Convict women in Australia

Convict women in Australia were British prisoners whom the government increasingly sent out during the era of transportation (1787-1868) in order to develop the penal outpost of New South Wales (now a state of Australia) into a viable colony.

These women faced extreme difficulty in achieving freedom, solvency and respectability. They would be employed in ‘factories’ (equivalent of the English workhouse) but often had to find their own accommodation, and would be under great pressure to pay for it with sexual services. In this way, all the women convicts tended to be regarded as prostitutes. But it is a popular misconception that they had originally been convicted of prostitution, as this was not a transportable offence.

Owing to industrialisation and the growth of city-slums, as well as the unemployment of soldiers and sailors following the American War of Independence, England was experiencing a high crime rate around 1780. The prisons were overcrowded; there was no attempt to segregate the prisoners by their offence, age or sex.

In response to growing crime, the British government began to issue harsh punishments such as public hangings or exile. During the 18th and 19th centuries many prisoners were transported to Australia to carry out their sentence, a relatively small percentage of whom were women (between 1788 and 1852, male convicts outnumbered the female convicts six to one). Convict women varied from small children to old women, but the majority were in their twenties or thirties. The British Government called for more women of “marriageable” age to be sent to Australia in order to promote family development for emancipated convicts and free settlers.

Despite the belief that convict women during the transportation period were all prostitutes, no women were transported for that offence. The majority of women sent to Australia were convicted for what would now be considered minor offences (such as petty theft), most did not receive sentences of more than seven years. Many women were driven to prostitution upon their arrival in Australia as means of survival because they were often required to house themselves or buy clothing and bedding on their own.

The First Fleet was the first set of ships to transport convicts to Australia, it sailed in 1787. Ships continued to transport convicts to Western Australia until 1868. The beginning of the transportation years brought ships at inconsistent times and the death rate on these ships remained high; in the Second Fleet, 267 out of 1,006 prisoners died at sea. However, at the peak of transportation, the death rate was a little more than one percent.

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