Difference between revisions of "Trade in Services"

From Convict Transportation
Jump to: navigation, search
(= Washing and Mending)
(Background)
 
(6 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
  
===Background===
+
==Background==
  
 
Many of the convicts had services which they could trade throughout the voyage. Where there were female convicts on board, they could wash and mend the men's clothes. Those with tailoring skills were in particular demand, but some men cut hair, artists made drawings or paintings. Men with experience of the sea (and some of those without) were often allowed to work on deck, and there were are range of tasks involved in managing the convicts themselves. For the prostitutes, there were plenty of opportunities for trade.
 
Many of the convicts had services which they could trade throughout the voyage. Where there were female convicts on board, they could wash and mend the men's clothes. Those with tailoring skills were in particular demand, but some men cut hair, artists made drawings or paintings. Men with experience of the sea (and some of those without) were often allowed to work on deck, and there were are range of tasks involved in managing the convicts themselves. For the prostitutes, there were plenty of opportunities for trade.
  
===The Hulks===
+
- Gary L. Sturgess, 27 February 2016
 +
 
 +
==The Hulks==
  
 
There seem to have been opportunities for convicts on the hulks to make objects for sale, including ‘bone toys’ (in much the same way as French prisoners of war were doing).
 
There seem to have been opportunities for convicts on the hulks to make objects for sale, including ‘bone toys’ (in much the same way as French prisoners of war were doing).
Line 11: Line 13:
 
By these lights some of the convicts work on their own account, as shoemakers or tailors, or in making bone toys and other trinkets of various kinds, and others read after they are locked down. (‘Third Report from the Committee on the Laws Relating to Penitentiary Houses’, Parliamentary Papers, 27 June 1812, at p.139)
 
By these lights some of the convicts work on their own account, as shoemakers or tailors, or in making bone toys and other trinkets of various kinds, and others read after they are locked down. (‘Third Report from the Committee on the Laws Relating to Penitentiary Houses’, Parliamentary Papers, 27 June 1812, at p.139)
  
===Washing and Mending===
+
==Washing and Mending==
  
 
'''First Fleet'''
 
'''First Fleet'''
Line 23: Line 25:
 
Some of the women were desirous of working at mending the crews’ clothes but this was forbidden. Churchill had given one of them his stockings to mend, and Captain Trail having come upon them during a search, demanded to know to whom they belonged. She feared to disclose Churchill’s name for fear he would be beaten and said that it was one of the men on deck whose name she did not know. Trail took them and threw them overboard. (Churchill Examination, TNA TS11/381, 15)
 
Some of the women were desirous of working at mending the crews’ clothes but this was forbidden. Churchill had given one of them his stockings to mend, and Captain Trail having come upon them during a search, demanded to know to whom they belonged. She feared to disclose Churchill’s name for fear he would be beaten and said that it was one of the men on deck whose name she did not know. Trail took them and threw them overboard. (Churchill Examination, TNA TS11/381, 15)
  
===Personal Grooming===
+
==Personal Grooming==
  
 
8 January 1788 – Clark gave the man that cut his hair a glass of grog. (Clark, p.86)
 
8 January 1788 – Clark gave the man that cut his hair a glass of grog. (Clark, p.86)
  
===Making Clothes===
+
==Making Clothes==
  
 
'''First Fleet'''
 
'''First Fleet'''
Line 51: Line 53:
 
8 January 1800 (just after first sighting land) – Some of the sailors were refusing to pay one of the tailors who had done work for them on the voyage. (Pamela Jeanne Fulton (ed.), The Minerva Journal of John Washington Price, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000, p.139)
 
8 January 1800 (just after first sighting land) – Some of the sailors were refusing to pay one of the tailors who had done work for them on the voyage. (Pamela Jeanne Fulton (ed.), The Minerva Journal of John Washington Price, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000, p.139)
  
===Working the Ship===
+
==Working the Ship==
  
 
'''First Fleet'''
 
'''First Fleet'''
Line 144: Line 146:
 
