Adolescent growth and convict transportation to nineteenth-century Australia

ABSTRACT

This paper explores growth patterns for British and Irish adolescents transported to Australia in the 19th century. During incarceration in Australia, the young convicts did not catch up with contemporary standards of potential stature—contrary to what we are led to expect by the existing literature and the high calorie convict diet. Rather, the experience of transportation stunted the adolescent male convicts. Variation between height on arrival and in later life confirms that teen convicts remained shorter than their shipmates transported after reaching maturity. We consider, but reject, age-dependent selection as a potential explanation. We speculate that the origin of this unfortunate experience lies in the low economic value of young and unskilled males. While fewer data are available for female convicts, their colonial experiences appear to have differed, again consistent with their relative economic value in the colony.

KEYWORDS:

• Height
• catch up growth
• stunting
• convict transportation
• colonial Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Tasmanian Archives Con 18-1-7, p. 428 and Con 31-1-12, p. 36.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP180103952].