Related websites, books and more
Below is a sample of useful convict resources:
- Info Guides for family historians
- Websites for family historians
- Websites on convict history
- General books
- Specific voyages
- Personal accounts
- Biographies
- Prison hulks
- Convict women
- Convict escapes
- Major newspapers and serials
- Fiction
Info Guides for family historians
Please consult the following family history Info Guides for useful convict resources held at the State Library of Queensland:
Websites
For family historians
- Convict indexes (New South Wales) - State Records, NSW
- Index to Tasmanian Convicts - Archives Office of Tasmania
- Ireland-Australia transportation database – National Archives of Ireland
- Western Australia - convict database - Fremantle Prison
- The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1913
- First Fleet online database
- Websites for genealogists - Convict records
- Convicts to Australia - Dead Persons Society, Perth, Western Australia
- PROV guide 57: Convict records– Public Record Office, Victoria
- Transportation to Australia 1787-1868 - The National Archives (England)
- Australian medical pioneers index
- Founders and survivors : Australian life courses in historical context 1803-1920
Podcasts
- ABC audio file - Convict secrets of The Rocks
- ABC podcast - Australian colonial history
- ABC podcast - Australia's convict women
- ABC podcast - Reflections on our convict heritage
- Podcast - From crime to punishment: criminal records - The National Archives (England)
- Podcast - Transportation to Australia - The National Archives (England)
Convict history
- Convicts and the British colonies in Australia
- Convict system - State Library of New South Wales
- Australian convict sites
Books
General
- The convict ships, 1787-1868 by Charles Bateson
- The fatal shore : a history of the transportation of convicts to Australia, 1787-1868 by Robert Hughes
- Botany Bay : the story of the convicts transported from Ireland to Australia, 1791-1853
- by Con Costello
- Australia's birthstain : the startling legacy of the convict era by Babette Smith
- The commonwealth of thieves by Thomas Keneally
- Convicts : transportation and Australia by Michael Bogle
- Freedom on the fatal shore : Australia's first colony by John Hirst
- Tasmania's convicts : how felons built a free society by Alison Alexander
- Is there a convict in the family? Research guide no.2 - produced by the Newcastle Family History Society
Specific voyages
- Britannia - Death or liberty : the convicts of the Britannia : Ireland to Botany Bay 1797 by Barbara Hall
- Broxbornebury - Journey to a new life : the story of the ships Emu in 1812 and Broxbornebury in 1814, including crew, female convicts and free passengers on board by Elizabeth Hook
- Calcutta - Convicts unbound : the story of the Calcutta convicts and their settlement in Australia by Marjorie Tipping
- Duchess of Northumberland - The last ladies : the female convicts transported from England on the Duchess of Northumberland November 1852-April 1853 by Christine Woods
- Earl Grey - The convict ship : a narrative of the results of scriptural instruction and moral discipline on board the 'Earl Grey' by Colin Arrott Browning
- Eleanor - The convicts of the Eleanor : protests in rural England, new lives in Australia by David Kent and Norma Townsend
- Emu - Journey to a new life : the story of the ships Emu in 1812 and Broxbornebury in 1814, including crew, female convicts and free passengers on board by Elizabeth Hook
- First Fleet - 1788 : the people of the First Fleet by Don Chapman
- First Fleet - The founders of Australia : a biographical dictionary of the first fleet by Mollie Gillen
- First Fleet - 1788 : the brutal truth of the First Fleet : the biggest single migration the world had ever seen by David Hill
- Hilsborough - Voyage to Sydney in the ship Hillsborough, 1798-1799 and a description of the colony by William Noah
- Lady Juliana - The floating brothel : the extraordinary story of the Lady Juliana and its cargo of female convicts bound for Botany Bay by Siân Rees
- Lord Sidmouth - Lord Sidmouth 1819 : index to surgeon's journal / compiled by Wendy Nunan
- Marquis Cornwallis - A desperate set of villains : the convicts of the Marquis Cornwallis, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1796 by Barbara Hall
- Neptune - The women of the 1790 Neptune : the seventy-eight convicts named on the cover and those who came free by Anne Needham
- New Grove - Maids, masters and magistrates : twenty women of the convict ship New Grove : maidservants in Van Diemen's Land by Jeanette E. Hyland
- Princess Royal - A cargo of women : Susannah Watson and the convicts of the Princess Royal by Babette Smith
