Link to - CONVICT
SHIPS
Aboriginals were the first
Australian Settlers arriving from South-East Asia, around 40,000
years before the European's explored Australia in the 1600's. The
first white settlers were mainly convicts sent from Great Britain.
The population of Great Britain in the 1770's
was around 9 million, about 1 million of whom were criminals. Gaols
were overcrowded and Britain transported many criminals to America.
In 1783, after America's independence from Britain, they refused to
take any more British prisoners and consequently Britain decided all
persons convicted of crimes between 1783 and 1787 would be
transported to New South Wales Australia (New Holland). Arthur
Phillips was commissioned as first governor of New South Wales(NSW).
He departed England on 15 May 1787 with the First Fleet, carrying
around 1500 men, women and children.
The First Fleet was comprised of 3 Naval ships,
3 supply ships and 6 convict ships. The Naval Ships carried Arthur
Phillip and his wife and children, his staff and servants, doctors,
a surveyor, a chaplain, a judge, marines, crewmen and their wives
and children. The supply ships carried enough supplies to last two
years including food, clothes, building materials, plant seeds,
furniture etc. The convict ships had specially built quarters below
decks while pens holding poultry, goats, sheep, dogs and cats were
above decks.
The ships arrived in Botany Bay (Captain Cook's
landing place) on 18th January 1788 but upon arrival Governor
Phillip decided Botany Bay an unsuitable site for the 'settlement'
and proceeded on to Port Jackson which he later described as "the
finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line
may ride in the most perfect security".
The majority of the 165,000 convicts sent to
Australia were poor and illiterate and most had been convicted of
larceny. Most of these convicts did not serve the full term of their
sentence as good behaviour enabled them to obtain 'A Ticket of
Freedom', 'Certificate of Freedom' or complete Pardon. Many of them
were instrumental in settling outlying areas of Sydney.