Convict Guide - published 2006 - Manual / Resource - Page 15
Guide to New South Wales State archives relating to convicts and convict administration
Phillip appointed
Governor of New
South Wales
In October 1786 Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed Governor of New
South Wales and after the necessary preparations had been completed,
the First Fleet set sail on 13 May 1787, arriving at Botany Bay with
some 775 convicts on 18 January 1788. Eight days later Phillip moved
the fleet to Port Jackson where he had discovered a more suitable site.
Appointment of
Commissioner Bigge
From the outset convicts were used as a labour force, initially working
for the government on necessary public works projects, then for the
private settlers who began arriving in 1793. Once the early problems
had been overcome settlement expanded and by 1821 New South Wales
had taken shape as a colony in which farming, grazing, commerce and a
variety of other economic activities flourished. The British government
had since 1793 been too preoccupied with the wars with France to pay
much attention to what was going on in New South Wales. Once
hostilities ended in 1815, however, attention was turned to this distant
outpost and in 1819 the government sent Commissioner J. T. Bigge to
report on whether the 'system of transportation to New South Wales
should be reformed or abandoned'. (Ritchie, Punishment and Profit,
pp.57ff). Bigge favoured continuing the system, but urged that it be
made more punitive and run more economically. He believed that
tickets of leave and pardons should be made more difficult to obtain and
that convicts should work for private settlers in the interior, rather than
be allowed to congregate around the amenities and pleasures of the
townships. In this way transportation would be made more of a
deterrent and at the same time pastoralists and wool growers, whose
activities Bigge greatly favoured, would be provided with the labour
force they needed to expand their activities. Convicts could thus be used
to serve imperial as well as penal ends.
Bigge's recommendations were accepted in their entirety and
implemented under Macquarie's successors. (Ritchie, Punishment and
Profit, pp.213ff). Governors Brisbane, Darling and Bourke pursued a
policy of increased severity towards convicts, most of who were
assigned to private service. Penal settlements were successively opened
at Port Macquarie, Moreton Bay and Norfolk Island to deal with convicts
who broke the law after reaching New South Wales. (Shaw, Convicts
and the Colonies, p.203).
Growing criticism of
convict system
During the 1830s the convict system came under growing criticism in
England from humanitarians, penal reformers and the followers of the
colonial reformer, Edward Gibbon Wakefield. (Shaw, Convicts and the
Colonies, pp.266ff, Hughes, Fatal Shore, pp.493ff). They questioned
whether, despite the changes that had been introduced, transportation
was acting as a deterrent to crime, claiming that the system was unduly
costly and that assignment was too much of a lottery. Some convicts, it
was alleged, found themselves in the hands of masters who treated
them well, while others were treated as little more than slaves. Crime
was said to have increased, not only in Britain but also in the colony,
producing an unduly depraved society. By this stage growing numbers
of migrants who possessed manual skills rather than capital had arrived.
Unlike their wealthy counterparts who brought capital to invest in the
pastoral industry, they did not welcome convicts, viewing them as a
threat to their livelihood and a moral blot on the colony.
Abolition of
transportation
The question arose as to whether, now that New South Wales contained
so many free and freed people, it was desirable for transportation to
continue. In 1837 the British government appointed a Select Committee
of the House of Commons to investigate the matter. It was chaired by
the anti-transportationist, William Molesworth, and was composed
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State Records Authority of New South Wales