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ABSTRACT
This paper examines the significance of parental loss for a sample of young convicts (aged under 25 years) transported from English and Irish ports to Tasmania in the mid-nineteenth century. These convicts experienced much higher levels of orphanhood than the general populations from which they were drawn, and women convicts were more likely than their male counterparts to have been orphaned, or to have lost at least one parent. The conclusion is that loss of family and household made orphans, and particularly girls, more vulnerable to crime as a survival strategy. We also find that the likelihood of parental loss varied by place of birth (male and female convicts), type of crime, occupation, and migration status (men only). Parental loss now emerges as a significant and differentiating characteristic for young convicts to be considered alongside neighbourhood and cultural effects.
Acknowledgments
We thank the reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and their constructive comments and suggestions which significantly improved this work. We thank Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Deborah Oxley for the use of their transcribed convict data. We thank the following staff and volunteer researchers: Nola Beagley, Geoff Brown, Tricia Curry, Lance Dwyer, Alison Ellett, Jennifer Elliston, Leanne Goss, Cheryl Griffin, Jan Kerr, Maureen Mann, Garry McLoughlin, David Noakes, Teddie Oates, Judith Price, Steve Rhodes, the late Cecile Trioli, Colin Tuckerman, Jenny Wells (Ships Project checkers and researchers); Colleen Aralappu, Maureen Austin, Vivienne Cash, Dianne Cassidy, Glenda Cox, Kathy Dadswell, Margaret Dimech, Brian Dowse, Ros Escott, Barry Files, Peter Fitzpatrick, Janet Gaff, Nanette Gottlieb, Stuart Hamilton, Jane Harding, Robyn Harrison, Graeme Hickey, Margaret Inglis, Bronwyn King, Jenny Kisler, Darryl Massie, Elizabeth Nelson, Margaret Nichols, Rosemary Noble, Keith Oliver, Maureen O’Toole, Margaret Parsons, Annette Sutton, Robert Tuppen, Rob Weldon, Lyn Wilkinson, Glad Wishart, Jacqueline Wisniowski, Judith Wood (Ships Project researchers); Sandra Silcot (systems designer); Claudine Chionh, Robin Petterd (web designers); Len Smith (advisor); Colette McAlpine (Female Convicts Research Centre coordinator); and Trudy Mae Cowley (Female Convicts Research Centre advisor and web administrator).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Archival Sources
Founders and Survivors Biographies
Ashley, Sarah (ship: Margaret, 1843), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/node/103739
Backway, Daniel (ship: Tortoise, 1842), http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/node/89385.
Black, Janet (ship: Lady of the Lake, 1829), http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/node/88890.
Grant, Alexandrina (ship: Tory, 1845), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/node/10013.
Pickering, George (ship: Lord Goderich, 1841), http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/node/88968.
Pickering, Thomas (ship: Moffatt, 1842), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch/convict/chain/ai56272.
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674–1913
Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.2, 11 August 2017), November 1840, trial of GEORGE PICKERING GEORGE HENRY LYNE (t18401123-144).
Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.2, 11 August 2017), November 1840, trial of DANIEL BACKWAY WILLIAM RANDALL (t18401123-140).
Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 26 April 2018), January 1843, trial of THOMAS PICKERING (t18430130-680).
Newspapers
Aberdeen Journal, 2 October 1844.
The Argus, 17 April 1856, p. 6.
London Evening Standard, 8 October 1834.
Morning Chronicle, 19 September 1828.
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1914.
Census and Death Registrations
Victorian Death Certificates (VDC) 1882/6017; 1884/9216
1851 and 1861 Census of England and Wales, sourced via Ancestry UK.
Notes
1. Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.2, 11 August 2017), November 1840, trial of GEORGE PICKERING GEORGE HENRY LYNE (t18401123-144).
2. Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.2, 11 August 2017), November 1840, trial of DANIEL BACKWAY WILLIAM RANDALL (t18401123-140).
3. Founders and Survivors (FAS) Biographies: George Pickering (Lord Goderich 1841), http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/node/88968.
4. FAS Biographies: Daniel Backway (Tortoise 1842), http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/node/89385.
5. Victorian Death Certificates (VDC) 1882/6017; 1884/9216 .
6. Thomas Pickering (Moffatt 1842), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch/convict/chain/ai56272.
7. Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 26 April 2018), January 1843, trial of THOMAS PICKERING (t18430130-680).
8. 1851 and 1861 Census of England and Wales, sourced via Ancestry UK.
9. The Argus, 17 April 1856, p. 6.
10. London Evening Standard, 8 October 1834.
11. The ‘convict indents’ (so called because the convicts were indentured) were written up onboard ship before the convicts disembarked in Tasmania. They contain information on each convict, including name, date and place of conviction, crime, sentence, birthplace, age, height, family, literacy and religion (Tasmanian Government, Citation2017).
12. The data are drawn from individual online and archival research, and the following datasets: Oxley and Meredith (Citation2013); Maxwell-Stewart, McCalman, Kippen, Shlomowitz, and Dharmage (Citation2008); Gunn and Kippen (Citation2008).
13. Riley (Citation1989) developed the concept of accumulating insults that had a compounding effect over the life course in the history of sickness. Kuh applied this concept to historical survival analysis (Kuh & Davey Smith, Citation1993), and went on to become one of the leaders of life-course epidemiology (Kuh, Ben-Shlomo, Lynch, Hallqvist, & Power, Citation2003). Kok (Citation2007) has written on the application of life course factors to historical demography. In the Ships Project we have used insult accumulation to measure the impact of severe punishment and extended sentences on convicts.
14. FAS Biographies, Sarah Ashley (Margaret 1843) http://foundersandsurvivors.org/node/103739.
15. Aberdeen Journal, 2 October 1844.
16. FAS Biographies, Alexandrina Grant (Tory 1845) http://foundersandsurvivors.org/node/10013; Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1914.
17. Morning Chronicle, 19 September 1828. ‘Counsel for the panel stated in mitigation that she had been deprived of the guardianship of her parents, and from her extreme youth, being only 10 years of age, he had hoped she would be leniently punished.’ Lord Meadowbank took account of the plea of mitigation, even though she had pleaded guilty to a capital crime [stealing clothes and cloth from a bleaching green] and sentenced her to only seven years’ transportation. She was transported in 1829 on The Lady of the Lake, married a successful foundation settler of Port Phillip, was widowed with eight children and died a street alcoholic. FAS Biographies: Janet Black Lady of the Lake, 1829, http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/node/88890; Digital Panopticon.