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Authors: David Brandon
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and bread or biscuit which were often mouldy. Each prisoner had two pints of beer four days a week and badly filtered water drawn from the river.
Resistance to the closing of the hulks had diminished by 1855 when the Penal Servitude Act ended transportation, replacing it with specific terms of imprisonment in English prisons. On 14 July 1857 The Times reported:
At 9 o’clock yesterday morning smoke was observed issuing from the convict hulk Defense, moored off Woolwich Arsenal, which, on closer examination was discovered to originate in the fore part of the ship... Every part of the huge vessel was soon filled with smoke and the whole of the inmates were hastily removed.
There had been 171 prisoners aboard up till that day. Many of them were invalids and in the ‘last stage of disease’. They were safely evacuated thanks to the prompt action between the warders and the prisoners. All the prisoners were transferred to the convict hulk Unite further up the Thames. After eighty years the prison ships had come to an end – or had they? In 1997, the government established a new prison ship, HMP Weare, as a temporary measure to ease prison overcrowding. Weare was docked at the disused Royal Navy dockyard at Portland, Dorset. On 9 March 2005 it was announced that the Weare was to close. Since then, the government has looked into using private contractors to supply prison ship spaces in order to alleviate overcrowding!
Boarding the Convict Ship
After their incarceration on the hulk, the convict’s next punishment was to embark upon the ship that would take them on the long journey to Australia.
The journey from hulk or prison to embarkation port was one of public spectacle, as convicts either walked or travelled via carts. Pickpocket George Barrington noted in his journal that he said his farewells and assembled with the others at 4.45 a.m. to be escorted by the city guards from his prison to Blackfriars Bridge. Barrington remarked on the ignominy of being mingled with felons of all descriptions and the humiliation of the early morning walk which would be witnessed by spectators. Even for the renowned thief, this was a ‘punishment more severe than the sentence of my country that I had so much wronged’.
Convicts would arrive at Woolwich and Deptford on the Thames dressed in regulation jackets, waistcoats of blue cloth, duck trousers (a durable, closely woven heavy cotton or linen fabric), coarse linen shirts, yarn stockings and woollen caps. Women were issued with a regulation dress, although clothing for the women on the First Fleet in 1787 fell to pieces within weeks of the voyage. In chains, they boarded the ship and were then ordered into the hold where battens were fixed for the hammocks which were hung ‘seventeen inches apart’. Barrington, commenting on his feelings, wrote of ‘the want of fresh air’ which ‘rendered [the] situation truly deplorable’.
It was not uncommon for the prisoners to have waited months on the hulks before they embarked onto the convict ship. Psychological and physical trauma was also acknowledged to be a feature of embarkation. Commenting on the adjustment prisoners had to make from Pentonville Prison to convict ship, surgeon John Stephen of the Sir George Seymour wrote in 1845:
The sudden change from seclusion to the bustle and noise of a crowded ship produced a number of cases of convulsion, attended in some instances with nausea and vomiting, in others simulating hysteria and in all being of almost anomalous character. The recumbent position, fresh air, mild stimulants etc were found to be beneficial in all cases and after three days the convulsions disappeared.
Conditions in the prison quarters on the ship were cramped, dark, damp and lacking in ventilation. The voyage would present further challenges. In storms and heavy seas the water would sweep through the quarters, which kept the bedding constantly wet. In addition to this were the awful, putrid smells of wet and
Resistance to the closing of the hulks had diminished by 1855 when the Penal Servitude Act ended transportation, replacing it with specific terms of imprisonment in English prisons. On 14 July 1857 The Times reported:
At 9 o’clock yesterday morning smoke was observed issuing from the convict hulk Defense, moored off Woolwich Arsenal, which, on closer examination was discovered to originate in the fore part of the ship... Every part of the huge vessel was soon filled with smoke and the whole of the inmates were hastily removed.
There had been 171 prisoners aboard up till that day. Many of them were invalids and in the ‘last stage of disease’. They were safely evacuated thanks to the prompt action between the warders and the prisoners. All the prisoners were transferred to the convict hulk Unite further up the Thames. After eighty years the prison ships had come to an end – or had they? In 1997, the government established a new prison ship, HMP Weare, as a temporary measure to ease prison overcrowding. Weare was docked at the disused Royal Navy dockyard at Portland, Dorset. On 9 March 2005 it was announced that the Weare was to close. Since then, the government has looked into using private contractors to supply prison ship spaces in order to alleviate overcrowding!
Boarding the Convict Ship
After their incarceration on the hulk, the convict’s next punishment was to embark upon the ship that would take them on the long journey to Australia.
The journey from hulk or prison to embarkation port was one of public spectacle, as convicts either walked or travelled via carts. Pickpocket George Barrington noted in his journal that he said his farewells and assembled with the others at 4.45 a.m. to be escorted by the city guards from his prison to Blackfriars Bridge. Barrington remarked on the ignominy of being mingled with felons of all descriptions and the humiliation of the early morning walk which would be witnessed by spectators. Even for the renowned thief, this was a ‘punishment more severe than the sentence of my country that I had so much wronged’.
Convicts would arrive at Woolwich and Deptford on the Thames dressed in regulation jackets, waistcoats of blue cloth, duck trousers (a durable, closely woven heavy cotton or linen fabric), coarse linen shirts, yarn stockings and woollen caps. Women were issued with a regulation dress, although clothing for the women on the First Fleet in 1787 fell to pieces within weeks of the voyage. In chains, they boarded the ship and were then ordered into the hold where battens were fixed for the hammocks which were hung ‘seventeen inches apart’. Barrington, commenting on his feelings, wrote of ‘the want of fresh air’ which ‘rendered [the] situation truly deplorable’.
It was not uncommon for the prisoners to have waited months on the hulks before they embarked onto the convict ship. Psychological and physical trauma was also acknowledged to be a feature of embarkation. Commenting on the adjustment prisoners had to make from Pentonville Prison to convict ship, surgeon John Stephen of the Sir George Seymour wrote in 1845:
The sudden change from seclusion to the bustle and noise of a crowded ship produced a number of cases of convulsion, attended in some instances with nausea and vomiting, in others simulating hysteria and in all being of almost anomalous character. The recumbent position, fresh air, mild stimulants etc were found to be beneficial in all cases and after three days the convulsions disappeared.
Conditions in the prison quarters on the ship were cramped, dark, damp and lacking in ventilation. The voyage would present further challenges. In storms and heavy seas the water would sweep through the quarters, which kept the bedding constantly wet. In addition to this were the awful, putrid smells of wet and
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