The convict era of Western Australia was the period during which Western Australia was a penal colony of the British Empire. Although it received small numbers of juvenile offenders from 1842, it was not formally constituted as a penal colony until 1849. Between 1850 and 1868, 9,721 convicts were transported to Western Australia on 43 convict ship voyages. Transportation ceased in 1868, at which time convicts outnumbered free settlers 9,700 to 7,300, and it was many years until the colony ceased to have any convicts in its care.
Convicts at King George Sound The first convicts to arrive in what is now Western Australia were convicts of the New South Wales penal system, sent to King George Sound in 1826 to help establish a settlement there. At that time, the western portion of Australia was unclaimed land known as New Holland. Fears that France would lay claim to the land prompted the Governor of New South Wales, Ralph Darling, to send Major Edmund Lockyer, with troops and 23 convicts, to establish the King George Sound settlement. Lockyer's party arrived on 25 December 1826. A convict presence was maintained at the settlement for nearly four years. In November 1830, control of the settlement was transferred to the Swan River Colony, and the troops and convicts withdrew.
Free settlement to penal colony In December 1828, the British Colonial Office agreed to establish a colony at Swan River in Western Australia. It then issued a circular outlining the conditions reedy which of settlement, which stated, "It is not intended that any convicts or other description of Prisoners, be sent to this new settlement." That Swan River Colony would not be a penal colony was highly attractive to many of the potential settlers, and the condition was mentioned often by promoters during the period of Swan River mania.
Swan River Colony was established as a "free settlement" in June 1829. Still, in early September the merchant vessel Anglesea grounded at Gage Roads, at the mouth of the Swan River. She did not break up, as had been expected, but instead survived to become Western Australia's first prison hulk.
For the first fifteen years, the people of the colony were generally opposed to accepting convicts, although the idea was in constant circulation almost from the start. Early in 1831, the Colonel Peter Latour asked permission to transport 300 Swing Riots convicts, but was refused. Nonetheless, the idea was under discussion later that year, with the Fremantle Observer editorialising on the need for convict labour, and George Fletcher Moore writing in his diary:
In 1834, Captain Frederick Irwin suggested that the colony take in some Indian convicts for use as labour for the construction of public works. Towards the end of that year, a meeting of settlers at King George Sound passed a motion, signed by sixteen persons, that convict labour was needed for land clearing and road works, but this was met with little support in other parts of the colony. Three years later, a similar motion was considered but defeated by the Western Australian Agricultural Society.
Introduction of Parkhurst apprentices Early in 1839, the Governor of Western Australia, John Hutt, received from the Colonial Office a circular asking if the colony would be prepared to accept juvenile prisoners who had first been reformed in "penitentiaries especially adapted for the purpose of their education and reformation". After seeking comment from the Western Australian Agricultural Society, Hutt responded that "the majority of the community would not object to boys not above 15 years of age", but that the labour market could not support more than 30 boys per year. 234 juvenile prisoners were subsequently transported from Parkhurst Prison to Western Australia between 1842 and 1849. These Parkhurst apprentices were then "apprenticed" to local employers.
As Western Australia was not yet a penal colony, contemporary documents scrupulously avoided referring to the Parkhurst apprentices as "convicts". Most historians have since maintained this distinction. An opposing view, held for example by Andrew Gill, is that the Parkhurst apprentices were convicts, and that their apprenticeships constituted convict assignment.
Agitation for convicts
Serious lobbying for Western Australia to become a penal colony began in 1844, when members of the York Agricultural Society brought forward a motion stating:
Nothing concrete came of the motion, but James Battye nonetheless identifies it as a turning point:
In 1845, no less than three memorials were circulated requesting the establishment of a penal colony in Western Australia. Two of them were aborted, but the third resulted in a petition by the York Agricultural Society to the Legislative Council on the subject. The York Agricultural Society, which consisted mostly of pastoralists, argued that the colony's economy was on the brink of collapse due to an extreme shortage of labour. Pamela Statham has examined these claims, and found that the colony was in fact oversupplied with labour at the time, the main obstacles to progress being a shortage of money capital, and the lack of markets for the colony's produce. Only in the pastoral sector was there a severe labour shortage. The York Agricultural Society can therefore be seen as an influential lobby group representing the interests of a small but influential minority.
