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In April 1848, Charles Fitzgerald, Governor of Western Australia, petitioned Britain to send convicts to his state because of labour shortages. Britain rejected sending fixed-term convicts, but offered to send first offenders in the final years of their terms. Most convicts in Western Australia spent very little time in prison.
Convicts who represented a menace to the community were sent away to distant lands. A secondary aim was to discourage crime for fear of being transported. Transportation continued to be described as a public exhibition of the king's mercy. It was a solution to a real problem in the domestic penal system. [14]
When this did occur, it created a class of woman who often resorted to prostitution in order to feed and house themselves properly. Male convicts had the chance to select a bride from the female factories by a system called 'convict courtship'. The male convicts came to the female factories to inspect the women, who had to line up for the occasion.
They demanded that the British Government either agree to fund the colony's convict establishment, or cancel altogether their plans to send convicts. Eventually the British Government agreed to the colonists' demands for funding, but since the expenditure was not warranted for only 100 convicts, it was decided to greatly increase the number of ...
Between 1842 and 1849, 234 juvenile offenders were transported to the Colony of Western Australia on seven convict ships. From 1850 to 1868, over 9,000 convicts were transported to the colony on 43 convict ship voyages. Western Australia was classed as a full-fledged penal colony in 1850.
The women convicts' clothing had become infested with lice and was burnt. As additional clothing for the female convicts had not arrived before the Fleet left England, [40] the women were issued with new clothes made from rice sacks. While the convicts remained below deck, the officers explored the city and were entertained by its inhabitants. [44]
Early in 1839, Governor of Western Australia John Hutt received from the Colonial Office a circular asking if the colony would be prepared to accept juvenile prisoners who had first been reformed in "penitentiaries especially adapted for the purpose of their education and reformation".
Over the 80 years of transportation, between 1788 and 1868, 608 convict ships transported more than 162,000 convicts to Australia. [ 4 ] Following serious outbreaks of disease with high mortality rates on board some early convict ship voyages, from 1801 voyages were subject to more strict regulation by the British government in terms of ...