Transportation of Prisoners

The following source list was originally available only on paper in one of the West Yorkshire Archive Service offices. It may have been compiled many years ago and could be out of date. It was designed to act as a signpost to records of interest on a particular historical subject, but may relate only to one West Yorkshire district, or be an incomplete list of sources available.

Transportation emerged during the seventeenth century as a humane alternative to the death penalty. Transportation was initially mainly to America, but the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776 meant that this was no longer a possible destination.

Sentences of transportation were still passed, but convicts were held in prison instead. Naturally these soon became overcrowded, and extra accommodation had to be provided in old ships (the 'hulks') moored in coastal waters. The last convict hulk at Gibralter was not used after 1875.

Before transportation prisoners were assembled at major Houses of Correction or prisons. They were then transported to prison hulks at major ports, such as Chatham, Portsmouth, Millbank (London), before they embarked on the transportation vessels. As the numbers grew some prisoners were transported to prison hulks based off shore at Gibralter, Barbados and other colonies.

Transportation was not formally abolished until 1868, but in practice it was effectively stopped in 1857, and had become increasingly unusual well before that date. Transportation was replaced by penal servitude.

During those 80 years 158,702 convicts arrived in Australia from England and Ireland, and 1321 from other parts of the Empire, making a total of 160,023 men and women transported. A good account of the transportation system is given in - The Fatal Shore. Robert Hughes 1987

There is a register of convicts who were assembled at Wakefield Prison prior to their transportation from the closing era of transportation of prisoners(ref: C1303). This covers the period January 1858 to May 1861.

The register includes the following information:

Prison number
Name (including any aliases)
Physical description including details of tattoos and distinguishing marks
Age
Marital status and number of children
Literacy
Occupation
Crime, dates and places of conviction
Sentence
Date and place of committal
Previous imprisonments, location and length of sentence
Character since conviciton
Residence of family and next of kin
Further information on character of prisoner and convictions
Religion
Date & reception at other prisons
State of Health
Final disposal - details of port they were sent to before transportation and where they were sent.
General remarks

There are photographs of some of the prisoners from March to December 1858. There are also some inserted newspaper cuttings including the escape of William Parkes, who escaped shortly after being transported and went to Paris where he took part in a jewel robbery.

Some of the pages in the register are missing.

Further information about tracing prisoners see The National Archives.