When the British government had to rethink where to offload their criminal fraternity they briefly experimented with sending their prisoners to what are now known as Ghana and Senegal. Then they remembered Captain Cook’s earlier exploration and his sighting of a new land which was now owned by them.
Botany Bay
In 1783 James Matra, who had sailed with Captain Cook on his voyage to the Pacific, supported by the botanist Joseph Banks, suggested to the British Government that Botany Bay in Australia might be a suitable place to establish a new colony
On 6 December 1786, Orders In Council resolved the situation by deciding to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales, although from the 1820s to the 1860s convicts were still sent to Bermuda to help build the Royal Naval dockyard there.
Off to Australia
So not only did Britain get rid of its criminals, they also solved the problem of colonisation of their new territory. On 13 May 1787 a fleet of eleven ships left Portsmouth on a six month journey carrying convicted felons to Botany Bay in Australia.
But not Botany Bay
But Captain Arthur Phillip, in charge of the fleet, had other ideas. He wasn’t at all happy with the lack of fresh water and other things that would be needed to establish a successful colony there.
A settlement is Found
So on Monday, 21 January, he took some of his officers in a cutter (a fast, one-masted sailing vessel) and sailed north to a harbour which had been named Port Jackson by Captain Cook. The area contained many bays and after having a good look round, they settled on one which they named Sydney Cove, which had a good spring in it. So he moved everyone there instead.
The end of Transportation
Transportation ended in 1868 after a British Government enquiry concluded that not only was it unfair to send people to another country thousands of miles away, often for very minor crimes, but it was also an ineffective punishment anyway. In any case, people who weren’t convicts, but who had willingly gone to Australia to build a new life for themselves, were worried that their new homeland was seen as being inhabited only by criminals.