"My plan is, every morning, after they arrived as far as to the southward of Madeira, to cause half the convicts to come on deck at four o’clock in the morning and bathe, and then go below; and the cooks, and perhaps from thirty to forty people, who are necessarily employed about the ship in various ways, for their own comfort are on deck, which relieves the prison room from a considerable degree of heat; at half past seven o’clock, their breakfast is served down, and at eight o’clock the whole of them come on deck, except eighteen or twenty, who are reserved for the cleaning of the prison room." (‘Report from the Select Committee on the State of Gaols &c’, Ordered to be Printed 12 July 1819, House of Commons Papers: Reports of Committees, (579), p.103)
 
"My plan is, every morning, after they arrived as far as to the southward of Madeira, to cause half the convicts to come on deck at four o’clock in the morning and bathe, and then go below; and the cooks, and perhaps from thirty to forty people, who are necessarily employed about the ship in various ways, for their own comfort are on deck, which relieves the prison room from a considerable degree of heat; at half past seven o’clock, their breakfast is served down, and at eight o’clock the whole of them come on deck, except eighteen or twenty, who are reserved for the cleaning of the prison room." (‘Report from the Select Committee on the State of Gaols &c’, Ordered to be Printed 12 July 1819, House of Commons Papers: Reports of Committees, (579), p.103)
  
===Artists===
+
==Artists==
  
 
'''Minerva (1799)'''
 
'''Minerva (1799)'''
Line 150: Line 152:
 
8 January 1800 (just after first sighting land) – The artists who had been employed during the voyage were paid. (Price, 139)
 
8 January 1800 (just after first sighting land) – The artists who had been employed during the voyage were paid. (Price, 139)
  
'''Prostitution'''
+
==Prostitution==
  
 
Where the ships’ officers formed liaisons with women on board, it is probable that this was done under the cover of a master-servant relationship. There is direct confirmation of this in the case of John Shapcote, the naval agent on board the Neptune. His death on the final leg of the voyage was reported in the early hours of the morning by a female convict who, it was said, ‘constantly attended Mr Shapcote’ (Statement of Donald Trail, ‘Accounts and Papers Relating to Convicts on Board the Hulks, and Those Transported to New South Wales’, Ordered to be Printed 10th and 26th March 1792, House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, (83) 1791-92, p.77)
 
Where the ships’ officers formed liaisons with women on board, it is probable that this was done under the cover of a master-servant relationship. There is direct confirmation of this in the case of John Shapcote, the naval agent on board the Neptune. His death on the final leg of the voyage was reported in the early hours of the morning by a female convict who, it was said, ‘constantly attended Mr Shapcote’ (Statement of Donald Trail, ‘Accounts and Papers Relating to Convicts on Board the Hulks, and Those Transported to New South Wales’, Ordered to be Printed 10th and 26th March 1792, House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, (83) 1791-92, p.77)
 +
 +
'''First Fleet (1787)'''
  
 
Lieutenant Clark’s journal provides evidence of prostitution among the women of the Friendship. For example, four women (Elizabeth Dudgeon, Margaret Hall, Elizabeth Powley and Charlotte Ware – went through the bulkhead to the sailors while the ships were still at Portsmouth. Of these, Dudgeon and Hall had prostitution-related convictions, and Clark wrote that the sailors were paying for their services with provisions (Paul G. Fidlon, et al (eds.), The Journals and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, Sydney: Australian Documents Library, 1981, pp.12 & 19; Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia, Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989, pp.109 & 156)
 
Lieutenant Clark’s journal provides evidence of prostitution among the women of the Friendship. For example, four women (Elizabeth Dudgeon, Margaret Hall, Elizabeth Powley and Charlotte Ware – went through the bulkhead to the sailors while the ships were still at Portsmouth. Of these, Dudgeon and Hall had prostitution-related convictions, and Clark wrote that the sailors were paying for their services with provisions (Paul G. Fidlon, et al (eds.), The Journals and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, Sydney: Australian Documents Library, 1981, pp.12 & 19; Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia, Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989, pp.109 & 156)
  
===Payment===
+
'''The Lady Juliana (1789)'''
  
==Grog and Rum==  
+
The steward, John Nicol, wrote they sailed from Tenerife to St Iago in company with two slave ships who sailed far out of their course for the sake of the women. ‘They came on board every day when the weather would permit.’ (Nicol, p.126)
 +
 
