Industrial Revolution Leading to Transportation to Australia
As the city became riddled with factories and as the industrial revolution began many people were losing their jobs through the population boom of many people trying to get a job in a factory, because of this there was not enough food and other supplies to go around. People had to scavenge for food but every small crime was an imprisonable offence. You could be imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread. Due to all the access of prisoners from these ridiculous laws, they had to find a new way to clean them out. They found new ways to execute them but eventually the prisons just got too crowded. This led to them thinking up a new idea to transport prisoners to a different location. They basically exiled them from Europe. They found the perfect place to send them, a brand new place just discovered with plenty of potential, Australia. As the convicts reached Australia they saw the potential in Australia and began colonising it immediately. They put the convicts too work as slave labourers.
First Fleet Voyage and Living Conditions
The Europeans set sail as what is now called the first fleet with Captain Arthur Phillip at the head. They began their journey at Portsmouth, England. They sailed south and first stopped at Tenerife (Canary Islands) for a week to gather supplies, after that their next stop was Rio de Janeiro where they stayed for a month for repairs, before heading east. After that they stopped at Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) after surviving horrific storms and stayed to take livestock, then stopping at Tasmania before finally landing in Botany Bay where they began their penal colonies. During this long voyage life on the boats weren’t very pleasant. They were kept behind bars for most of it and most of the time they were chained. It was often hot and humid in the lower decks which made it worse for the ones living down there. Many diseases spread such as Dysentery and Scurvy. There were rats, cockroaches and other pests that also spread diseases and made the hygiene on board even worse. Food, water and other supplies were scarce supply before they restocked them at their stops and must have been shred between convicts.
Convict Life in the Colonies
Life for the convicts was very different then what we have today in Australia. A typical working week was about five and a half days. There was a whole range of jobs. Such as farming or constructing to help the city run. Very Sunday after working they would go to the nearest church for worshiping but then had the rest f the day off where they could do whatever they wanted. There were a number of establishments for the convicts’ leisure time such as bars or brothels. Every week each convict was given the same amount of food and clothes and was never allowed to obtain more. This was the same for every convict. Instead of running water the convicts had to go fetch their water from other sources of water and that could be a gruelling job, especially in Australia. The food they were given wasn’t of the highest quality either. Most of the time the convicts were given oats or porridge, but they also had salted pork and stewed meat.