Australians call the British "Poms". Apparently, this is an acronym for "Prisoners of Her Majesty" or "Prisoners of Mother England." Of course, it would be more accurate for the Aussies to be called Poms by the British, considering THEY are the ones who are descended from said convicts.
Britain sent thousands of its convicts (including children) to its penal colony of Australia from 1787 to 1868. In 18th and early 19th Century Britain, the death penalty was given even for petty crimes (or what we would see as petty nowadays) such as stealing horses or sheep, being out at night with a blackened face, for being an unmarried mother concealing a stillborn child, destroying turnpikes, cutting down trees, arson, murder, and the theft of any goods worth in excess of 1 shilling. In fact, in 1815, there were 225 capital offences in Britain - the Bloody Code. Between 1770 and 1830, 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, an average of over 5,800 each year.
Until 1971, Britain still had the death penalty for causing an explosion or fire in a ship, naval dockyyard, magazine or warehouse; the death penalty for espionage wasn't abolished until 1981; and for piracy or treason until 1998.
There was a working gallows at Wandsworth Prison, in London, until 1994, which was tested every six months until 1992.
But many lucky ones escaped the penalty and were transported to Australia instead. In fact, these were problably the UNlucky ones, as being sent to that sweltering, harsh desert land to work in mines, building roads or being assigned to other forms of unpaid labour was probably worse than death.
A 70-year-old woman named Elizabeth Beckford was transported to Australia because she had stolen a 10lb Gloucestershire cheese.
Life on these British convict ships often reflected life in 18th Century Britain itself - they were filthy and squalid and occupied by violent, drunken thugs who took part in paedophilia, and orgies with black-toothed prostitutes.
HMS Bordello! Orgies, drunken brawls - a new diary reveals the truth about life on board the first ships for Australia
By Glenys Roberts
25th February 2010
Daily Mail
Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll of Plymouth taking leave of their lovers who are going to Botany Bay, Australia, 1792
Drunken orgies, the seduction of minors, prostitution and violence among the crew - life aboard the notorious 19th-century emigrant ships to Australia has never been described in more lurid detail than in a contemporary diary that has only recently come to light.
Most shocking of all was the fact that the captain - the man responsible for the safe passage and moral conduct of the crew and passengers - shared his bunk with two of the 11 daughters of a preacher who was moving his family to Adelaide.
He openly caroused with the shameless girls in full view of everyone else.
'The captain was allowed to keep the daughters company at all hours and during the whole time of our being in warm weather our bed deck sufficed for all three,' wrote junior officer James Bell.
He served on board the good ship Planter, which left Deptford, South-East London, in November 1838, reaching Australia six months later. Though he was appalled by the debauched goings on, it seems others were not.
'Such an example was soon followed by all the ship's company, but particularly the three mates, who carried immorality to a glaring height,' he wrote.
'Particularly the first mate, whom I saw take farewell of a wife and child at Deptford and who is a man of 40 or more.'
Bell's extraordinary record of the long voyage to the other side of the world, set down in neat copperplate handwriting in a 225-page log in a green vellum binder, will be auctioned next month in London.
Surprisingly, considering the lascivious content, the officer seems to have written it for the entertainment of a lady friend, a certain C. Perry of Workington, Cumbria.
Many of his observations can hardly have been considered suitable for a lady's eyes.
At one point, he describes in gruesome detail a drunken fight between the ship's captain, Beasley, and his crew.
'The scenes of our drama become daily more intricate and, indeed, I can scarcely now see when it is to end,' he wrote.
'The captain and surgeon having last evening disagreed and begun to review each other's conduct, the dispute ran so high as to provoke the former to knock the latter down with his fist . . . The chief mate . . . got very drunk and his swearing was most profane.
'A heavy lurch of the ship rolled him over and, as he is a heavy man, bloated with hard drinking, he fell with great violence and his head came in contact with the corner of our iron stove, which cut and mangled him most dreadfully.
'I was the first to render him assistance and got a light and candle, the surgeon who had just left him a few minutes before, himself flushed with drinking, the wound was dressed . . .
'I found the officer on watch asleep, and so drunk that I could not make him understand what had happened . . .'
But most astounding of all was Bell's account of the captain's antics with women.
The adventures are described in James Bell's diary, due to go up for auction at Bonhams in March
'We have on board an old man who was called doctor at the beginning of our voyage. It seems, however, he has been licensed to preach, but has always taught at a school at Liverpool, from which place he is, and goes out to Australia having got a free passage with 11 daughters and two sons.
