Sentenced beyond the Seas: Australia's early convict records

The eleven ships of the First Fleet comprised two naval escorts, HMS Sirius and HMS Supply; six convict transports: Alexander, Scarborough, Charlotte, Lady Penrhyn, Prince of Wales and Friendship; plus three storeships: Fishburn, Golden Grove and Borrowdale.

‘Indent’ is short for ‘indenture’. An indenture is a legal agreement or contract. Contractors agreed to transport the convicts to New South Wales. Upon arrival the labour of the convicts was assigned to the Governor for the remainder of their sentences. Indentures are the basic convict document recording their names, where they were tried and when they were tried and the lengths of their sentences.

Orders in Council are official documents recording decisions of the King in Council. Where convicts had already been sentenced to transportation to America or Africa the Orders in Council were required to change their destination to ‘the eastern coast of New South Wales or some one or other of the islands adjacent’.

Transportation of convicts from England to America had been practised until the British colonists there declared their independence in 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. Other destinations for transportation were then considered, including places in Africa such as Das Voltas Bay on the South African coast and the island of Lemaine in Gambia. Some convicts had been sent to the Gold Coast but many of these died soon after their arrival. New South Wales was chosen as a suitable place for transportation in 1786.

The Orders in Council do not necessarily record those who were to be transported by a particular ship. In some cases the Orders in Council were later annotated with the name of a ship or ships.

The numbering of the ships is based on that used in Charles Bateson, The Convict Ships 1787-1868, Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1983. The number without brackets refers to vessels of that name; the number in brackets to the voyages of the vessel. For example Friendship II (1) means it was the first voyage to the colony of the second ship called Friendship.

Orders in Council include lists of convicts intended to be transported and indentures include those intended to be transported on specific ships. Some convicts may not have been embarked, others may have been embarked but removed prior to the ship sailing, eg. due to poor health, and others may have been embarked on later ships. These convicts’ names may have been crossed of the lists.

Yes. Some convicts were convicted in other British colonies such as the Cape of Good Hope. Often these were soldiers or sailors.

‘Do’ is short for ‘ditto’, meaning the same as the entry above.

An emancipated convict, or emancipist, is one who has completed his sentence and is now free.

There are some annotations on the records in Sentenced beyond the Seas on what became of some of them. See the convict bibliography below for published works on the First Fleet, Second Fleet and specific ships.

The records were first kept by the Governor of the Colony of New South Wales or his Secretary. Later these records were kept by the Colonial Secretary. Some records were transferred to the Principal Superintendent of Convicts in 1828 [see NRS 1186] but the original indents remained with the Colonial Secretary’s Office.

The two volumes of Alphabetical Indents form an index to NRS 1150, Convict Indents, First Fleet, Second Fleet and ships to 1801 for the years 1788 to 1800. The pages in NRS 1150 which bear convict names were numbered in pencil with the number spelt out in words, or longhand. The Alphabetical Indents record the longhand number and the pencilled number of the convict on that page, in the right‑hand column of the entry as shown below:

It appears that between 1822 and 1828 a clerk created the Alphabetical Indents as a means of finding details of convicts who had arrived in the period 1788 to 1800.

The Orders in Council had not been sent out with the First Fleet. Copies of the Orders in Council for the First and Second Fleets were transmitted to Governor Phillip in Letter No.10 of the 19 February 1791. These were received by the Mary Ann transport which arrived 9 July 1791. (Historical Records of Australia (HRA) I, i, 214, 217, 224). Phillip had written on 9 July 1788, ‘The masters of the transports having left with the agents the bonds and whatever papers they received that related to the convicts, I have no account of the time for which the convicts are sentenced, or the dates of their convictions’ (HRA I, i, 57). Later indents were usually sent on the ships in the care of their masters but the Governors frequently requested to be supplied with the lists as they were not always received with the convicts.

There are longhand numbers (see above), page numbers for individual documents (often at the bottom of the pages) and page numbers for the collection of documents as a whole, eg. NRS 1150, [SZ115, p.21c]. (The latter can be used for citation purposes). Only the pages with lists of names have a longhand number (called the ‘ship page’ in the Early Convict Index).

Why are lists for some ships not included?

Some early lists of convict names are not included in NRS 1150, [SZ115] and [4/3999]. See the Chronological list of Convict Ships for references to these records, including NRS 1152-1154 [4/4000-4002] and NRS 12188, [4/4004] which have not been digitised in Sentenced beyond the Seas. Also complete lists for some ships such as the Lady Juliana were not received.

Transcription is a time-consuming task and names can be open to interpretation. Convict names and trial details have been included in the Early Convict Index. Orders in Council and Indentures (excluding the lists of convicts) have been transcribed.

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(for digitisation of HO 31/1 from AJCP Reel 1734)Bibliography

For a more detailed bibliography see the Guide to New South Wales State Archives Relating to Convicts and Convict Administration. Kingswood, NSW, State Archives and Records Authority of New South Wales, 2006, pp.356-359.

Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships 1787-1868. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 2004. (1st edition 1959.)

Castles, Alex C., An Introduction to Australian Legal History. The Sydney, Law Book Company, 1971.

Cobley, John, The Crimes of the First Fleet Convicts. London, Angus & Robertson, 1982 (1st published 1970.)

Cobley, John, The crimes of the Lady Juliana convicts, 1790. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1989.

Convicts to NSW 1788-1812 [CDrom]. Compiled by ABGR [Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record] Project for the Society of Australian Genealogists, 2002.

Costello, Con, Botany Bay: The story of the convicts transported from Ireland to Australia, 1791-1853. Cork, Mercia Press, 1987.

The Crimes and lives of the convicts arriving in Sydney on the 'Salamander' 1791 / compiled by members of the Tomaree Family History Group. Tomaree Family History Group, 2006.

Crittenden, Victor, A bibliography of the First Fleet. Australian National University Press, 1982.

Crittenden, Victor, The voyage of the First Fleet 1787-1788, taken from contemporary accounts / Victor Crittenden. Mulini Press, 1981.

Cumpston, J.S., Shipping Arrivals and Departures Sydney, 1788-1825. Canberra, The Author, 1964.

Flynn, Michael, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1993.

Flynn, Michael, Settlers and Seditionists: The People of the Convict ship Surprize 1794. Newtown, N.S.W., Angela Lind, 1994.

Frost, Alan. Botany Bay: The Real Story. Melbourne, Black Inc., 2011.

Frost, Alan. The First Fleet: The Real Story. Melbourne, Black Inc., 2011.

Genealogical Society of Victoria, Index to Convicts who arrived in NSW, 1788-1842 and an index to the ships that transported them [Microfiche]. Melbourne, The Society, 2000.

Gillen, Mollie, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, with Appendices by Yvonne Browning, Michael Flynn, Mollie Gillen. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1989.

Hall, Barbara, Of Infamous Character: The Convicts of the Boddingtons, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1793. Sydney, The Author, 2004.

Hall, Barbara, A Nimble Fingered Tribe: The Convicts of the Sugar Cane, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1793. Sydney, The Author, 2002.

Hall, Barbara, The Irish Vanguard: The Convicts of the Queen, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1791. Sydney, The Author, 2009.

Hall, Barbara, A Desperate Set of Villains: The Convicts of the Marquis Cornwallis, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1796. Sydney, The Author, 2000.

Hall, Barbara, Death or Liberty: The Convicts of the Britannia, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1797. Sydney, The Author, 2006.

Hall, Barbara, The Convicts of the Minerva, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1799. Sydney, The Author, 2015.

Hawkings, David T., Bound for Australia. Sydney, Library of Australia History, 1988.

Hazzard, Margaret, Punishment Short of Death: A History of the Penal Settlement at Norfolk Island. Melbourne, Hyland House, 1984.

Historical Records of New South Wales (HRNSW).

Historical Records of Australia (HRA).

Hunter, John. The First Fleet Journal of John Hunter, October 1786-August 1788. Edited, with an introduction by John Currey. Malvern, Vic., The Banks Society, 2011.

Martin, Ged, ed. The Founding of Australia: the Argument about Australia’s Origins. Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1978.

Martin, Megan, Settlers and convicts of the Bellona, 1793: a biographical dictionary / compiled by Megan Martin for the Bellona Muster Committee, 1793-1993. The Committee, 1992.

Neal, David, The Rule of Law in a Penal Colony: Law and Power in Early New South Wales. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Needham, Anne, The women of the 1790 Neptune: the seventy-eight convicts named on the cover and those who came free / Anne Needham; with Laurel Riddler ... [et al.] ; illustrations Phyllis Scott. The Author, 1992.

Noah, William, Voyage to Sydney in the ship Hillsborough, 1798-1799 and a description of the colony. [Facsimile edition.]. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1978.

Oldham, Wilfrid, Britain’s Convicts to the Colonies, edited by W. Hugh Oldham, commentary by Dan Byrnes. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1990.

Phillip, Arthur, The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay with an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson & Norfolk Island. London, John Stockdale, 1789. Facsimile ed. Richmond, Vic., Hutchinson, 1982

Richardson, G.D. The Archives of the Colonial Secretary’s Department, New South Wales, 1788-1856. Unpublished BA Thesis. [Copy held by NSW State Archives.]

Robson, L.L., The Convict Settlers of Australia: An Enquiry into the Origin and Character of the Convicts transported to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land 1787-1852. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1965.

Ryan, R.J., The Third fleet convicts: an alphabetical listing of names giving place and date of conviction, length of sentence and ship of transportation / RJ Ryan (ed.). Horwitz Grahame, 1983.

Starr, Marion, Unhappy Exiles, convicts of the Pitt & Kitty, 1792. 2016.

White, John, Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, by John White, Surgeon-General to the First Fleet and the Settlement at Port Jackson (Originally published 1790), With a Biographical Introduction by Rex Rienits, Edited by Alec H. Chisholm. Angus and Robertson in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1962.