Speaker 1: This is remember when with Harvey Degan on Perth six pr.
Speaker 2: Open the door, Richard, open the door and let me in.
Speaker 2: Open the door, Richard, rich.
Speaker 1: Don't you than that door?
Speaker 2: And he has, and he's sitting opposite me in the studio, Richard.
Speaker 2: Often a very good evening to yourself.
Speaker 3: Good evening to you. And I've got to ask, where
Speaker 3: did you dredge those songs up before?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 4: They magnificent, magnificently appalling.
Speaker 2: Well they were, I think so, yeah, And I did
Speaker 2: say before we played them all that they should constitute
Speaker 2: the worst songs people have ever heard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you're right there.
Speaker 2: There are some, Seriously, there are some one hit wonders
Speaker 2: that are really nice songs, really wonderful. The fact that
Speaker 2: there weren't any not those, Yeah, they weren't, no horrible
Speaker 2: they but there are songs that are nice and we're
Speaker 2: only we're one hit wonders. And they never ever sort
Speaker 2: of replicated that with any other songs, but a particular
Speaker 2: individual or a group.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of graud Show Marx's famous line as he
Speaker 3: left to parties that I had a marvelous time, but
Speaker 3: this was not it.
Speaker 2: Indeed, now I know that you have a special topic
Speaker 2: tonight to discuss with us, and I do hope that
Speaker 2: you deliver that topic with some conviction.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's actually this month one hundred and seventy fifth
Speaker 3: anniversary of the first convicts arriving to the West an
Speaker 3: Australian penal colony. But before we get into that, can
Speaker 3: I put my Royal Western Australian Historical Society hat.
Speaker 2: On because something really important coming up.
Speaker 3: There is we've got our annual lecture which is on Wednesday,
Speaker 3: the second of July six for six thirty pm. And
Speaker 3: I can tell you I've heard this chap speak before.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing topic. It's the title is Weaving History
Speaker 3: into Filmmaking and it's from the LOGI winning Tracks of Glory,
Speaker 3: which was made by Paul Barron who's a film and
Speaker 3: television producer and writer. And I've heard him speak before.
Speaker 3: He is fascinating and he has brought history alive with
Speaker 3: these films. And it should be a really good evening
Speaker 3: because he's very entertaining as well.
Speaker 4: He really is.
Speaker 3: So as I say, it's Wednesday, the second of July
Speaker 3: at the UWA Club Auditorium and big booking is essential.
Speaker 3: The cost is forty dollars, but it'll be forty dollars
Speaker 3: well spent, I can assure you, and that's for society funds.
Speaker 4: And you can.
Speaker 3: Book a ticket on our website Historywest dot org dot
Speaker 3: au or by phoning the Lovely Leslie in our office
Speaker 3: on nine three eight six three eight four one, So
Speaker 3: that's nine three eight six three eight four one, and
Speaker 3: we'd love to see you there.
Speaker 2: And if you didn't quite get that number, kight, he's
Speaker 2: got it, so give us a buzzer on one double
Speaker 2: three eight eighty two and one as well. Then yeah'll
Speaker 2: probably be what's the capacity of the auditorium well over
Speaker 2: one hundred, so it probably need to because I think
Speaker 2: that'll be rush because he is very good.
Speaker 4: He is fantastic, he really is. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So back to the convicts, and I will speak with convictions.
Speaker 4: You say.
Speaker 3: These convicts arrived on the I loved the story and
Speaker 3: we'll go into it later on the first of June
Speaker 3: eighteen fifty. But they actually weren't the first convicts to
Speaker 3: come to the colony. There may have been lots of
Speaker 3: others on boats that went round Western Australia, but the
Speaker 3: first convicts actually arrived in King George Sound on Christmas
Speaker 3: Day eighteen twenty six, and they were part of a
Speaker 3: party of people from New South Wales to come here.
Speaker 3: In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, which finished in
Speaker 3: eighteen fifteen, there were fears that France was going to
Speaker 3: lay claim to the western seaboard of Australia, and in
Speaker 3: March of eighteen twenty six, Henry Bathurst, the Secretary of
Speaker 3: State for War and the Colonies, sent a letter to
Speaker 3: the Governor of New South Wales and in it he
Speaker 3: requested that, if found suitable, a settlement should be a
Speaker 3: state bablished in King George Sound. Now several other British
Speaker 3: explorers have been there, George Vancouver and Matthew Flinders in particular,
Speaker 3: and this was because it was on the shipping route
Speaker 3: between Britain and Port Jackson. This prompted Governor what Ralph
Speaker 3: Darling to send Major Edmund Lockier to establish a settlement
Speaker 3: in the area with twenty troops and twenty three convicts.
