Australian History: Who were the convicts?
The majority of the 165,000 convicts transported to Australia were poor and illiterate, victims of the Poor Laws and social conditions in Georgian England. Eight out of ten prisoners were convicted for larceny of some description. However, apart from unskilled and semi-skilled labourers from Britain and Ireland, transportees came from astonishingly varied ethnic backgrounds: American, Corsican, French, Hong Kong, Chinese, West Indian, Indian, and African. There were political prisoners and prisoners of war, as well as a motley collection of professionals such as lawyers, surgeons and teachers. The average age of a transportee was 26, and their number included children who were either convicted of crimes or were making the journey with their mothers. Just one in six transportees was a woman. Depending on the offence, for the first 40 years of transportation convicts were sentenced to terms of seven years, 10 years, or life.
Governor Phillip left Sydney in December 1792. By then the settlement had survived its first and worst five years. Sydney was a rough place but it was still there and growing. Between the period of Governor Phillip’s departure until 1821, there were four governors, John Hunter 1795-1800, Phillip King (1800-06), William Bligh (1806-08) and Lachlan Macquarie (1810-21). Corruption was rife among the officers and government officials who would order in cargo including rum from overseas and have them sent to New South Wales where they’d keep the food in storage until people in the colony were desparate to buy. Then they would sell it at a higher price. Two governors, John Hunter and Phillip King, did not like this, however they failed to stop the corruption and subsequently replaced.