 +
'''The Neptune (1790)'''
 +
 
 +
A crew member later claimed that strangers were allowed to sleep on board ‘and have promiscuous enjoyment with several of the women who were on those occasions permitted to prostitute themselves’. (Beale Examination, TNA TS11/381, 8)
 +
The captain, Donald Trail, wrote that no female convicts were allowed out of the ship at night. One went on shore twice, with a guard, to wash and dry linen, but they were back before dark. Major Delisle and a Captain in the Dutch service paid them a visit one day, and because of the distance from Cape Town, they stayed on the ship overnight. ‘They were both married men and their wives at the Cape; it cannot be thought they could stay on account of the female convicts, as insinuated by Mr Evans; neither did any other Dutch officer sleep in the ship during the time she remained at the Cape’. (Statement of Donald Trail, ‘Accounts and Papers Relating to Convicts on Board the Hulks, and Those Transported to New South Wales’, Ordered to be Printed 10th and 26th March 1792, House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, (83) 1791-92, pp.259-368,p.333)
 +
 
 +
'''Britannia (1797)'''
 +
 
 +
The Second Mate testified that Mary Fane ‘had been countenanced by every officer on board’. (HRNSW 3:259)
 +
 
 +
'''Speedy (1799)'''
 +
 
 +
Anna King referred to one of the women, named Mary Butler (sentenced at Kingston), whom she thought of as a better sort of person, but whom lived among the officers in the steerage. (8 January 1800)
 +
 
 +
==Payment==
 +
 
 +
===Grog and Rum===
 +
 
 +
'''First Fleet'''
  
First Fleet
 
 
8 January 1788 – On the First Fleet, Ralph Clark gave the tailor and the man that cut his hair a glass of grog each. (Clark, p.86)
 
8 January 1788 – On the First Fleet, Ralph Clark gave the tailor and the man that cut his hair a glass of grog each. (Clark, p.86)
 
Hillsborough (1798)
 
Hillsborough (1798)
 +
 
4 November 1798 – Weighed the anchor. Rum for the convicts who assisted. (Noah, p.14)
 
4 November 1798 – Weighed the anchor. Rum for the convicts who assisted. (Noah, p.14)
 +
 
11 December 1798 – Convicts at the capstan weighing the best bower anchor, for which they received rum. (Noah, p.19)
 
11 December 1798 – Convicts at the capstan weighing the best bower anchor, for which they received rum. (Noah, p.19)
 +
 
29 April 1799 – Unloading coal. 12 more convicts single ironed to help the seamen at this task. Captain gave each a glass of rum. (Noah, p.43)
 
29 April 1799 – Unloading coal. 12 more convicts single ironed to help the seamen at this task. Captain gave each a glass of rum. (Noah, p.43)
 +
 
10 May 1799 – Last of the coals unloaded. The convicts served with a glass of rum. (Noah, p.45)
 
10 May 1799 – Last of the coals unloaded. The convicts served with a glass of rum. (Noah, p.45)
 +
 
24 May 1799 – Convicts helping to haul water on board, for which they were given a glass of rum. (Noah, p.47)
 
24 May 1799 – Convicts helping to haul water on board, for which they were given a glass of rum. (Noah, p.47)
Clothing and Provisions
 
  
First Fleet
+
===Clothing and Provisions===
 +
 
 +
'''First Fleet (1787)'''
  
 
Surgeon Smyth wrote of the seamen that ‘at every port they arrived at spent almost the whole of their wages due to them in purchasing different articles of wearing apparel and other things for their [the women’s] accommodation’ (Smyth, p.48)
 
Surgeon Smyth wrote of the seamen that ‘at every port they arrived at spent almost the whole of their wages due to them in purchasing different articles of wearing apparel and other things for their [the women’s] accommodation’ (Smyth, p.48)
Line 176: Line 204:
 
Ralph Clark wrote that the seamen of the Fishburn had demanded more provisions shortly after sailing, but claimed that it was only so that they could give it to ‘the damned whores’ (Clark, p.12)
 
Ralph Clark wrote that the seamen of the Fishburn had demanded more provisions shortly after sailing, but claimed that it was only so that they could give it to ‘the damned whores’ (Clark, p.12)
  
Hillsborough (1798)
+
'''Hillsborough (1798)'''
  