Speaker 3: And I think I was searching the other day for it.
Speaker 3: I think I read somewhere in total. With the civilians
Speaker 3: that were coming here, it was a party of about
Speaker 3: eighty but I might have dreamt that.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: They arrived in King George Sound on Christmas Day. Od
Speaker 3: data to arrive in a place, isn't there.
Speaker 2: A bit the shops want to open?
Speaker 3: No, I don't think they were actually and the settlement
Speaker 3: was called Fredericktown after King George's son Frederick. They also
Speaker 3: bought with them enough domestic animals, food crops and building
Speaker 3: materials to start this small and very remote in those
Speaker 3: days outpost, and the convict presence was maintained in the
Speaker 3: settlement until about November of eighteen thirty so, after the
Speaker 3: Swan River Colony had been formed, and at that time
Speaker 3: the control of Frederictown was let over to the Swan
Speaker 3: River Colony and the troops and convicts withdrew back to
Speaker 3: New South Wales, and so that colony continued. The small
Speaker 3: proportion of laborers in the colony meant that everything was slow,
Speaker 3: and incidentally Fredericktown Sterling renamed Albany, and so Elbany celebrates
Speaker 3: its two hundredth anniversary of its founding next year. Whereas
Speaker 3: we have to wait until a nineteen no twenty twenty nine,
Speaker 3: aren't we Yeah, I have to think about it, yep.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 3: So the Swan River Colony had been formed, and for
Speaker 3: the first fifteen years the people of the colony were
Speaker 3: generally opposed to the idea of accepting convicts. Even though
Speaker 3: there was a very small laboring force here and they
Speaker 3: were making well. There weren't enough of them to make
Speaker 3: any significant progress on building infrastructure like roads, bridges, fortresses
Speaker 3: or whatever. But the idea of asking the British government
Speaker 3: to send convicts was in constant circulation and discussion almost
Speaker 3: from the start of the colony. As early as eighteen
Speaker 3: thirty one, permission was requested by a colonial land owner
Speaker 3: that three hundred swing rights swing riot. I can't even
Speaker 3: say it convicts, and I haven't had anything to drink.
Speaker 3: That's probably the problem. Three hundred swing Riot convicts were
Speaker 3: requested to be brought here but refused.
Speaker 4: Now it's interesting the swing.
Speaker 3: Riots were widespread uprising in the agri between agricultural workers
Speaker 3: back in the UK worried about the mechanization of farming.
Speaker 3: And it all began in my neck of the woods,
Speaker 3: down in the Elam Valley in Kent, with the destruction
Speaker 3: of a threshing machine. Obviously, before that, laborers had done
Speaker 3: the threshing. This destruction was in the summer of eighteen
Speaker 3: thirty and by December the riots had spread throughout the
Speaker 3: South of England and East Anglia and caused a lot
Speaker 3: of problems. And you can see their point. They were
Speaker 3: worried that they were going to lose their jobs. Someone
Speaker 3: that lost their freedom. They certainly did, and were sent
Speaker 3: to all sorts of places. Even so, the idea of
Speaker 3: convicts coming here was discussed at length, and there was
Speaker 3: an editorial in the Freemantle Observer promoting the need for
Speaker 3: convict labor.
Speaker 4: And George Fletcher Moore, who was.