- Queen - The Irish vanguard : the convicts of the Queen, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1791 by Barbara Hall
- Salamander - The crimes and lives of the convicts arriving in Sydney on the Salamander 1791 compiled by Members of the Tomaree Family History Group
- Second Fleet - The Second Fleet : Britain's grim convict armada of 1790 by Michael Flynn
- Sugar Cane - A nimble fingered tribe : the convicts of the Sugar Cane, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1793 by Barbara Hall
- Suprize - Settlers and seditionists : the people of the convict ship Surprize 1794 by Michael Flynn
Specific locations
- Convicts transported to and from Port Macquarie 1827-1837 compiled by Jan Shelley; Cheryl Perry; and Pam Yates
- Runaways, robbers and incorrigible rogues : certificates of freedom records for Port Macquarie convicts : 13 December 1823 - 26 April 1827 [CD-ROM], published by Port Macquarie & Districts Family History Society
- Caught in the act : unusual offences of Port Arthur convicts / compiled by Phillip Hilton and Susan Hood
Personal accounts
- This beauteous, wicked place : the letters and journals of John Grant, gentleman convict by Yvonne Cramer
- The fell tyrant, or, The suffering convict : showing the horrid and dreadful suffering of the convicts of Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay, our two penal settlements in New South Wales, with the life of the author William R...S
- A warning voice from a penitent convict : the life, hardships and dreadful sufferings of Charles Adolphus King, who was tried at Liverpool Assizes for returning from transportation ... by Charles Adolphus King
- The exile's lamentations by Thomas Cook
- Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux : a swindler and thief now transported to New South Wales for the second time, and for life
- Norfolk Island convict papers c1842-1867? : manuscript autobiographies of individual convicts sentenced for theft and/or fraud
Biographies
- The girl from Botany Bay : the true story of the convict Mary Broad and her extraordinary escape by Carolly Erickson
- Johnny Cassim : coolie - convict - catechumen - colonial entrepreneur (1814 - 1884) by Patrick J. Tynan
- John Graham, convict, 1824 : an historical narrative by R. Gibbings
- The history of Margaret Catchpole : a Suffolk girl by Richard Cobbold
- Mary Proctor : convict, pioneer and settler by Jeff Atkinson
- Duramboi : the story of Jem Davis of Glasgow (1808?-1889) by Patrick J. Tynan
- An irresistible temptation : the true story of Jane New and a colonial scandal by Carol Baxter
- A long way home by Mike Walker [story of convict Mary Byrant]
- Hell's gates : the terrible journey of Alexander Pearce, Van Dieman's land cannibal by Paul Collins
- Victims of tyranny : the story of the Fitzgerald convict brothers by Brendan Whiting
- They were here: the convicts of Raymond Terrace compiled by June Reeks
- The Liverpool embroiderer by Patrick Tynan
Prison hulks
- The intolerable hulks : British shipboard confinement, 1776-1857 by Charles Campbell
- The English prison hulks by William Branch Johnson
- The history of the convict hulk 'Success' and 'Success' prisoners : a vivid fragment of colonial history by Joseph C. Harvie
- Prisoners on board the hulk 'Phoenix'
Convict women
- Convict maids : the forced migration of women to Australia by Deborah Oxley
- Depraved and disorderly : female convicts, sexuality and gender in colonial Australia by Joy Damousi
- Convict women by Kay Daniels
- Female factory, female convicts : the story of the more then 13,000 women exiled from Britain to Van Diemen's Land by Tony Rayner
- These outcast women : the Parramatta Female Factory 1821-1848 by Annette Salt
- Notorious strumpets and dangerous girls : convict women in Van Diemen's Land, 1803-1829 by Phillip Tardif
- Convict lives: women at Cascades Female Factory by Female Factory Research Group
Convict escapes
- Tour to hell : convict Australia's great escape myths by David Levell
- Great convict escapes in colonial Australia by Warwick Hirst
Major newspapers and serials
- Sydney Gazette and New South Wales advertister
- Australian (1824-1848)
- Moreton Bay Courier
- Hobart Town Courier
- New South Wales Government Gazette
- Australian newspapers online
Fiction
- His natural life by Marcus Clarke
- For the term of his natural life [videorecording]
- The potato factory [videorecording]
- The secret river by Kate Grenville
- On Emerald Downs by Patricia Shaw
- Women on the rocks : a tale of two convicts by Kristin Williamson
- Jack Maggs by Peter Carey
- Tom Appleby, convict boy by Jackie French
Find a convict
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