 
29 October 1798 – Muster master came on board and paid the ship’s company their river money. The pilot came on board to take them to the Downs. The convicts who worked at the anchor were served with butter. (Noah, p.13)
 
29 October 1798 – Muster master came on board and paid the ship’s company their river money. The pilot came on board to take them to the Downs. The convicts who worked at the anchor were served with butter. (Noah, p.13)
Tea
+
 
 +
===Tea===
  
 
A female convict wrote from Port Jackson in November 1788 that on the voyage out, some of the seamen had supplied the women with ‘tea and other things’. They were deprived of this indulgence in the colony, and she included this as an example of ‘the distresses of the women’, which were ‘past description’ (Letter from a female convict, 14 November 1788, Derby Mercury, 28 May 1789, p.2; HRNSW 2:747)
 
A female convict wrote from Port Jackson in November 1788 that on the voyage out, some of the seamen had supplied the women with ‘tea and other things’. They were deprived of this indulgence in the colony, and she included this as an example of ‘the distresses of the women’, which were ‘past description’ (Letter from a female convict, 14 November 1788, Derby Mercury, 28 May 1789, p.2; HRNSW 2:747)
Line 185: Line 214:
 
Further evidence confirming the use of tea as a currency in trade between seamen and women convicts in the case of R v Jackson, which was heard before the Bench of Magistrates at Port Jackson on 19 February 1788. A seaman in the Lady Penrhyn named Edward Dease had complained that a female convict named Mary Jackson, who had sailed in that same ship but was by then on shore, had withheld items of clothing which he had brought to her to wash. He claimed that he had brought half a pound of tea as payment, as well as the soap with which to wash them. She claimed that he had given her some of the clothes as a gift, in an attempt to entice her on board the ship. She was reprimanded for not returning the clothing but discharged, suggesting that the court believed her account – (R v Jackson, Magistrates Court, 19 February 1788, SRANSW COD 17)
 
Further evidence confirming the use of tea as a currency in trade between seamen and women convicts in the case of R v Jackson, which was heard before the Bench of Magistrates at Port Jackson on 19 February 1788. A seaman in the Lady Penrhyn named Edward Dease had complained that a female convict named Mary Jackson, who had sailed in that same ship but was by then on shore, had withheld items of clothing which he had brought to her to wash. He claimed that he had brought half a pound of tea as payment, as well as the soap with which to wash them. She claimed that he had given her some of the clothes as a gift, in an attempt to entice her on board the ship. She was reprimanded for not returning the clothing but discharged, suggesting that the court believed her account – (R v Jackson, Magistrates Court, 19 February 1788, SRANSW COD 17)
  
Cash
+
===Tobacco===
  
Convicts on the Minerva (1799) were paid in cash for their services at the end of the voyage (Price, p.139)
+
Given how much the convicts longed for tobacco, and traded for it among themselves, it seems likely that it was a common form of payment for convict services. On the Minerva, surgeon Price noted the high demand for tobacco among the convicts:
  
 +
"Their correspondence invariably ends in petitioning for clothes, etc. and tobacco, perhaps a want of the latter which is considered a great luxury by its admirers, among the lower class of life, might be more severely felt from their being debarred in all cases whatever, sickness excepted, from the use of vinous and spiritous liquors." (Price, p.18)
 +
 +
A later surgeon superintendent, Peter Cunningham, reported that he used tobacco to pay the men who assisted him in managing the convicts.
 +
 +
'''Cunningham (1827)'''
 +
 +
"The captains of the deck have double allowance of wine each day it is served, and a glass of rum during the other days of the week. The rest of the individuals in office have only double allowance of wine for their trouble, but all official characters are permitted to carry their wine away and drink it, the remainder being obliged to drink their at the tub. I also allow each captain of the deck and hospital-man two pounds of tobacco for use on the voyage, served out in portions to the monthly, besides giving them the choice of the clothes. . . Six or eight pounds expended in this way by the surgeon, out of his own pocket, will be amply repaid him in the greater ease with which he can carry on duty. . ." (P. Cunningham, ‘Two Years in New South Wales’, London: Henry Colburn, 1827, Vol.2, pp.217, 219-221)
 +
 +
===Cash===
 +
 +
Convicts on the Minerva (1799) were paid in cash for their services at the end of the voyage (Price, p.139)
  
  
 
[[Category:Convict Life]]
 
[[Category:Convict Life]]

Latest revision as of 03:35, 27 February 2016

Background

Many of the convicts had services which they could trade throughout the voyage. Where there were female convicts on board, they could wash and mend the men's clothes. Those with tailoring skills were in particular demand, but some men cut hair, artists made drawings or paintings. Men with experience of the sea (and some of those without) were often allowed to work on deck, and there were are range of tasks involved in managing the convicts themselves. For the prostitutes, there were plenty of opportunities for trade.