Speaker 3: The Commissioner of the Civil Court in the early days
Speaker 3: of the Swan River Colony, wrote in his diary mister Brown,
Speaker 3: that was the colonial secretary called yesterday. He wants me
Speaker 3: to sketch a plan for employing prisoners as a working gang,
Speaker 3: the governor being anxious to occupy them in this way
Speaker 3: if the settlers will pay for a superintendent. But that
Speaker 3: came to nothing, and in eighteen thirty four Captain Frederick
Speaker 3: Irwin of the sixty third Regiment suggested that they the
Speaker 3: colony take in some Indian convicts. These would be used
Speaker 3: for constructing roads and bridges and things like that, but
Speaker 3: yet again that was pushed to one side. Also in
Speaker 3: the same year, there was a meeting of settlers in
Speaker 3: King George Sound, Albany, and they passed a motion that
Speaker 3: labor was definitely needed. This was for the work of
Speaker 3: clearing land around Albany and creating roads, but it was
Speaker 3: defeated by the Western Australian Agricultural Society, who didn't like
Speaker 3: the idea of convicts.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Just a few years later, in eighteen thirty nine, Governor
Speaker 3: John Hutt, the second Governor of Western Australia, received a
Speaker 3: letter from the Colonial Office in London asking the colony
Speaker 3: to accept junior juvenile prisoners. These were young people who
Speaker 3: had been first reformed in i quote penitentiaries especially adapted
Speaker 3: for the purpose of their education and reformation. After seeking
Speaker 3: comment from the agricultural society here, Hutt responded the majority
Speaker 3: of the community would not object to boys above the
Speaker 3: age of fifteen, but that the labor market could not
Speaker 3: support more than thirty boys a year, and subsequently two
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty four juvenile prisoners were transported here from
Speaker 3: Parkhaus Prison. Incidentally, that's now a top security prison on
Speaker 3: the Isle of Wight. They came between eighteen forty two
Speaker 3: and eighteen forty nine, but they were classed as apprentices
Speaker 3: here of course, no convict name whatsoever.
Speaker 4: And I guess we ought to take a break.
Speaker 2: Caught we I think you need to make you're going great, Gunzi.
Speaker 2: You can take a little sip of your cool clear
Speaker 2: water and we shall be back before you've had a
Speaker 2: chance to miss it.
Speaker 1: On Perth six PR. This is remember when with Harvey Degan.
Speaker 2: And Richard Oftens in the studio with me, he's going
Speaker 2: through the early days of the convicts here, just a
Speaker 2: year or two after the settlement of the Swan River
Speaker 2: colony and down albany Way. And you may have those
Speaker 2: of you listening out there. You may have direct links
Speaker 2: back to those convicts if you do give us a
Speaker 2: call and have a chat about them. One double three
Speaker 2: A to eighty two. Once upon a time you never
Speaker 2: flush people out, it was, isn't it. Yeah, desperate to
Speaker 2: find a convict in our ancestry.
Speaker 3: Now, Just a funny little aside. A friend of mine,
Speaker 3: an old teaching colleague of mine back in the UK,
Speaker 3: when he first came to visit us here about ten
Speaker 3: years ago. He remarked when he got here that they'd
Speaker 3: given him the green immigration card on the plane to
Speaker 3: fill in and he said, there was a question that said,
Speaker 3: have you been convicted of anything? And he said, I
Speaker 3: didn't know. It was still compulsory.
Speaker 2: Lie. That was a great line that was dropped on
Speaker 2: immigration by the great cricket commentator John Arlott.
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, like that.
Speaker 2: You remember from now.
Speaker 4: I'm sure Stathan.
Speaker 2: Coming in now from the northern end. And he was brilliant,
Speaker 2: He was absolutely brilliant. And they said do you have
Speaker 2: any previous conviction? I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was
Speaker 2: still great line.
Speaker 3: So getting back to these apprentices, the lads with the
Speaker 3: best will in the world, you know, fifteen year olds
Speaker 3: weren't going to set the world on fire with their
Speaker 3: skills and knowledge of building roads.
Speaker 2: They'll be on their mobile phones all the time.
Speaker 4: Well of course they would, yes, stupid boy.
Speaker 3: And so it didn't help with the severe labor shortage
Speaker 3: here and serious lobbying for Western Australia to become a
Speaker 3: penal colony began in eighteen forty four and at that
Speaker 3: time the members of the York Agricultural Society and they
Speaker 3: were having the biggest problems because the road from York
Speaker 3: to person Fremantle was virtually non existence, dust bowl in summer,
Speaker 3: quagmire in winter, and absolutely useless. They brought forward emotion
Speaker 3: stating that it is the opinion of this meeting that
Speaker 3: inasmuch as the present land regulations have entirely destroyed our
Speaker 3: labor fund, we conceived that the Home Government, that's the
Speaker 3: English government, British government are bound in justice to supply
Speaker 3: us with some kind of labor. And after mature deliberations,
Speaker 3: we have come to the determination of petitioning the Secretary
Speaker 3: of State for the Colonies for a gang of forty
Speaker 3: convicts to be exclusively employed in public works. I just
Speaker 3: love the words that are used.
Speaker 2: We've got a listener wishes to have a chat. Jeff
Speaker 2: of Eastvic Parkers John.
