Van Diemen's Land
"place of banishment and security for the worst description of convicts"

Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to explore Tasmania. He named the island Anthoonij van Diemenslandt in honour of Anthony van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies who had sent Tasman on his voyage of discovery in 1642.

This database includes information on over 1300 convicts who were originally from County Down and were transported to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land.
 http://www.downcountymuseum.com/prisonersaus.aspx?area=1&aName=Home&textsize=

Go to LINKS    Go to WEBSITES    Go to RESOURCES    Go to BOOKS  Go to NAI

In 1803, the island was colonised by the British as a penal colony with the name Van Diemen's Land, and became part of the British colony of New South Wales. In 1824, Van Diemen's Land became a colony in its own right. In 1856 the colony was granted responsible self-government with its own representative parliament, and the name of the island and colony were changed to Tasmania.

Newry Passengers Australia Convict Index Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land - 1852
(Click to enlarge)

BLACK VELVET BAND

In a neat little town they call Belfast
An apprentice boy I was bound
And many's the happy hour
I have spent in that neat little town
But bad misfortune o'ertook me
And caused me to stray from the land
Far away from my friends and relations,
Betrayed by the black velvet band

Oh, one evening late as I rambled
Not meaning to go very far,
When I met with a gay young deceiver
She was plyin' her trade in a bar.
Oh, her eyes they shone like the diamonds
And I thought her the pride of the land
And her hair hung over her shoulders
Tied up with a black velvet band.

Oh, one evening a flashman, a watchman
She happened to meet on the sly
I could tell that her mind it was altered
By the roll of her roving dark eye
Oh, that watch she took from his pocket
She slipped it right into my hand
Then she gave me in charge to the policeman
Bad luck to the black velvet band

Now before the Lord Mayor I was taken
My guilt they proved quite plain
And he said if I was not mistaken
I should have to cross the salt main
Now its sixteen long years have they gave me
To plough upon Van Dieman's land
Far away from my friends and relations
A curse on the black velvet band

So come all ye jolly young fellows,
I'll have ye take warning from me
Whenever you're out on the liquor,
Beware of them pretty colleens.
They'll treat you to whiskey and porter,
Till you are not able to stand;
And the very next thing that you know, my lads,
You'll end up in Van Dieman's land.

The Sarah Island Historic Site is Tasmania's oldest convict settlement, operating from 1822 to 1833. Located within the
Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area
on the rugged west coast and separated from the settled east by a vast tract of mountainous wilderness, Sarah Island was proposed by Lt Governor Sorell as a
"place of banishment and security for the worst description of convicts"
and as such developed the reputation as one of the severest of the penal settlements established during the history of transportation.
However, the island was also a successful center of industry. Pining and shipbuilding were among the trades carried out by the convicts. Indeed, in its day, Sarah Island was the largest shipbuilding yard in Australia.

 

WEBSITES:

Must visit website with information on MAILING LIST

AUSNZ Passenger Lists - includes many passenger lists for Tasmania.

Convictions Australian Shipping - Passenger and Convict lists.

Lenore's Links Page - Ships Logs, Journals & Pictures, and Passenger Lists Links - Australia and New Zealand.

OZ-Ship Mailing List - This list is to allow people to share information about Australian and New Zealand shipping, passengers and crew.

Peter Hodge's Genealogy Page - includes passenger list "Indian" to Launceston 1843.

TasmaniaGenWeb - includes some passenger lists.

 

 

Wild Colonial Boy

There was a wild colonial boy, Jack Duggan was his name
He was born and bred in Ireland in a place called Castlemaine
He was his father's only son, his mother's pride and joy
And dearly did his parents love the Wild Colonial Boy

At the age of sixteen years he left his native home
And through Australia's sunny clime he was inclined to roarn
He robbed the lordly squatters, their flocks he would destroy
A terror to Australia was the Wild Colonial Boy

For two long years his darling youth ran on his wild career
With a heart that knew no danger, their justice did not fear
He stuck the Beechworth coach up and he robbed judge McEvoy
Who, trembling gave his gold up to the Wild Colonial Boy

He bade the judge "good morning" and he told him to beware
For he never robbed an honest judge what acted on the square
Yet you would rob a mother of her son and only joy
And breed a race of outlaws like the Wild Colonial Boy