- Gary L. Sturgess, 27 February 2016

The Hulks

There seem to have been opportunities for convicts on the hulks to make objects for sale, including ‘bone toys’ (in much the same way as French prisoners of war were doing).

In 1812, the convicts were suffered to have candles of their own. And there were also lights kept burning in the prison, and several convicts were appointed as boatswain’s mates to take care of these. By these lights some of the convicts work on their own account, as shoemakers or tailors, or in making bone toys and other trinkets of various kinds, and others read after they are locked down. (‘Third Report from the Committee on the Laws Relating to Penitentiary Houses’, Parliamentary Papers, 27 June 1812, at p.139)

Washing and Mending

First Fleet

16 August 1787 (at Rio) – Clark gave one of the convict women his dirty linen to wash. (Paul G. Fidlon, et al (eds.), The Journals and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, Sydney: Australian Documents Library, 1981, p.38) The surgeon of the Friendship also had his clothing washed by some of the convict women. While at the Cape, some of the marines on the Friendship were used to search the women’s prison for some stockings of the surgeon that had been given to one of them for washing and had gone missing. (Clark, pp.54 & 55) Some of the women continued to performing washing for the officers and crew members of transports once they were on shore. A seaman in the Lady Penrhyn named Edward Dease had complained that a female convict named Mary Jackson, who had sailed in that same ship but was by then on shore, had withheld items of clothing which he had brought to her to wash. He claimed that he had brought half a pound of tea as payment, as well as the soap with which to wash them. (R v Jackson, Magistrates Court, 19 February 1788, SRANSW COD 17)

Second Fleet (1790)

Some of the women were desirous of working at mending the crews’ clothes but this was forbidden. Churchill had given one of them his stockings to mend, and Captain Trail having come upon them during a search, demanded to know to whom they belonged. She feared to disclose Churchill’s name for fear he would be beaten and said that it was one of the men on deck whose name she did not know. Trail took them and threw them overboard. (Churchill Examination, TNA TS11/381, 15)

Personal Grooming

8 January 1788 – Clark gave the man that cut his hair a glass of grog. (Clark, p.86)

Making Clothes

First Fleet

Those with tailoring skills did particularly well.

17 July 1787 – Clark gave some while silk thread to one of the male convicts on the Friendship to cover some buttons and some cotton thread to have some gloves made. (Clark, p.27)

23 July 1787 – Clark gave Mrs Frances Hart, one of the convict women, some thread to make him another pair of trousers. (Clark, pp.29, 31)

9 September 1787 – Surgeon Smyth collected silky threads from the bananas after leaving Rio de Janeiro, ‘to have some lace edging made w. it by one of the convicts’. (Arthur Bowes Smyth, ‘Journal of Arthur Bowes Smyth, 22 March 1787 to 8 August 1789’, NLA MS4568)

Lady Juliana (1789)

Captain Aitken, master of the Lady Juliana, had the women make up 20 linen shirts for sale in the colony (John Nicol, The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, London: Cassel & Company Limited, 1937, p.141)

Surprize (1794)

One of the Scottish martyrs, Skirving, paid a convict named Draper for work as a tailor, and paid him a little in advance. (F.M. Bladen (ed.), Historical Records of New South Wales, Sydney: Government Printer, 1893, (hereafter HRNSW), Vol. 2, p.875)

Minerva (1799)

8 January 1800 (just after first sighting land) – Some of the sailors were refusing to pay one of the tailors who had done work for them on the voyage. (Pamela Jeanne Fulton (ed.), The Minerva Journal of John Washington Price, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000, p.139)