Speaker 5: Could I Jeff good Harvey? How are you welcome the
Speaker 5: bushranger Moundine. Joe is a relative of mine.
Speaker 4: Wow? How is his name?
Speaker 5: Was Joseph Bealitho John.
Speaker 4: That's right? Yes, from Barry in Wales.
Speaker 5: His mother was married Belitho and Belitho is an ancient
Speaker 5: Cornish Homers in the Domestay book.
Speaker 4: Yeah it is, yes.
Speaker 2: He wasn't a convict though, was he He was a
Speaker 2: bush ranger.
Speaker 4: No, he was a convict to start.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 3: Transported here for stealing in I thought a little bit
Speaker 3: about Moondan didn't know that bit, and he.
Speaker 5: Kept gaping from Frio, so they built him a special
Speaker 5: cell so he couldn't get out.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was the Houdini of the nineteenth century in
Speaker 3: Western Australia.
Speaker 4: There's no doubt out it.
Speaker 5: So my surname is Blitho bl igh O and his
Speaker 5: mother's name was Blo.
Speaker 4: That was too fantastic. Cool.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what do you know?
Speaker 4: Can you Are you good at escaping?
Speaker 5: I've never been in sight.
Speaker 3: Well, just escaping the washing up in the evening is
Speaker 3: a skill I find anyway.
Speaker 4: I'm a bachelor of Well, there you go, the Moondine
Speaker 4: Joe story.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite Moondiine story. Just digressing. And he was
Speaker 2: He was a British convict, of course, silly Harvey. What
Speaker 2: he was doing at Fremantle Jail. He was sentenced to
Speaker 2: hard labor and that meant breaking rocks. But because they're
Speaker 2: a bit worried about him escaping, they brought the rocks
Speaker 2: into the prison that's a true story. And so he
Speaker 2: was breaking the rocks, and then when the guards weren't watching,
Speaker 2: he was also whacking the walls of the fremental prison
Speaker 2: with the sledgehammer. Sledgehow and that's how we escape. Amazing.
Speaker 2: You must be very you must be very proud to
Speaker 2: have to have him in your lineage. Jeff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well I only found out a couple of years ago.
Speaker 5: I've had romas, but I'm still I actually go and
Speaker 5: did not for a fact.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: No, Well, that's great, indeed, good only, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Anyone else has got links to any convince. It was
Speaker 2: a buzz, yeah, certainly. So.
Speaker 3: The your agricultural society said that we really ought to
Speaker 3: have convicts here, but there was still strenuous opposition to it.
Speaker 3: But you know, other particularly the agricultural society, is cottoned
Speaker 3: onto this, and they kept saying that the convicts would
Speaker 3: provide much needed labor to help with the infrastructure. And
Speaker 3: but that eighteen forty five petition was rejected you nanimously
Speaker 3: by the Council, the Legislative Council. They stated that the
Speaker 3: necessity for such an application is not apparent. No dearth
Speaker 3: of labor can be so extreme as to call for
Speaker 3: or warrant our having recourse to such a hazardous experiment
Speaker 3: for a supply, so they weren't too keen on it. However,
Speaker 3: to address the problems raised by the petition, the Legislative
Speaker 3: Council asked, with great misgivings, for the British Government to
Speaker 3: send out a small number of convicts for a limited term.
Speaker 3: When the reports of the Council's debate on the introduction
Speaker 3: of convicts arrived in Britain in eighteen forty eight, the
Speaker 3: British government.
Speaker 4: Took great interest in them.
Speaker 3: Not surprisingly, by this time the only British colonies still
Speaker 3: willing to accept convicts under protest were Canada and Van
Speaker 3: Demon's Land now Tasmania. Even New South Wales had stopped.
Speaker 3: By then. A tentative attempt to institute a penal system
Speaker 3: within England had caused public outcry and had been dispen suspended.
Speaker 3: With nowhere else to send convicts, the numbers of British
Speaker 3: jails had in jails had increased, and there were serious
Speaker 3: problems over there.
Speaker 2: Well, what do you know, Steve of Beachbrook, That a
Speaker 2: lot of story to tell us, could I.
Speaker 6: Steve good Evening? Yes, Tarby and Richard. Hello, Yes, my
Speaker 6: great great grandfather was a Parker's boy.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 6: He came out on the Cumberland in eighteen forty six. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and he was of the ripe old age of nine
Speaker 6: crust packers. Boy.
Speaker 4: Is incredible, isn't it. What did he do steal a
Speaker 4: handkerchief or a loaf?
