admiral, Sir George Grey thought the same way.