what were known as hulks in 18 and 19 century england?

Answer 1

Hulks were prison ships where prisoners who had been sentenced to transportation(to Australia) for life were kept prior to the voyage.Charles Dickens mentions them in "Great Expectations": the prisoner Magwich escapes from them before terrorizing Pip in the graveyard.

Answer 2

Transport to North America

From the early 18th century until the American Revolution, Britain transported convicts each year to Maryland and Virginia.

The North American colonies declared their independence in 1776 and closed their ports to British prison ships. A crisis in the British criminal justice system followed.

Floating prisons

Britain started converting old merchant ships and naval vessels into floating prisons known as hulks. Many of these were on the River Thames.

Convicts spent time on the hulks before being transported to Australia, the new destination for Britain's criminals.

Answer 3

Hulks were ex-Royal Navy ships of the wooden kind which were used to house prisoners. This method of keeping prisoners became necessary from about the 1850s onwards, when few if any convicts could be transported to Australia.

There were a number of Hulks moored up along Greenwich Reach not far from where I live.

Answer 4

1 a: a heavy clumsy ship b (1): the body of an old ship unfit for service (2): a ship used as a prison —usually used in plural

Answer 5

A hulk is a ship that can no longer sail to sea. A shear hulk was a ship with out sails used as a crane to put masts into other ships...shear as in lift.

Answer 6

Ships of the Royal Navy that were no longer seaworhty. They were moored in the Thames and used as prison ships

Answer 7

Prison ships.

Answer 8

People called Bruce Banner?

Answer 9

They were ships moored on estuary banks and were used as prison accommodation.

Answer 10

They were prison ships:
http://www.victorianlondon.org/prisons/hulks.htm