Speaker 6: Me that I haven't found out what his crime was? Yes,
Speaker 6: terrible really when you think about how old you could
Speaker 6: send somebody like halfway around the world nowhere, yes, at nine?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean how did you survive on the
Speaker 3: ship for three or four months?
Speaker 4: As incredible? All that? All that?
Speaker 2: Yes, poor little blighter, Well it must have carved a
Speaker 2: pretty good future for himself. You must have been a
Speaker 2: lad of strong character.
Speaker 4: Steve Well, Yes, I guess.
Speaker 6: I guess they put them to work pretty much down
Speaker 6: at wherever it was done in the Southwest that they
Speaker 6: hadn't and.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of them were built.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of them were put into
Speaker 3: domestic labor, weren't they, and things like gardeners and that
Speaker 3: sort of thing, because a nine year old wouldn't be
Speaker 3: up to building a bridge, I don't think.
Speaker 6: Year. No, maybe apprenticed of some sort. I'm not sure.
Speaker 6: I don't have all the story about his life because
Speaker 6: I'm still looking into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll be interesting to you. What give us a
Speaker 2: buzz back when you delve into PA. We'd love to
Speaker 2: know the history of a nine year old who's made
Speaker 2: good after being deported at that age. Good only stay.
Speaker 4: Thanks for you, Colling, You're welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you. That's great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, has got some good I thought it, thought it
Speaker 3: might bring some people out tonight.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yet again the British government said, nap, We're not
Speaker 3: doing that. We're not sending you them on a fixed term.
Speaker 3: You either have them for life or not at all.
Speaker 3: And that led to even more concern over here about
Speaker 3: getting them, should we have them or not? And after
Speaker 3: the break, I'll talk about a public meeting. In February
Speaker 3: of eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: This remember when with Harvey Degan on Perth six PR.
Speaker 2: Richard often talking about our early convicts. I suppose they're
Speaker 2: all early weren't they?
Speaker 3: Well they yes to tortoism, Yes, yes, So in February
Speaker 3: of eighteen forty nine, this whole issue of are we
Speaker 3: going to have convicts? Aren't we came to a head,
Speaker 3: and there was a public meeting held in what we
Speaker 3: now call the old Courthouse down in Sterling Gardens. Three
Speaker 3: hundred attended it, and on they say there was a
Speaker 3: hot debate, But on a February day with three hundred
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 4: I think everything was hot.
Speaker 3: I think there were a few who fainted. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but very soon a majority view emerged that in support
Speaker 3: of a proposal put forward by Laronel Sampson, who of
Speaker 3: course was a merchant in Fremantle. Sampson argued that the
Speaker 3: colony needed both labor and capital, and he thought that
Speaker 3: a penal colony would not only bring the labor, but
Speaker 3: there would be some money coming with it from the
Speaker 3: British government to help. They got the convicts, but not
Speaker 3: a lot of money, and as a result, Governor Fitzgerald
Speaker 3: was able to tell the Colonial Office that the colony
Speaker 3: had decided that we could be turned into a convict
Speaker 3: colony in May of eighteen forty nine. She's quite quick
Speaker 3: after the February meeting. When you think that letters had
Speaker 3: to go backwards and forwards by ship, I'm wondering whether
Speaker 3: the British government had decided to impose the colony the
Speaker 3: convicts on us, because there was an order in Council
Speaker 3: that on the first day of June of eighteen forty
Speaker 3: nine that Western Australia would become a penal colony.
Speaker 2: Because we should remember that the whole philosophy behind convict
Speaker 2: settlement of Australia from Britain was to clear out the
Speaker 2: British jail.
Speaker 3: That's right, moved the dross somewhere well away from them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it has to be said.
Speaker 3: In eighteen fifty anticipation of the first convicts arriving, the
Speaker 3: Legislative Council debated a convict discipline bill and it didn't
Speaker 3: get too far, the Inquirer reported on the second of January.
Speaker 3: Notwithstanding the many alterations and amendments effected at the former sitting,
Speaker 3: the bill had to undergo still further pruning, as it
Speaker 3: was red clause by clause discussion. There was none rambling.
Speaker 3: Conversation took place, sometimes three or four speaking at once.
Speaker 4: That sounds like Premiers question.