The York Agricultural Society's 1845 petition was unanimously rejected by the Legislative Council, which stated:
Over the following two years, however, the membership of the Council changed substantially. Three new members, Thomas Yule, Edward Barrett-Lennard and Rivett Henry Bland, were pro-convict pastoralists, giving the pastoralists a significant representation in Council. During 1846, the York Agricultural Society began circulating yet another petition. This petition appears to have convinced a substantial proportion of the colony of the merits of becoming a penal settlement. It obtained many signatures, and a number of newspapers began to support the idea. The petition was debated by the Legislative Council in July and August 1847; it was rejected, but forwarded to the British Colonial Office nonetheless. To address some of the problems raised by the petition, the Legislative Council took a number of decisions, one of which was to ask the British government to send out a small number of convicts for a limited term.
When the reports of the Council's debates on the introduction of convicts arrived in Britain in early 1848, the British government took great interest in them. By this time, the only British colonies still willing to accept convicts were Canada and Van Diemen's Land, and these only under protest. A tentative attempt to institute a penal system within England had caused a public outcry, and had been suspended. With nowhere to send its convicts, the numbers in British jails had increased until the situation had become urgent.
In July 1848, Charles Fitzgerald was appointed Governor of Western Australia. The issue of convicts was almost certainly discussed with Fitzgerald before he departed for Western Australia, and it is probable that he was instructed to promote convictism, as he took a strongly pro-convict stance throughout his governorship. On his arrival in Western Australia in August 1848, he presented the Colonial Office's reply to Western Australia's request. Britain had refused to send convicts for a fixed term, but offered to send out first offenders in the final years of their terms. This was readily agreed to by the original petitioners, and also attracted some wider public support.
Implicit in Britain's offer was the understanding that the Swan River Colony would not become a regular penal settlement, in which Britain retained responsibility for managing and funding the penal system. Rather, it would take full responsibility for the convicts that it accepted. In February 1849, a public meeting was held to discuss the issue, from which a majority view emerged in support of an alternative proposal put forward by Lionel Samson. Samson argued that the colony needed both labour and capital, and pointed out that under Britain's proposal the colony would effectively become a penal colony but would not receive the usual investment of capital from Britain. In March, Fitzgerald was able to tell the Colonial Office:
Fitzgerald's message was received by the Colonial Office in July 1849. By that time, the Colonial Office had already acted to formally constitute Western Australia as a penal settlement. After receiving Fitzgerald's missive, the Colonial Office decided to send out about 100 convicts under the conditions of the original proposal. When news of this reached the Swan River Colony, the colonists protested that the original proposal was never agreed to by the majority of settlers. They demanded that the British Government either agree to fund the colony's convict establishment, or cancel altogether their plans to send convicts. Eventually the British Government agreed to the colonists' demands for funding, but since the expenditure was not warranted for only 100 convicts, it was decided to greatly increase the number of convicts sent.
Convict era
The first 75 convicts arrived in Fremantle on 1 June 1850. Daniel Scott, the harbour-master was able to rent out his wool warehouse as the only secure place to keep them.Behind Bars , Jen Hamilton, Construction in Focus, accessed August 2013 The convicts that had arrived on Scindian used Scott's warehouse as their only home until they had constructed their own convict establishment.The Convict Era , Fremantle Prison, accessed 15 August 2013
Between 1850 and 1868, 9721 convicts were transported to Western Australia on 43 convict ship voyages. At the request of the colony, convicts were initially selected for transportation in accordance with three conditions: that no female convicts be transported; that no political prisoners be transported; and that no convicts convicted of serious crimes be transported. The first of these was honoured throughout the convict era; and the second until 1868, when the last convict ship to Western Australia, , was sent out with 62 Fenian prisoners on board. The third condition, that convicts not be convicted of serious crimes, was observed only for the first couple of years, and then only because the absence of a suitable jail would have made management of such convicts difficult. Later, more serious offenders were sent. It is a tradition that Western Australia's convicts were of a "better class" than those of Australia's other penal colonies, it has shown that this was not the case. Indeed, as Britain's penal system gradually reformed, it began to deal with more of its minor offenders at home, and therefore transported a higher proportion of serious offenders to Western Australia. From 1851 to 1853, as the number of convicts arriving in the colony increased the mood of the free population changed from popular support to one of great concern:
In November 1857, John Hutt, representing a number of business interests wrote to British Government to suggest the colony as a place to transport sepoys who had rebelled during the Indian Mutiny of that year.IOLR IPP 188/49 John Hutt, to Governor General in Council, London 26 Nov 1857 A number of public meetings were held in the colony to discuss the proposal which supported the proposal.Reported in Perth Gazette, 12 February 1858 The idea and the reaction of the colony to it received attention all over Australia and was ultimately rejectedPerth Inquirer, 11 June 1858 by the British Government.
Convict life