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The convict era of Western Australia was the period during which Western Australia was a penal colony of the British Empire. Although it received small numbers of juvenile offenders from 1842, it was not formally constituted as a penal colony until 1849.
Western Australia's convict era came to an end with the cessation of penal transportation by Britain. In May 1865, the colony was advised of the change in British policy, and told that Britain would send one convict ship in each of the years 1865, 1866, and 1867, after which transportation would cease.
Australian Convict Sites is a World Heritage property consisting of 11 remnant penal sites originally built within the British Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries on fertile Australian coastal strips at Sydney, Tasmania, Norfolk Island, and Fremantle; now representing "...the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers ...
Western Australia: 1850: 1868 [note 3] Norfolk Island: Other: 1788: 1855 [note 4] This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2008) Notes
Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 161,700 convicts (of whom 25,000 were women) were transported to the Australian colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land and Western Australia. [70] Historian Lloyd Robson has estimated that perhaps two-thirds were thieves from working class towns, particularly from the Midlands and north of England.
Animated map of the territorial evolution of Australia. The first colonies of the British Empire on the continent of Australia were the penal colony of New South Wales, founded in 1788, and the Swan River Colony (later renamed Western Australia), founded in 1829.
When Australia's first inhabitants arrived on the northwest coast 50,000 to 70,000 years ago the sea levels were much lower. The Kimberley coast at one time was only about 90 kilometres (56 mi) from Timor, which itself was the last in a line of closely spaced islands for humans to travel across. [5]
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.