Speaker 3: Time to me. But anyway, and as later as late
Speaker 3: January that year, the Birth Gazette was reporting that we
Speaker 3: would get some convicts, and the first convict ship, of course,
Speaker 3: arrived on the first of June eighteen fifty in Fremantle,
Speaker 3: much to the surprise of everyone here. They weren't expecting them. Really, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's lovely. I love the irony of this. You couldn't
Speaker 3: make this up. It Nobody mentioned this in the articles
Speaker 3: in the newspapers, but evidently the convict ship had overtaken
Speaker 3: the ship bringing the message to say you're going to
Speaker 3: receive convicts. So I don't think communications have got much
Speaker 3: better in the last two hundred years.
Speaker 4: Anyway.
Speaker 3: As a result, they'd got seventy five convicts and nowhere
Speaker 3: to put them, so Daniel Scott, who was the Freemantle
Speaker 3: harbor Master, rented out his wall store as a secure
Speaker 3: place to keep them until they the convicts built their
Speaker 3: own prison basically which is now Freemantle Prison. Now Captain
Speaker 3: Edmund Henderson was responsible for the seventy five convicts on board,
Speaker 3: as well as the pensioner guards and with the warders
Speaker 3: and their families who accompanied them.
Speaker 4: So these these.
Speaker 3: Pensioner guards were allowed to bring their family with them
Speaker 3: free of free of charge. There was a total of
Speaker 3: two hundred and seventy seven passengers on board, so they'd
Speaker 3: found a place to lock the convicts up, but nobody
Speaker 3: seems to have thought about where on Earth all of
Speaker 3: the others were going to stay, so that must have
Speaker 3: been a problem as well. And the Britain's penal colony
Speaker 3: was great or penal system was gradually being reformed and
Speaker 3: it began to deal with more of its minor offenders
Speaker 3: at home, and this meant that UK transporter transported higher
Speaker 3: proportion of serious offenders to wa and from eighteen fifty
Speaker 3: one to eighteen fifty three the number of convicts arriving
Speaker 3: in the colony increased quite considerably. The mood of the
Speaker 3: free population changed from popular to support to one of
Speaker 3: great concern. But it has to be said that the
Speaker 3: vast proportion of the convicts who came here were pretty
Speaker 3: well behaved. There were only a few, like Moondine Joe,
Speaker 3: who were a problem. The colony, when it asked for
Speaker 3: these convicts, set three conditions. Initially, no female convicts, no
Speaker 3: political prisoners, and no convicts convicted of serious crimes should
Speaker 3: be transported here. Well, the only one the British government
Speaker 3: took notice of was no female convicts. We had quite
Speaker 3: a few serious offenders and quite a good number of
Speaker 3: political ones, particularly the Fenians. We know about the cat
Speaker 3: helper rescue. The first one was as I say, the
Speaker 3: ladies was kept throughout the second one until eighteen sixty
Speaker 3: eight when the last it was the last convict ship
Speaker 3: brought the sixty two Fenians to Western Australia, and the others,
Speaker 3: as I said, really weren't too too badly behaved for
Speaker 3: serious criminals. They were mainly thieves and that sort of thing. Well,
Speaker 3: no bit worse than that, stealing really valuable stuff. I
Speaker 3: think we had a few murderers, but not so many
Speaker 3: of them. And between eighteen fifty and eighteen sixty eight,
Speaker 3: when the last ship arrived here, almost ten thousand convicts
Speaker 3: were transported in forty three convict ship voyages, so it
Speaker 3: was quite amazing. Thirty seven of the voyages carried large
Speaker 3: numbers of prisoners from England, with one voyage even collecting
Speaker 3: convicts from Bermuda. I bet they were disappointed to leave
Speaker 3: that rather nice place. And the remaining six ships brought
Speaker 3: smaller car goes of military prisoners from amongst the ranks
Speaker 3: of the British troops, particularly those in India, because that
Speaker 3: was a bit closer and according to the dead persons
Speaker 3: Society website. WA convicts had been sentenced to terms of
Speaker 3: six to fifteen years. That's why we didn't get many murderers,
Speaker 3: because they would have got a lot longer or generally hanged,
Speaker 3: you know. So it was embezzlers and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Some reports suggest that their literacy rate was around seventy
Speaker 3: five percent, as opposed to only fifty percent of those
Speaker 3: in the Eastern States.
Speaker 4: So we got clever convicts as well as and.
Speaker 3: About a third of the convicts left after serving their time,
Speaker 3: but many of them also reconvicted locally later of minor
Speaker 3: offenses and so on. And there were also four instances
Speaker 3: of prisoners escaping and being sent back after they'd been recaptured.