Working the Ship

First Fleet

There is significant evidence of convicts working on deck. The seaman who fell overboard from the Alexander on 26 July 1787 and was drowned was a convict who had been working on deck (John White, Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales [1790], Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1962, p.69; Paul G. Fidlon et al (eds.), The Journal of Arthur Bowes Smyth, Sydney: Australian Documents Library, 1979, pp.26-27)

John Powers, a convict who escaped from the Alexander at Tenerife, had been employed in watering the ship while she was in port (Anonymous, The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay. . ., London: John Stockdale, 1789, p.23; John White, Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales [1790], Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1962, p.54) Lieutenant King wrote that Powers, ‘one of the convicts on board the Alexander, who was permitted to work as a seaman, found means to put a boat from the stern during the night.’ (Philip Gidley King, ‘Private Journal, 1786-1792’, State Library of NSW Safe 1/16, 8 June 1787)

26 July 1787 – A convict fell overboard from the spanker boom of the Alexander and drowned, in spite of attempts to save him. This man had been employed as a sailor on board the ship. (William Bradley, A Voyage to New South Wales, 1786-1792, Sydney: Public Library of New South Wales, 1969, 26 July 1787; Smyth, pp.26-27)

Thomas Kelly was employed on board the Lady Penrhyn to manage the Governor’s horses on the final leg of the voyage (Smyth, p.46)

15 November 1787 – A convict named John Bennett had been found asleep in one of the longboats, where he had gone and stolen all the convicts’ provisions that had the liberty of walking the deck. It seems that they had placed these provisions in the longboat. He had come on deck around 10pm ‘to make water’ and while the sentinel’s back was turned, slipped into the longboat, where he had eaten so much he could not stir and fell asleep until about 2am, when he was discovered. (Clark, p.68)

23 December 1787 – Two of the convicts complained that the other prisoners were taking their rations, and also stealing food from the store. It was revealed that two of the convicts who had been given liberty of the ship (on the Friendship) had stolen beef. (Clark, p.81)

Second Fleet (1790)

On the Neptune, around 14 of the healthiest convicts were selected to assist the crew. They were clothed and otherwise fed as sailors (Beale Examination, ‘Examinations and Depositions of the several Sailors. . . of the Ship Neptune’, TNA TS11/381, p.9)

Two convicts, Uziel Baruh and Peter Gillies, acted as the surgeon’s assistants on the Neptune, and appear to have done much of the direct work with the convicts. (Notice by Thomas Evans, Public Advertiser, 21 October 1791)

Pitt (1792)

In 1792, four convicts who assisted in landing the Pitt at the Cape of Good Hope escaped. (Extract of a Letter from Manning to Macaulay, 24 October 1791, London Chronicle, 7- 9 February 1792)

Royal Admiral (1792)

The convicts were engaged in a number of ways, including manning the watches. Hunter in 1800:

"When the ship came into the hot climate, the prisoners were divided into six divisions, and kept watch two hours each division, under the directions of a seaman selected from among themselves; this mode of giving air and exercise, with cleanliness and a plentiful diet, contributed more to the preservation of health, than any other that was or could be devised. . . All that appertained to the convicts was done by themselves; they cooked, cleaned, &c. and gave all possible assistance to working the ship. . . At half past eight in the morning, all hands were upon deck, and the orlop fumigated until half past eleven, when they went below to dinner; at two o’clock, again upon the deck until sun set, when all went down but those whose watch it happened to be, and who were regularly relieved. . .

"At the Cape of Good Hope they hoisted in struck down all the water, while the ship’s company were more necessarily employed. Eight sick men were landed, three deserted, two of which were retaken and punished, but the other effected his escape. At the Cape of Good Hope they hoisted in struck down all the water, while the ship’s company were more necessarily employed." (John Hunter, Remarks on the Causes of the Colonial Expense of the Establishment of New South Wales, &c, London, 1802, pp.49-50)

Surprize (1794)

At some point, some of the male convicts were given the freedom of the ship to serve as sailors. (HRNSW Vol. 2, p.877) James Gilthorpe worked as the convict cook and informed against various persons to save his own neck. On 14 June, he told the Master, Campbell some further facts, and in consequence of what he said, Campbell ordered three of the convicts – Daniel Turner, ‘Macal’ (possibly Mackay?) and John Campbell - into irons. They were released in a few hours. These men had the freedom of the ship to act as sailors. (HRNSW Vol. 2, p.877)

Marquis Cornwallis (1795)

Some of the women seem to have been working in the galley, since the convicts spoke of using some of them (Kitty Baker and Kitty Neal) to put ground glass in the batter:

Coughlan heard Hugh Carey tell John Smith that there was a woman, a friend of his, who would convey ground glass into the batter. (TNA CO201/13/149a-150)

Britannia (1796)

A convict name John Burke was liberated throughout the whole passage and assisted the surgeon, who slept in the gun room. He was flogged for involvement in the plot to take the ship.