'His name is McGowan . . . our captain made love to two of McGowan's daughters.'
Bell's keenly observed record makes an invaluable addition to the history of the emigrant ships to Australia.
When the National Archives' records of the voyages were put on line, thousands of amateur genealogists logged on, eager to find out more about their ancestors who had made the passage.
In all, 163,000 emigrants sailed into the unknown during the 18th and 19th centuries.
And what is becoming increasingly clear is that they invariably misbehaved en route.
The first fleet of ships set out in 1787 carrying a motley crew of petty criminals.
Rather than being hanged in public (hangings were a great family day out), as would previously have been their fate, they were dispatched across perilous seas to a far-off, unknown land.
Most embarked against their will and many were elderly. A 70-year-old woman, Elizabeth Beckford, made the voyage because she had stolen a 10lb Gloucestershire cheese.
Dorothy Handland, a dealer in rags, was 82, but still deemed suitable to turn her hand to pioneering activities in the brave new world.
They were among wagonloads of prisoners dragged down to the docks from prison ships in Woolwich, where they had been languishing because the jails were full.
Dressed in filthy rags, louseridden and emaciated, they joined hundreds of younger women on the early boats.
A penniless 22-year- old Elizabeth Powley from Norfolk had raided a kitchen for a few shillings worth of bacon, flour, raisins and '24 ounces weight of butter valued 12d'.
There were hapless youngsters, too, including nine-yearold John Hudson, a chimney sweep, who was condemned to seven years' exile for stealing.
James Grace, 11, had taken ribbons and a pair of silk stockings. John Wisehammer, 15, had snatched snuff from a shop counter in Gloucester. For those small crimes, they would never see home again.
Forgers and burglars were also sent away. One teenage girl who made the voyage was widely believed to be an illegitimate daughter of the Prime Minister, Pitt the Younger.
Some were pregnant, others soon became so while at sea.
Adelaide is the largest city, and the capital, of the state of South Australia. It is named after the consort of King William IV. South Australia is the only Australian state that wasn't founded by convicts.
The diaries make it clear that since the emigrants were considered the dregs of society, they were treated as such - and they behaved accordingly. Prostitutes joined the sailors on the deck of the Planter.
'They soon found many such who seemed to like their [the sailors'] cabin so much better than their own part of the ship . . . natives of some obscene alley, in some obscene street, of that renowned city London, and who are conveying in themselves all the filth of the place of their nativity to Adelaide.'
Though prostitution was not a transportable offence, many of the women had worked as ladies of the night back home and were transported for robbing or picking the pockets of their clients.
One typical deportee, Sophia Brown, who worked in Mrs Foy's Bawdy House in London, had relieved a customer of nine guineas and his watch.
Even if the women weren't professionals, as James Bell reveals, they were so anxious to improve the dreadful conditions allotted to them on board that they quickly improved their lot by bedding the crew.
Crammed with hundreds of others in cell-like spaces below decks, the deportees had to share their accommodation with pigs and cows, sheep and horses, all destined to colonise the new land.
Apart from the seasickness and foul conditions, they could have had depressingly little confidence in the future.
Not even the crew knew whether they would survive the journey.
'Oh my God,' wrote one Royal Marines officer in his journal. 'All my hopes are over of seeing my beloved wife and son.'
Behaviour deteriorated as the ships crossed into the Tropics and the hatches were taken off at night to let the prisoners breathe some cooler air. This meant they could escape on deck.
Every Australian state was founded by British convicts, except South Australia.
As a result of this new-found freedom, sex was rampant.
The women prisoners behaved like animals, according to the surgeon on one of the ships. They threw themselves at the sailors and Royal Marines in 'promiscuous intercourse', he declared.
'Their desire to be with the men was so uncontrollable that neither shame - but, indeed, of this they had long lost sight - nor punishment could deter them,' he wrote.
Some were put in irons and others flogged, but the sailors were just as eager for sex - all the more so since the going price was a tot of rum from a sailor's ration.
Unsurprisingly, the next problem for the captain and his crew was drunkenness among the women transportees.
'There was never a more abandoned set of wretches collected in one place at any period than are to be met within this ship.'
Not content with their antics on board, whenever the ships stopped en route to take on provisions, the women would pleasure any male visitors who visited the ship in dock.