Speaker 3: For convicts who were nearing the end of their sentence,
Speaker 3: of course, there was the ticket of leave introduced. This
Speaker 3: was similar to our modern day parole and how provide
Speaker 3: a labor, a labor for the development and expansion of agriculture.
Speaker 3: And the effects of that convict era continued to be
Speaker 3: felt for many years and quite a number of the
Speaker 3: although the eighteen sixty eight they'd stopped sending the convicts
Speaker 3: here because there'd been a huge penal reform in Britain,
Speaker 3: and more large prisons had been built, quite a lot
Speaker 3: of them that had sentences that ran into the eighties
Speaker 3: and nineties. So they were still convicts and then ticket
Speaker 3: of leave and then whatever. And it's interesting. In eighteen
Speaker 3: seventy four, WA's Legislative Assembly lobbied the British government for
Speaker 3: responsible government. Now, I know those two words together sound
Speaker 3: like an oxymoron, but that means that instead of all
Speaker 3: of the decisions made by the Legislative Council here having
Speaker 3: to go back to Britain to be ratified and then
Speaker 3: come back to say yes, you can do it, it
Speaker 3: meant we could be responsible for our own work here.
Speaker 3: I suspect an awful lot of decisions that were made
Speaker 3: here were acted out before ever they got back to Britain.
Speaker 4: But that's another story. But the British government.
Speaker 3: Refused this request for responsible government on the grounds that
Speaker 3: the proportion of ex convicts in the colony was too high. Now,
Speaker 3: if you look at the members of the houses of
Speaker 3: Parliament at that time, that's pretty rich.
Speaker 4: I can tell you.
Speaker 3: Most of the convicts spent very little time in prison,
Speaker 3: and we'll perhaps talk a little bit about what they
Speaker 3: did after the break.
Speaker 2: There were some great contributors to society certain that not
Speaker 2: just in WI of course, Australia wide. Okay, looking forward.
Speaker 1: To that until midnight on Perth six PR This is
Speaker 1: remember when with Harvey d again and.
Speaker 2: Richard often has been well as in his usual manner
Speaker 2: of enlightened the ass on all sorts of things, but
Speaker 2: mainly to do with convicts. And as you mentioned before
Speaker 2: the break, some really turned out to be a great citizen.
Speaker 4: Yesterday certainly did. Yeah, yes, yeah, quite a few.
Speaker 3: There was one who managed the telegraphy set up in
Speaker 3: Perth in eighteen sixty nine. And Greenaway isn't It wasn't.
Speaker 2: Francis Greenaway was the architect. Yeah, yeah, was he based here? Him?
Speaker 2: I think he might have Beenston Stadium, he.
Speaker 4: Might have been. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: But I think actually ironically he was a criminal and
Speaker 2: of course he got his ticket of leave. I think
Speaker 2: he built a courthouse, designed and built a I love
Speaker 2: firsthand knowledge.
Speaker 3: Yes, he'd seen the inside of them before, so quite easily.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, as I said before the break, most WA convicts
Speaker 3: didn't spend that much time actually in prison, those who
Speaker 3: were stationed in Fremantle. Of course, were housed in the
Speaker 3: convict establishment once they built it, which took a couple
Speaker 3: of years, but most of the convicts were stationed in
Speaker 3: other parts of the colony. There was no convict assignment
Speaker 3: in Wa, a practice which was used in the other
Speaker 3: penal colonies. This involved assigning convicts to work with private individuals,
Speaker 3: which some considered was slavery, so they would be assigned
Speaker 3: to a property owner for farm work and things like that.
Speaker 3: But here initially and throughout the convict period, most convicts
Speaker 3: worked on creating infrastructure first for the convict system and
Speaker 3: then constructing other things later. For instance, in Perth, the
Speaker 3: convicts built Perth Jail, which is now part of the
Speaker 3: Wamus Zeum. That took two years to build, and some
Speaker 3: were then housed to provide labor for other projects in
Speaker 3: the cities, so they were housed in that jail, and
Speaker 3: of course they built Perth Town Hall at the Canning
Speaker 3: River Convict fence, which you can still see to this day.
Speaker 3: Convict escapes did occur, especially those stationed to work in
Speaker 3: remote areas out in the wheat belt and places like that.
