Convict Guide - published 2006 - Manual / Resource - Page 27
Guide to New South Wales State archives relating to convicts and convict administration
Chapter 2: Assignment
2.1
Background to the records
Early Government
employment
Under Governor Phillip most convicts were kept in government hands to
construct buildings and roads and cultivate the land needed to establish
the settlement and produce sufficient food. Once the bare necessities of
life had been made available, convicts performed a broader variety of
government tasks including administrative work.
Convict work gangs
Phillip's successors continued to make use of convicts. Macquarie, in
particular, had an extensive public works programme that derived in
part from his ambitious plans for the colony and partly from the fact
that after 1815 the number of convicts arriving exceeded the capacity of
private settlers to employ them. He employed convicts in supervised
gangs, which were used to construct roads and public buildings in
Sydney, Parramatta, Windsor and Liverpool. From 1819 convicts
working in these gangs as well as those engaged on other public works
at Sydney were housed in the Hyde Park Barracks.
The British Government viewed the retention of so many government
convicts as an extravagance. As a result of Bigge’s Reports there was a
reduction in public works and a marked increase in the number of
convicts assigned to private settlers, especially in rural areas.
Stricter conditions
for government
convicts
Governor Brisbane tightened up the regulations for the employment of
convicts and made government service more punitive. Non-labouring
tasks for convicts were markedly reduced and only small numbers of the
best behaved were employed as constables, hospital workers and
domestics. (Australian Encyclopaedia, 4th ed., vol.3, p.48).
From 1823 clearing gangs, iron gangs and road parties carried out many
public works thus contributing to the development of the colony.
Government employment was now mostly regarded as a punishment to
be endured by offenders, who had either been returned by private
employers or whose bad behaviour made them unfit for assignment.
Convicts engaged on the gangs were closely guarded by soldiers and
housed in stockades. The worst of the secondary offenders were sent to
penal settlements at Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Moreton Bay, Norfolk
Island and Port Arthur.
Assignment on
arrival
Upon arrival in the colony convicts were either assigned to a settler or
kept to work for the government, which determined the manner of their
employment and the area to which they were allocated.
Assigned male convicts were generally employed as field labourers, or
tradesmen; women became domestic servants. Government convicts
were most often engaged on public works projects.
Work assignment
for female convicts
The majority of women convicts were engaged in the manufacture of
wool and linen at the Female Factory. A smaller number were employed
as hospital nurses and midwives, as servants to officers, and in caring
for orphans.
Private employers
After the opening years the majority of convicts were assigned to
private employers who were responsible for their discipline and provided
lodging, food and clothing in return for their labour.
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State Records Authority of New South Wales