Why did we send our criminals to Australia in the past ?

Question

Why didn't the honest/rich folk just take all the boats and go themselves ? I'd have left this stinking medieval toilet to it's own devices.

Answer 1

Because they wanted to Colonize it as fast as possible, no one wanted to go there, so they would send people that were arrested for petty crimes like stealing a loaf of bread or spitting in public. If they had enough British people in Australia it would cement their claim to it.

Answer 2

Because it was a long trip lots of people died disease spread fast and when they got there there was nothing there and they wanted the criminals to build it all up for them and i think they were worried about savages in other word they were worried that the people that were already there might be a bit peeved off when aload of white criminals turned up and started building colonies all over there land. Plus for the rich folk life was good in this stinking medival toilet and for the honest people they couldn't afford it.

Answer 3

Well, it would appear that you missed out on a good few, if one is to judge by conditions in UK today.
England sent not only her own criminals but also Irish criminals and political activists. The latter made a huge contribution to building the country into a thriving independent state with only very tenuous links to the Motherland.
For many Irish people an opportunity in Australia was an improvement on the conditions imposed on them at home -- by the very people who thought deportation was a punishment.

Answer 4

The first major innovation in eighteenth-century penal practice was the extensive use of transportation. Although there was some idea that transportation might lead to the reformation of the offender, the primary motivations behind this punishment were deterrence and the exile of hardened criminals from society.
Although many convicts were transported in the seventeenth century, it had to be done at their own expense or at the expense of merchants or shipowners. In the early eighteenth century there was a desire to extend transportation as a way of creating a more effective alternative to the death penalty (in terms of deterring crime) than benefit of clergy and whipping. In 1718 the first Transportation Act allowed the courts to sentence felons guilty of offences subject to benefit of clergy to seven years transportation to America. In 1720 a further statute authorized payments by the state to the merchants who contracted to take the convicts to America.
The first Transportation Act also allowed those guilty of capital offences and pardoned by the king to be sentenced to transportation, and it established returning from transportation as a capital offence.
Under the terms of the Transportation Act, those sentenced to death could be granted a royal pardon on condition of being transported for fourteen years or life. From 1739, a number of such cases appear in the Proceedings.
In 1776 transportation was halted by the outbreak of war with America. Although convicts continued to be sentenced to transportation, male convicts were confined to hard labour in hulks on the Thames, while women were imprisoned. Transportation resumed in 1787 with a new destination: Australia. This was seen as a more serious punishment than imprisonment, since it involved exile to a distant land.
In the early nineteenth century, as part of the revisions of the criminal law, transportation for life was substituted as the maximum punishment for several offences which had previously been punishable by death.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth century Australia was not a developed country like it is today. The honest and rich people that you suggest should have gone there would have had to risk a dangerous and uncertain sea journey as well as having to build their own accomodation on arrival.

Answer 5

Because of the harsh conditions out there. It was thought most convicts would die over there (an alternative to execution). The bloody code was being reformed, capital offences (which had in the past included theft and forgery) were now limited to only the most serious crimes. However, the jails in England were being filled up with prisoners, the government sought to get rid of as many of them as they could, along with their families. The family of a hanged man had to be supported by the authorities, the authorities hoped to save money and put the offender to work in the hope he started a new life for himself

Answer 6

Firsttly, it was a punishment. Secondly, for the people who were settling in Australia, the convicts worked on building roads, houses, bridges churches etc. Finally after serving their sentence, the convicts were given land of their own to settle on. There was no shortage of stone for building in Australia as there was so much available from the time when Australia was covered in active volcanoes. In most areas there are acres of lava rock . I drove along one of the highways there for 26 miles and either side of the road was fields full of lava rock all the 26 miles.

Answer 7

I visited such a penal colony in Hobart, Tasmania: an island just south of Melbourne.

It seems to me that to imprison innocent people because of the crimes of the guilty is a greater crime than to let the guilty go free. Therefore, to remove the innocent (or presumed guilty but not proven) to Australia seems like a fair compromise.

It does appear that there was not severe prison conditions there, quite the opposite. Perhaps it was just a case of removing the small number of innocents from the large number of guilties.

It is easier to deal with mass fraud in this manner. The guilty are left to live in the hell they had created.

Answer 8

Because it had only recently been discovered and sending compulsory settlers was the cheapest and surest way of getting development going. The rich didn't live in stinking mediaeval conditions, anyway, but once the convicts had got things moving and it was possible to live comfortably the "rich" were happy to follow and grab land.

Answer 9

Australia Had been discovered, Criminals roaming causing havoc on the streets of U.k.Slavery had been abolished, The answer for both was simple. Send out Men women and children to Initially work on buildings and in-fa structure. When they had served their sentence they were free to build homes and family's.
They sent out the petty criminals because they didn't want the hardened ones to ruin it all!
Hope this explains the justification of it all.

Answer 10

Only England sent criminals to Australia. Most of these criminals were people imprisoned for debt. They wanted to people the land, and folks who couldn't make it in England were likely prospects for the task. Some wealthy people did go, and did well there too.

Answer 11

I'm with you - if I'm a rich trader I would have jumped on the 1st skiff for Sydney mate.

Rich traders however sent the crims to do there work and labour for them - displacement it was called - because they displaced the aboriginal natives - for culture, language and everything really. Those traders then sent all the spice, fruit, etc home to make them even more money. Damn same though.