5.5.1

A Penal Colony

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Australia

Australia was established as a British penal colony in 1788 after a fleet set sail from Britain in 1787. However, this had serious repercussions for the native people.

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North America

  • Before the War of Independence, Britain had sometimes used North America as a place to put prisoners it did not want to keep in Britain.
  • However, American independence meant that this was no longer an option, and the growing British population and harsh justice system meant that Britain’s prisons were becoming severely overcrowded by the 1780s.
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Penal colony

  • The government decided the solution to this would be to transport some of the convicts (prisoners) to Australia, which the British had very recently colonised, and imprison them there. - This is known as a penal colony (the word ‘penal’ comes from ‘to penalise’ or ‘to punish’).
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Convicts

  • In 1788, the first group of convicts arrived in Australia - there were around 500 males and 200 females.
  • By 1830, around 3000 British prisoners were arriving in Australia each year.
  • By 1868, around 180,000 Britons had been transported to Australia as convicts.
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Sheep farming

  • However, it was not just convicts who settled in Australia.
  • Many British people migrated to Australia, bought big plots of land, and made comfortable lives for themselves.
  • Sheep farming became a key economy, with wool and meat being exported back to Britain.
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Release

  • After the convicts transported to Australia had served their time in prison (usually 7 years), they were able to make a life for themselves in Australia.
  • Many stayed to work on the land of those who had settled in Australia, and some were eventually able to buy plots of land of their own.

Jump to other topics

1The Medieval World: 450-1450 AD

1.1Anglo-Saxon England

1.2The Contest for the English Throne

1.3Conquering the Holy Land, 10-96-1396 AD

1.4King John

1.5The Magna Carta & Parliament

1.6The Black Death

2Worldviews

3The Empire of Mali

4The Renaissance & Reformations, 1500-1598 AD

5The British Empire, 1583-1960 AD

6The Peasants' Revolt

7Religion in the Middle Ages

8Slavery, 1619-1833 AD

9The English Civil War, 1642-1660

10The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1840

11US Independence, 1775-1783

12The French Revolution, 1789-1815

13The British Empire, 1857–1930

14Suffrage

15World War 1, 1914-1918

16The Inter-War Years, 1919-1939

17World War 2, 1939-1945

18The Cold War, 1947-1962

19Civil Rights in the USA, 1954-1975

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