One morning on the prairie Wild Jack Duggan rode along
While listening to the mocking birds singing a cheerful song
Out jumped three troopers fierce and grim, Kelly, Davis and Fitzroy
They all set out to capture him, the Wild Colonial Boy

He fired point blank at Kelly and brought him to the ground
He fired a shot at Davis too, who fell dead at the sound
But a bullet pierced his brave young heart from the pistol of Fitzroy
And that was how they captured the Wild Colonial Boy

LINKS

Ireland; County Down Convicts to Australia  over 1300 convicts who were originally from County Down and were transported to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. Some of them were in Downpatrick Gaol before
 

Cascades (Hobart) Female Factory Convicts
Convict Passengers and Sailors 1820s, 1830s
Convict Tickets of  Leave; 1837
Convict Ships List


Convicts from Devon and Cornwall Criminal Register Bodmin Gaol, Cornwall List of all prisoners noted as transported 1851 - 1856

Convcicts: Permission to Marry Database
(by Jackie Brown 1845-1850):
A-B ,, C-E ,, F-G ,, H-L ,, M-O ,, P-S ,,T-Z

Convicts: Conditional Pardons 1860
Convict Pardons 1851

Convict Marriages extracted from "Cornwall Chronicle" 1843 , 1844

Convict Women at Macquarie Harbour 1821-25
Female Factory Research Group information on female convicts

Female Family Founders Database any female convict who spent time in Van Diemen's Land is included in this database

Genseek's Convict Database


George Town Female Factory Convicts
Hobart Female Factory Convicts
Indexes of Tasmanian Convicts over 11,000 names
Index to Tasmanian Convicts 1804-1853 Archives Office of Tasmania
Index to Convict Applications for Permission to Marry 1829 to 1857Archives Office of Tasmania
 

Irene Schaffer's Website

 

Irish Convicts to Tasmania, Australia 1845

Irish Women Convicts to Tasmania on the "Australasia" 1849

Launceston Female Factory Convicts

Macquarie Harbour; Convict women at Macquarie Harbour 1821-25

New South Wales and Tasmania Convict Musters,
1806-1849

New South Wales and Tasmania Settler & Convict Lists, 1787-1834

New South Wales and Tasmania Convict Pardons and Tickets of Leave, 1834-1859
Ross Female Factory Convicts
Sorell_Convicts
Sorell; Tickets of Leave  1841 -1858
Tasmanian Convict List
Tasmanian Convict Ships List
Tasmania Convicts Monies Due  1828


Tickets of Leave 1837 as published in "Launceston Advertiser"Uncollected Convict Tickets of Leave as published in Launceston Advertiser published April 6th 1837


1835..Female Convicts to Tasmania on "Newgrove"
1826..Female Convicts to Tasmania on "Providence II"
1835..Male Convicts to Tasmania on "Waterloo 4"
1835..Male Convicts to Tasmania on "Lady Kennaway"
1835..Male Convicts to Tasmania on "Augusta Jessie"
1835..Male Convicts to Tasmania on "Aurora 1"
1835..Male Convicts to Tasmania on "Mangles
 A-J & K-Z
 

1835..Male Convicts to Tasmania on "Norfolk 4"
1836..Male Convicts to Tasmania on "Bardcaster"
1836..Male Convicts Portsmouth to Tasmania on "William Metcalfe"

1849.."Australasia" Convicts  Ireland to Tasmania 1849 a list of the 200 female Irish convicts transported per Australasia

IRISH NATIONAL ARCHIVES

National Archives
... Governor Franklin of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) complained in l84l about the wretched
state in which the Irish female convicts had arrived on board the ship ...
http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/transportation/Irl-Oz.pdf - 2007-02-21
National Archives
... period the most common sentence handed down for what were then considered serious
offences, was that of transportation to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), usually ...
http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/famine/GF.pdf - 2006-10-11

 

Van Diemen's Land

Hold me now, oh hold me now
Till this hour has gone around
And I'm gone on the rising tide
For to face Van Diemen's land

It's a bitter pill I swallow here
To be rent from one so dear
We fought for justice and not for gain
But the magistrate sent me away

Now kings will rule and the poor will toil
And tear their hands as they tear the soil
But a day will dawn in this coming age
When an honest man sees an honest wage

Hold me now, oh hold me now
Till this hour has gone around
And I'm gone on the rising tide
For to face Van Dieman's land

Still the gunman rules and Widows pay
A scarlett coat now a black beret
They thought that blood and sacrifice
Could out of death bring forth a life

Carrick Mill on the river Liffey, Glenore Van Diemen's Land

. In the 1800s, Van Diemen's Land, the island south of mainland Australia, was a penal colony to which the British government sent convicts.

