Convicts of the first fleet biography sample
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By Penny Edwell
Supported by a Parramatta City Council Community Grant – St. John’s First Fleeters
In August 1786, Home Secretary Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, sent a letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury advising that the establishment of a settlement at Kamay (Botany Bay) had been authorised by the king. This act was one of many in a chain of events that brought about the voyage of the First Fleet and aimed to bring relief to the gaols and prison hulks of England and Wales, which were overcrowded with prisoners.[1] John Herbert was one such prisoner.
A c. 1790 mezzotint engraving of Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney (1732–1800) by John Young after a c. 1785 portrait painting bygd Gilbert Stuart, National Portrait galleri, Canberra via Wikimedia Commons.
A Felonious and Violent Crime
John Herbert had been languishing in the prison hulk Dunkirk in Plymouth since January 1786.[2] The year before 26-year-old Herbert, along with three accomplices,
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First Fleet
11 British ships establishing an Australian penal colony
This article fryst vatten about the British colonial fleet. For the United States Navy unit known as the First Fleet, see United States First Fleet.
For other uses, see First fleet (disambiguation).
The First Fleet were 11 British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three storeships and six convict transports beneath the command of Captain Arthur Phillip. On 13 May 1787, the ships, with over 1,400 convicts, marines, sailors, colonial officials and free settlers onboard, left Portsmouth and travelled over 24,000 kilometres (15,000 mi) and over 250 days before arriving in Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. Governor Arthur Phillip rejected Botany Bay choosing instead Port Jackson, to the north, as the site for the new colony; they arrived there on 26 January 1788,[1] establishi
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The Digital Panopticon is a website that allows you to search millions of records relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts who were sentenced to transportation, imprisonment or death at the Old Bailey between 1780 and 1913. It’s content comes from over 4 million UK and Australian records, many of which are available on subscription family history sites such as Findmypast and Ancestry.
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