Go Inside Australia's Former Penal Colonies. In 1788, 751 convicts and their families disembarked in the newly established British colony of New South Wales.

The joke about Australia is that it was founded by a bunch of criminals. And from 1788 until 1868, Britain did send roughly 164,000 convicts to the land down under.

The Hougoumont, the last ship to take convicts from the UK to Australia, docked in Fremantle, Western Australia, on January 9, 1868 – 150 years ago. It brought an end to a process which ...

It’s estimated that 164,000 convicts were shipped to Australia between 1788 and 1868 under the British government’s new Transportation Act — a humane alternative to the death penalty. Approximately 25 ...

New South Wales, a state in southeast Australia, was founded by the British as a penal colony in 1788. Over the next 80 years, more than 160,000 convicts were transported to Australia from England ...

During the 18th century, England sought out remote locations to house prisoners as a solution to its overcrowded jails. In ...

The Hougoumont, the last ship to take convicts from the UK to Australia, docked in Fremantle, Western Australia, on January 9, 1868 — 150 years ago. It brought an end to a process which ...

Of the roughly 760 convicts who arrived in Sydney in 1788 on the First Fleet, at least 15 were black. Between 1788 and 1842, about 80,000 male and female convicts were transported to NSW, of whom ...

Based on the novel The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally, itself inspired by real events, it focuses on Britain’s first penal colony in Australia in 1788 and explores how the convicts learn to find ...

Children of convicts transported to Australia grew up taller than their ... a survey of tens of thousands of convicts that British courts sent to the Australian penal colonies between 1788 and ...

Captain Arthur Phillip (1738 - 1814) of the Royal Navy raises the flag to declare British possession of New South Wales at Sydney Cove, Australia, Jan. 26, 1788.