Some of the Irish rebels tried for their parts in the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s were sent to Van Diemen's Land.

The transportation of convicts to Van Diemen's Land ended in 1853, the same year the colony changed its name to Tasmania, as an apparent to escape the stigma of having been a penal colony.

Transportation of convicts to Australia and Van Diemen's Land was protested by the Australian Anti-Transportation Movement in the mid-1800s. The practice of transportation as a punishment was finally stopped in 1867.

RESOURCES:

Guide to the Public Records of Tasmania - The Convict Department by The Archives Office of Tasmania - can be downloaded

BOOKS:
recommended by members of the AUS-Tas-Convicts Mailing List as useful resources for convicts.

1788: The People of the First Fleet
by Don Chapman (1981)

Bound for Van Diemen's Land: the third convict voyage of Her Majesty's transport Gilmore 1843-1844
by John Howard (1996)

Britain's Convicts to the Colonies
by Wilfred Oldham (1990)

Chain Letters: Narrating convict lives
by Lucy Frost & Hamish Maxwell-Stewart (2001)

Clyde Company Papers
edited by PL Brown

"Contumacious, Ungovernable and Incorrigible": Convict Women in Van Diemen's Land by Kirsty Reid (pp.106-123), in I Duffield & J Bradley, Representing Convicts: New Perspectives on Convict Forced Labour Migration (1997)

Convict Maids: the forced migration of convict women to Australia by Deborah Oxley (1996)

Convicts Unbound: The story of the Calcutta convicts and their settlement in Australia by Marjorie Tipping (1988)

Convict Women by Kay Daniels (1998)

Crimes of the First Fleet Convicts
by John Cobley (1970)

Depraved and disorderly. Female convicts, Sexuality and Gender in Colonial Australia
by Joy Damousi (1997)

Exiled Three Times Over: Profiles of Norfolk Islanders exiled in Van Diemen's Land  1807-13 by Irene Schaffer & Thelma McKay (1992)

Exiles from Erin: convict lives in Ireland and Australia by Bob Reece (1991)

Female factory, female convicts
by Tony Rayner (2005)

From Places Now Forgotten
by Marie Jones (1996) - includes an index of convicts whose places of trial were outside the UK and Ireland

Governor Arthur's Convict System 1824-36 by William Forsyth (1970)

Irish Convict Lives by Bob Reece (1993)

Joseph Mason: Assigned Convict 1832-1837 by David Kent & Norma Townsend (1996)

Notorious Strumpets & Dangerous Girl: Convict Women in Van Diemen's Land
by Phillip Tardif (1990) - now available on CD Rom

Ordered to the Island. Irish Convicts and Van Diemen's Land
by John Williams (1994)

Representing Convicts : New perspectives on convict forced labour migration
edited by Ian Duffield & James Bradley (1997)

Tasmanian Rogues & Absconders 1803-1875 by Alexander Graeme-Evans (1994)

The Broad Arrow Oline Keese (1859) - a novel

The Convict Probation System: Van Diemen's Land 1839-1854
by Ian Brand (1990)

The Convict Settlers of Australia
by LL Robson (1965)

The Convict Ships 1787-1868
by Charles Bateson (1959)

The Fatal Shore
by Robert Hughes (1987)

The Forgotten Generation of Norfolk Island and Van Diemen's Land
by Reg Wright (1986)

The Founders of Australia
by Mollie Gillen (1989)

The Last Ladies: Female convicts on the 'Duchess of Northumberland', 1853
by Christine Woods (2004)

The Narrative of "George Russell of Golfhill" with Russellania and selected papers edited by PL Brown

The Native Born by John Moloney

The Second Fleet by Michael Flynn (1993)

The Women of Botany Bay by Portia Robinson

Transcribing Tasmanian Convict Records
by Susan Hood (2003)

"Unfit to Die": Irish Murderesses as Van Diemen's Land colonists
by Richard Davis (pp.22-42), in Trevor McClaughlin (ed.), Irish Women in Colonial Australia by Trevor McClaughlin (1998)