Barwell (1797)

One convict, William Lindsay, conducted himself well on board, so that he was given the liberty of the ship and entrusted with care of the livestock and was considered as one of the Captain’s servants. (Dore to Le Fleming, 5 February 1798, HRNSW Vol. 3, p.356) Some of the convicts were engaged in picking oakum. It is unclear if they were paid for this.

22 December 1797 – Convicts engaged in picking oakum. (Journal of the Barwell, India Office Records, British Library, L/MAR/B/420G, p.21)

27 December 1797 & 3, 4, 10 & 13 January 1798 – Convicts picking oakum. (Journal of the Barwell, p.26a)

Hillsborough (1798)

29 October 1798 – Muster master came on board and paid the ship’s company their river money. The pilot came on board to take them to the Downs. The convicts who worked at the anchor were served with butter. (William Noah, Voyage to Sydney in the Ship Hillsborough 1798-1799. . ., Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1978, p.13)

4 November 1798 – Weighed the anchor. Rum for the convicts who assisted. In the evening, came to anchor in the Downs near Deal. (Noah, p.14)

24 November 1798 – Three of the trusted convicts working on deck (James Wheeler, Abraham Clark and Samuel Warner) were allowed their chains off. A prostitute was allowed on board for the sailors. (Noah, p.17)

11 December 1798 – Convicts at the capstan weighing the best bower anchor, for which they received rum. (Noah, p.19)

25 December 1798 – Blew a gale from the NE. There were ‘tremendous seas’ breaking over them, and the ship’s company and the convicts were at the pumps day and night. (Noah, p.21)

17 April 1799 (at the Cape) – They began to unload the coals that were consigned to the Cape. Some of the convicts were un-ironed to assist. (Noah, p.41)

29 April 1799 – Unloading coal. 12 more convicts single ironed to help the seamen at this task. Captain gave each a glass of rum. (Noah, p.43)

10 May 1799 – Last of the coals unloaded. The convicts served with a glass of rum. (Noah, p.45)

24 May 1799 – Convicts helping to haul water on board, for which they were given a glass of rum. (Noah, p.47)

28 May 1799 – The convicts that had been unironed for work were ironed once again. ‘This was the method our humane commander took to pay them for all their labour.’ (Noah, p.48)

Minerva (1799)

15 September 1799 – At 9am they backed sails for the Friendship, and spoke to Captain Reed, informing him that his ship sailed so bad that it was impossible to wait for him. They bid him farewell and in three hours had run 26 miles. The Friendship steered eastward, since she intended to touch at the Cape, while the Minerva was steering for Rio de Janeiro. They finished putting the prisoners in irons, but gave two of them the liberty of the deck to do duty as seamen. (Pamela Jeanne Fulton (ed.), The Minerva Journal of John Washington Price, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000, p.80)

8 January 1800 (just after first sighting land) – The tradesmen who had been employed during the voyage were paid. (Price, p.139)

Later Ships

Edward Foord Bromley, who was surgeon superintendent on the Ocean (1815) and the Almorah (1817), both male convict ships, described his routine for the day and how many convicts were on deck:

"My plan is, every morning, after they arrived as far as to the southward of Madeira, to cause half the convicts to come on deck at four o’clock in the morning and bathe, and then go below; and the cooks, and perhaps from thirty to forty people, who are necessarily employed about the ship in various ways, for their own comfort are on deck, which relieves the prison room from a considerable degree of heat; at half past seven o’clock, their breakfast is served down, and at eight o’clock the whole of them come on deck, except eighteen or twenty, who are reserved for the cleaning of the prison room." (‘Report from the Select Committee on the State of Gaols &c’, Ordered to be Printed 12 July 1819, House of Commons Papers: Reports of Committees, (579), p.103)