As a result, when they disembarked 13,000 miles later, many of the women who had charged for their services arrived for their new life with pockets bulging with ill-gotten gains.
According to James Bell, the Planter, like other emigrant ships, was the equivalent of a floating brothel.
What his beloved Miss Perry back in Workington thought of her sweetheart's account of the trip - a record he made 'as a small token of respect for her many good qualities and the friendship with which she has furnished me' - history does not relate.
Bell's diary was found recently on a market stall and bought for a few pounds.
With such colourful content, it is predicted to fetch several thousand at auction.
Sydney, Australia's first and largest city was also known as Sin City. Sydney wanted to be Capital of Australia but its convict stigma counted against it.
Melbourne also wanted to be the Capital of Australia on the basis that it was the home to the Australian establishment and was not founded by Convicts. (Founded by John Batman; son of a Convict)
Because Sydney and Melbourne kept bickering over which city should be the capital of Australia, it was decided that neither of them would be capital and instead, a new capital, Canberra, would be built in the middle of them both.
Adelaide’s claim to fame is that it is a city that has lots of churches. Adelaide is the capital of the only Australian state never to have received convicts.
Western Australia was the last Australian state to receive convicts. It has been said most of them now work in parliament or business!
Australians refer to English people as Poms or Pome. This is an acronym for Prisoners of Mother England. May have originally been an abbreviation for pomegranate which is Convict rhyming slang for immigrant.
The name Australia comes from the Latin Terra Australis Incognito which means the Unknown Southern Land.
Australians refer to Americans as 'Seppos'. This is an abbreviation for 'Septic Tank' which is Cockney (London) Rhyming Slang for 'Yank'.
Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman averaged 99.94 during his wonderful cricketing career. The next highest average in the entire history of the game is around 60.
The American 4 X 100 meters freestyle relay team had never been defeated until the 2000 Olympics when they were beaten by the Australians.
Jeff Thompson, an Aussie cricketer, once bowled a ball that was calculated to be at least 160 kms per hour which makes him the fastest bowler of all time. He is reported to have said that the sound of the ball hitting the batsman's skull was music to his ears.
dailymail.co.uk
Britain sent thousands of its convicts (including children) to its penal colony of Australia from 1787 to 1868. In 18th and early 19th Century Britain, the death penalty was given even for petty crimes (or what we would see as petty nowadays) such as stealing horses or sheep, being out at night with a blackened face, for being an unmarried mother concealing a stillborn child, destroying turnpikes, cutting down trees, arson, murder, and the theft of any goods worth in excess of 1 shilling. In fact, in 1815, there were 225 capital offences in Britain - the Bloody Code. Between 1770 and 1830, 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, an average of over 5,800 each year.
Until 1971, Britain still had the death penalty for causing an explosion or fire in a ship, naval dockyyard, magazine or warehouse; the death penalty for espionage wasn't abolished until 1981; and for piracy or treason until 1998.
There was a working gallows at Wandsworth Prison, in London, until 1994, which was tested every six months until 1992.
But many lucky ones escaped the penalty and were transported to Australia instead. In fact, these were problably the UNlucky ones, as being sent to that sweltering, harsh desert land to work in mines, building roads or being assigned to other forms of unpaid labour was probably worse than death.
A 70-year-old woman named Elizabeth Beckford was transported to Australia because she had stolen a 10lb Gloucestershire cheese.
Life on these British convict ships often reflected life in 18th Century Britain itself - they were filthy and squalid and occupied by violent, drunken thugs who took part in paedophilia, and orgies with black-toothed prostitutes.
HMS Bordello! Orgies, drunken brawls - a new diary reveals the truth about life on board the first ships for Australia
By Glenys Roberts
25th February 2010
Daily Mail
Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll of Plymouth taking leave of their lovers who are going to Botany Bay, Australia, 1792
Drunken orgies, the seduction of minors, prostitution and violence among the crew - life aboard the notorious 19th-century emigrant ships to Australia has never been described in more lurid detail than in a contemporary diary that has only recently come to light.
Most shocking of all was the fact that the captain - the man responsible for the safe passage and moral conduct of the crew and passengers - shared his bunk with two of the 11 daughters of a preacher who was moving his family to Adelaide.
He openly caroused with the shameless girls in full view of everyone else.
