Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia's PastStephen Nicholas State and private employers in New South Wales recognised the convicts' previous occupations, and employed a large proportion of them in the same occupations they had held at home. The women convicts - often classified as prostitutes - in fact brought a range of occupational skills equally as important for the economic development of Australia as those of the male convicts. Once settled in Australia, the convicts consumed a diet, and experienced housing, superior to that received by free men and women at home. The organisation of their work was not very different from that in Britain and Ireland and, while cruel treatment did exist, the likelihood of numerous floggings during their term of sentence is shown to be a myth. Convict workers is a study in comparative history, noting the resemblances and the contrasts with indentured labour, slavery and punitive communities elsewhere. By illuminating the contribution of the convict workers to Australia's economic and social development. |
Contents
The Organisation of Public Work | 152 |
Convict Labour and the Australian Agricultural | 167 |
The Care and Feeding of Convicts | 180 |
A New Past | 199 |
Country of Birth and Sex | 204 |
Literacy and Sex by Country of Trial 210211 | 210 |
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A.G.L. Shaw AACo aristocrats ARMSTRONG SKILL CLASSIFICATION arrived artisan assigned Australian Agricultural Company Bigge Blaxland Britain British capitalist carpenters census cent colonial Convict Indents convict labour convict sample convict system convict workers costs COUNTRY OF TRIAL crime criminal class Economic History elite emancipists emigrants employed employment England evidence factory farm female convicts Female Total Male forced labour free labour free workers gangs gaol Governor historians hulks human capital immigrants indentured Indian Ireland Irish James Macarthur labour aristocracy labour market labour power labour system literacy rate London Macarthur Macquarie maker male convicts Male Female Total migration nineteenth century occupations organisation Parramatta penal population Port Stephens prisoners private employers private masters production Report Select Committee sentence servants settlers Slavery slaves South Wales Sydney Table task Total Male Female trade transported convicts unfree labour unskilled Urban Rural Total Van Diemen's Land wage weaver women workforce