Sent Down Under

They were petty Kent criminals, sentenced to transportation to New South Wales, who became ‘Australian royalty’ as part of the ‘First Fleet’

- John Wright

Two hundred years ago, life was very unbalanced between the rich and poor, many of the latter group having to steal to keep their families in food.

By the late 1700s crime in Britain was rife. Jails were filling up and the empire-building authorities cottoned on to the idea that they could not only empty their prisons but also populate a new colony, which Captain Cook had claimed for Britain during his 1770 voyage to the Pacific.

On 6 December 1785 orders were issued for a penal colony to be set up in New South Wales. On 13 May 1787 the so-called ‘First Fleet’ of 11 ships, carrying the first batch of 1,400 convicts – those sentenced at their trials to transportation instead of imprisonment – left Portsmouth bound for Botany Bay.

It is not known how many convicts Kent provided of the 136,000 men and 25,000 women transported to Australia in the 80 years since the First Fleet left Portsmouth in May 1787.

One we do know of, however, was 18-year-old labourer James Richardson who faced Kent’s Lent Assizes in Maidstone in 1785 charged with ‘stealing ¼ of an ounce of Tobacco of the value of one halfpenny [33p today].’

A minor crime, but Richardson later returned to the byways with William White, James Frost and ‘3 offensive Weapons called Bayonets,’ noted Marjorie Tipping in Convicts Unbound, robbing Isaac Harvey in a ‘forcible and violent manner.’

Accompanying Richardson on this gruelling eight-month voyage of rolling seas, cramped conditions and seasickness were at least 29 other convicts from Kent, all tried in Maidstone.

They included two women, Elizabeth Bird (later Betty Eccles) and 60-year-old Mary Love, who was convicted with Bird of receiving stolen goods.