History Of Convicts

The convicts sent to Van Diemen’s Land were younger, poor people from rural areas. It was a challenging prospect for those convicts unfortunate enough to be sent there. It happened to be that one in five convicts was a woman and numbers of children were also transported with their parents. Very few would return back home. There were a lot of crimes that took place at Port Arthur along with many punishments for these crimes. A lot of the deaths of convicts at Port Arthur were caused by different types of diseases and illnesses, also dangerous trades resulted in death. Convicts were given a limited amount of clothing at Port Arthur.

In the 1800s, diseases and illnesses affected many convicts, which few survived. There was no immunity, and few …show more content…
From 1830 until 1877, Port Arthur was the place where convicts who re-offended after arriving in the British colonies of Van Diemen’s Land were imprisoned. In its time, it was a groundbreaking attempt to deal with issues of crime and punishment that all societies continue to address today. People could be deported for crimes such as vagrancy (being homeless and unemployed) or robbery of goods less than a shilling, while stealing goods worth more than a shilling meant being hung. Good behaviour meant that many convicts were granted a Ticket of Leave before their full sentence. A Ticket of Leave were given to convicts when granting them freedom to work and live within a given district of the colony before their sentence …show more content…
In 1833, Reverend John Manton chose Isle of the Dead to be a burial place. Between 1833 and 1877, 1100 burials took place on Isle of the Dead. Even with death the strict social order remained, the free people would be buried on the highest part of the island and their graves had a headstone that would have been carved by the stonemason convicts. The convicts, paupers and invalids were buried on the lower part of the island and until 1850 they weren’t allowed to have a headstone. Many of the deaths at Port Arthur were related to work or the status in life. Pneumonia was one big case of deaths and the other was the dangerous work convicts had to do. Since the only transport was by water, there was also a lot of deaths by drowning. Women commonly died during childbirth and children commonly died to whooping cough and scarlet fever. As Convicts got older, heart disease and strokes became more