Speaker 3: These offered better opportunities for escape. But it's interesting there
Speaker 3: were a group of convicts out in York and I
Speaker 3: think it was eighteen sixty four, and they found some
Speaker 3: flecks of gold and they decided to head off to
Speaker 3: South Australia. I think they'd only gone about a day's journey,
Speaker 3: and they went back and gave themselves up because they
Speaker 3: realized that it wasn't going to work getting across the
Speaker 3: Nullibore desert.
Speaker 2: I don't think the ear Highway was fully sealed there.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think it was. No.
Speaker 3: And since the colony was pretty much surrounded by water
Speaker 3: on one side and desert on the other, it was
Speaker 3: almost impossible to leave. On some occasions, though escapees left
Speaker 3: the colony, but most surrendered to avoid starvation. Notable the
Speaker 3: exceptions was of course our friend's ancestor Moondine Joe, who
Speaker 3: remained at large in the colony for about two years.
Speaker 3: And then of course there was John Boyle O'Reilly, the
Speaker 3: Fenian prisoner, who managed to escape to the USA. But
Speaker 3: as I said before, the convicts who were well behaved
Speaker 3: look forward to obtaining a ticket of leave before completing
Speaker 3: their sentence, and that permitted them to be able to
Speaker 3: work for money, whereas the other convicts were just given
Speaker 3: boordant lodgings basically and a few garets or something like that.
Speaker 3: And this meant that complete freedom for them once they
Speaker 3: got their ticket of leave and pardon, but they could
Speaker 3: never return to England, so they were doomed, not that
Speaker 3: it would be a doom really to be here. And
Speaker 3: it also affected the children too, with neither ex convicts
Speaker 3: nor their children, very few of them actually married into
Speaker 3: settler families in the first instant. And that's probably why
Speaker 3: we got to the stage some years ago when nobody
Speaker 3: mentioned they'd got a convict background. Now, of course it's
Speaker 3: a badge of honor.
Speaker 4: Yes. One of the.
Speaker 3: Ones who did very well, as I mentioned earlier, was
Speaker 3: James Fleming, who was transported here in eighteen sixty four
Speaker 3: for defrauding a Glaswegian tea merchant. Now I don't know how,
Speaker 3: because he had telegraphic skills, he knew about the telegraphy system,
Speaker 3: he'd learnt that in Scotland, and as a result he
Speaker 3: was put in charge of all the technical aspects of
Speaker 3: our first telegraph system and that came into being in
Speaker 3: June of eighteen sixty nine. As a result, Fleming was
Speaker 3: appointed the colony's Superintendent of telegraphs, So you know, he
Speaker 3: was one of the ones that did very well. Indeed,
Speaker 3: quite a number of ex convicts, interestingly were appointed teachers
Speaker 3: and yeah, so they carried quite a responsible place in society,
Speaker 3: and government posts, of course, were generally close to them,
Speaker 3: with the notable exception of teaching. And once the convict
Speaker 3: eer came to an end, Britain punished its own and
Speaker 3: the last convict ship was the Hugemont, which arrived in
Speaker 3: February and January of eighteen sixty eight. By then, wa
Speaker 3: was strongly objecting to the cesation of transportation, but once
Speaker 3: it became clear that the decision would not be altered,
Speaker 3: they just gave up and said, okay, that's fair enough,
Speaker 3: and it went its mery way.
Speaker 2: Indeed it did well.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: We've learned so much about our early convict days. Tonight, now,
Speaker 2: just before we let you go, Richard, and we have
Speaker 2: people tuning in all the time, tell us about another
Speaker 2: reminder about the Paul Baron Letcher. Yes, the Historical Society's
Speaker 2: annual lecture weaving history into filmmaking. Paul Barron, who's a
Speaker 2: film and television producer. He's giving a talk and he
Speaker 2: is a very entertaining and interesting speaker. He's at the
Speaker 2: UWA Club Auditorium on Wednesday, the second of July. It's
Speaker 2: six for six thirty tickets of forty dollars. It will
Speaker 2: be a fascinating evening. You can either get a booking
Speaker 2: on the Historical Society's website or by phoning nine three
Speaker 2: eight six three eight one four nine three eight six
Speaker 2: three eight four to one sorry three eight four one,
Speaker 2: No worries, we've got that number here and if you're
Speaker 2: missed it faction you want a book, just give Katie
Speaker 2: a call on one double three eight eighty two and
Speaker 2: thank you for tonight. It was fantastic as it always is,
Speaker 2: and we'll see you in a fortnight.
Speaker 4: Yes, indeed