Orgies were a common occurrence on the emigrant ships (pictured is Alex Kingston in Moll Flanders)
'The captain was allowed to keep the daughters company at all hours and during the whole time of our being in warm weather our bed deck sufficed for all three,' wrote junior officer James Bell.
He served on board the good ship Planter, which left Deptford, South-East London, in November 1838, reaching Australia six months later. Though he was appalled by the debauched goings on, it seems others were not.
'Such an example was soon followed by all the ship's company, but particularly the three mates, who carried immorality to a glaring height,' he wrote.
'Particularly the first mate, whom I saw take farewell of a wife and child at Deptford and who is a man of 40 or more.'
Bell's extraordinary record of the long voyage to the other side of the world, set down in neat copperplate handwriting in a 225-page log in a green vellum binder, will be auctioned next month in London.
Surprisingly, considering the lascivious content, the officer seems to have written it for the entertainment of a lady friend, a certain C. Perry of Workington, Cumbria.
Many of his observations can hardly have been considered suitable for a lady's eyes.
At one point, he describes in gruesome detail a drunken fight between the ship's captain, Beasley, and his crew.
'The scenes of our drama become daily more intricate and, indeed, I can scarcely now see when it is to end,' he wrote.
'The captain and surgeon having last evening disagreed and begun to review each other's conduct, the dispute ran so high as to provoke the former to knock the latter down with his fist . . . The chief mate . . . got very drunk and his swearing was most profane.
'A heavy lurch of the ship rolled him over and, as he is a heavy man, bloated with hard drinking, he fell with great violence and his head came in contact with the corner of our iron stove, which cut and mangled him most dreadfully.
'I was the first to render him assistance and got a light and candle, the surgeon who had just left him a few minutes before, himself flushed with drinking, the wound was dressed . . .
'I found the officer on watch asleep, and so drunk that I could not make him understand what had happened . . .'
But most astounding of all was Bell's account of the captain's antics with women.
The adventures are described in James Bell's diary, due to go up for auction at Bonhams in March
'We have on board an old man who was called doctor at the beginning of our voyage. It seems, however, he has been licensed to preach, but has always taught at a school at Liverpool, from which place he is, and goes out to Australia having got a free passage with 11 daughters and two sons.
'His name is McGowan . . . our captain made love to two of McGowan's daughters.'
Bell's keenly observed record makes an invaluable addition to the history of the emigrant ships to Australia.
When the National Archives' records of the voyages were put on line, thousands of amateur genealogists logged on, eager to find out more about their ancestors who had made the passage.
In all, 163,000 emigrants sailed into the unknown during the 18th and 19th centuries.
And what is becoming increasingly clear is that they invariably misbehaved en route.
The first fleet of ships set out in 1787 carrying a motley crew of petty criminals.
Rather than being hanged in public (hangings were a great family day out), as would previously have been their fate, they were dispatched across perilous seas to a far-off, unknown land.
Most embarked against their will and many were elderly. A 70-year-old woman, Elizabeth Beckford, made the voyage because she had stolen a 10lb Gloucestershire cheese.
Dorothy Handland, a dealer in rags, was 82, but still deemed suitable to turn her hand to pioneering activities in the brave new world.
Britain had no qualms in banishing women and young children to Australia, sometimes for ever
They were among wagonloads of prisoners dragged down to the docks from prison ships in Woolwich, where they had been languishing because the jails were full.
Dressed in filthy rags, louseridden and emaciated, they joined hundreds of younger women on the early boats.
A penniless 22-year- old Elizabeth Powley from Norfolk had raided a kitchen for a few shillings worth of bacon, flour, raisins and '24 ounces weight of butter valued 12d'.
There were hapless youngsters, too, including nine-yearold John Hudson, a chimney sweep, who was condemned to seven years' exile for stealing.
James Grace, 11, had taken ribbons and a pair of silk stockings. John Wisehammer, 15, had snatched snuff from a shop counter in Gloucester. For those small crimes, they would never see home again.
Forgers and burglars were also sent away. One teenage girl who made the voyage was widely believed to be an illegitimate daughter of the Prime Minister, Pitt the Younger.
Some were pregnant, others soon became so while at sea.
Adelaide is the largest city, and the capital, of the state of South Australia. It is named after the consort of King William IV. South Australia is the only Australian state that wasn't founded by convicts.
