The English Convict Hulks 1600s - 1868: Transporting Criminals to Australia

Britain packed criminals into ships and sent them to the American colonies as slave labour, but the revolution of 1775 ended this practice. Felons were crammed onto derelict sailing ships and put to hard labour in appalling conditions. Duncan Campbell and Aaron Graham were two of the men who ruled over them, and their stories are examined in this book. There are also biographies of some of the colourful rogues, children, and gentleman thieves who were crammed together and condemned to spend years in despair, starvation, and degradation.

Format: Hardback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 13 May 2024
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Britain faced a problem of crowded jails and surplus criminals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To address this, it packed them into ships and sent them to the American colonies as slave labour. However, the revolution of 1775 ended this practice, and the legal system was left with an ever-increasing army of desperate felons. These felons were crammed onto derelict sailing ships, known as hulks, and subjected to hard labour in appalling conditions along the rivers Thames and Medway. Their story has been largely ignored by historians, but here, for the first time, detailed accounts of their plight and the lives of the extraordinary men who ruled over them are examined. Duncan Campbell, the ship's captain and plantation owner, organized the hulk system, while Aaron Graham, the magistrate, spied on and defended the leader of the Nore mutiny and employed William Bligh of the _Bounty_ mutiny to captain his ships. Biographies of some of the colorful rogues, children, and gentleman thieves who were crammed together and condemned to spend years in despair, starvation, and degradation are also included. In theory, the hulks were holding pens until convicts could be shipped off to the new colonies in Australia, but many sentenced to be transported for terms of between seven years to life were destined to serve most of, if not all, their term onboard. Those that did make it to the other side of the world after a harrowing journey were seldom better off, and their story is told in the final chapter.

Weight: 468g
Dimension: 163 x 241 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399054492