The diaries make it clear that since the emigrants were considered the dregs of society, they were treated as such - and they behaved accordingly. Prostitutes joined the sailors on the deck of the Planter.
'They soon found many such who seemed to like their [the sailors'] cabin so much better than their own part of the ship . . . natives of some obscene alley, in some obscene street, of that renowned city London, and who are conveying in themselves all the filth of the place of their nativity to Adelaide.'
Though prostitution was not a transportable offence, many of the women had worked as ladies of the night back home and were transported for robbing or picking the pockets of their clients.
One typical deportee, Sophia Brown, who worked in Mrs Foy's Bawdy House in London, had relieved a customer of nine guineas and his watch.
Even if the women weren't professionals, as James Bell reveals, they were so anxious to improve the dreadful conditions allotted to them on board that they quickly improved their lot by bedding the crew.
Crammed with hundreds of others in cell-like spaces below decks, the deportees had to share their accommodation with pigs and cows, sheep and horses, all destined to colonise the new land.
Apart from the seasickness and foul conditions, they could have had depressingly little confidence in the future.
Not even the crew knew whether they would survive the journey.
A British emigrant ship being towed out of harbour before setting sail for Sydney
'Oh my God,' wrote one Royal Marines officer in his journal. 'All my hopes are over of seeing my beloved wife and son.'
Behaviour deteriorated as the ships crossed into the Tropics and the hatches were taken off at night to let the prisoners breathe some cooler air. This meant they could escape on deck.
Every Australian state was founded by British convicts, except South Australia.
As a result of this new-found freedom, sex was rampant.
The women prisoners behaved like animals, according to the surgeon on one of the ships. They threw themselves at the sailors and Royal Marines in 'promiscuous intercourse', he declared.
'Their desire to be with the men was so uncontrollable that neither shame - but, indeed, of this they had long lost sight - nor punishment could deter them,' he wrote.
Some were put in irons and others flogged, but the sailors were just as eager for sex - all the more so since the going price was a tot of rum from a sailor's ration.
Unsurprisingly, the next problem for the captain and his crew was drunkenness among the women transportees.
'There was never a more abandoned set of wretches collected in one place at any period than are to be met within this ship.'
Not content with their antics on board, whenever the ships stopped en route to take on provisions, the women would pleasure any male visitors who visited the ship in dock.
As a result, when they disembarked 13,000 miles later, many of the women who had charged for their services arrived for their new life with pockets bulging with ill-gotten gains.
According to James Bell, the Planter, like other emigrant ships, was the equivalent of a floating brothel.
What his beloved Miss Perry back in Workington thought of her sweetheart's account of the trip - a record he made 'as a small token of respect for her many good qualities and the friendship with which she has furnished me' - history does not relate.
Bell's diary was found recently on a market stall and bought for a few pounds.
With such colourful content, it is predicted to fetch several thousand at auction.
Sydney, Australia's first and largest city was also known as Sin City. Sydney wanted to be Capital of Australia but its convict stigma counted against it.
Melbourne also wanted to be the Capital of Australia on the basis that it was the home to the Australian establishment and was not founded by Convicts. (Founded by John Batman; son of a Convict)
Because Sydney and Melbourne kept bickering over which city should be the capital of Australia, it was decided that neither of them would be capital and instead, a new capital, Canberra, would be built in the middle of them both.
Adelaide’s claim to fame is that it is a city that has lots of churches. Adelaide is the capital of the only Australian state never to have received convicts.
Western Australia was the last Australian state to receive convicts. It has been said most of them now work in parliament or business!
Australians refer to English people as Poms or Pome. This is an acronym for Prisoners of Mother England. May have originally been an abbreviation for pomegranate which is Convict rhyming slang for immigrant.
The name Australia comes from the Latin Terra Australis Incognito which means the Unknown Southern Land.
Australians refer to Americans as 'Seppos'. This is an abbreviation for 'Septic Tank' which is Cockney (London) Rhyming Slang for 'Yank'.
Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman averaged 99.94 during his wonderful cricketing career. The next highest average in the entire history of the game is around 60.
The American 4 X 100 meters freestyle relay team had never been defeated until the 2000 Olympics when they were beaten by the Australians.
Jeff Thompson, an Aussie cricketer, once bowled a ball that was calculated to be at least 160 kms per hour which makes him the fastest bowler of all time. He is reported to have said that the sound of the ball hitting the batsman's skull was music to his ears.
dailymail.co.uk
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