Artists

Minerva (1799)

8 January 1800 (just after first sighting land) – The artists who had been employed during the voyage were paid. (Price, 139)

Prostitution

Where the ships’ officers formed liaisons with women on board, it is probable that this was done under the cover of a master-servant relationship. There is direct confirmation of this in the case of John Shapcote, the naval agent on board the Neptune. His death on the final leg of the voyage was reported in the early hours of the morning by a female convict who, it was said, ‘constantly attended Mr Shapcote’ (Statement of Donald Trail, ‘Accounts and Papers Relating to Convicts on Board the Hulks, and Those Transported to New South Wales’, Ordered to be Printed 10th and 26th March 1792, House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, (83) 1791-92, p.77)

First Fleet (1787)

Lieutenant Clark’s journal provides evidence of prostitution among the women of the Friendship. For example, four women (Elizabeth Dudgeon, Margaret Hall, Elizabeth Powley and Charlotte Ware – went through the bulkhead to the sailors while the ships were still at Portsmouth. Of these, Dudgeon and Hall had prostitution-related convictions, and Clark wrote that the sailors were paying for their services with provisions (Paul G. Fidlon, et al (eds.), The Journals and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, Sydney: Australian Documents Library, 1981, pp.12 & 19; Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia, Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989, pp.109 & 156)

The Lady Juliana (1789)

The steward, John Nicol, wrote they sailed from Tenerife to St Iago in company with two slave ships who sailed far out of their course for the sake of the women. ‘They came on board every day when the weather would permit.’ (Nicol, p.126)

The Neptune (1790)

A crew member later claimed that strangers were allowed to sleep on board ‘and have promiscuous enjoyment with several of the women who were on those occasions permitted to prostitute themselves’. (Beale Examination, TNA TS11/381, 8) The captain, Donald Trail, wrote that no female convicts were allowed out of the ship at night. One went on shore twice, with a guard, to wash and dry linen, but they were back before dark. Major Delisle and a Captain in the Dutch service paid them a visit one day, and because of the distance from Cape Town, they stayed on the ship overnight. ‘They were both married men and their wives at the Cape; it cannot be thought they could stay on account of the female convicts, as insinuated by Mr Evans; neither did any other Dutch officer sleep in the ship during the time she remained at the Cape’. (Statement of Donald Trail, ‘Accounts and Papers Relating to Convicts on Board the Hulks, and Those Transported to New South Wales’, Ordered to be Printed 10th and 26th March 1792, House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, (83) 1791-92, pp.259-368,p.333)

Britannia (1797)

The Second Mate testified that Mary Fane ‘had been countenanced by every officer on board’. (HRNSW 3:259)

Speedy (1799)

Anna King referred to one of the women, named Mary Butler (sentenced at Kingston), whom she thought of as a better sort of person, but whom lived among the officers in the steerage. (8 January 1800)

Payment

Grog and Rum

First Fleet

8 January 1788 – On the First Fleet, Ralph Clark gave the tailor and the man that cut his hair a glass of grog each. (Clark, p.86) Hillsborough (1798)

4 November 1798 – Weighed the anchor. Rum for the convicts who assisted. (Noah, p.14)

11 December 1798 – Convicts at the capstan weighing the best bower anchor, for which they received rum. (Noah, p.19)

29 April 1799 – Unloading coal. 12 more convicts single ironed to help the seamen at this task. Captain gave each a glass of rum. (Noah, p.43)

10 May 1799 – Last of the coals unloaded. The convicts served with a glass of rum. (Noah, p.45)

24 May 1799 – Convicts helping to haul water on board, for which they were given a glass of rum. (Noah, p.47)

Clothing and Provisions

First Fleet (1787)

Surgeon Smyth wrote of the seamen that ‘at every port they arrived at spent almost the whole of their wages due to them in purchasing different articles of wearing apparel and other things for their [the women’s] accommodation’ (Smyth, p.48)

Ralph Clark wrote that the seamen of the Fishburn had demanded more provisions shortly after sailing, but claimed that it was only so that they could give it to ‘the damned whores’ (Clark, p.12)

Hillsborough (1798)

29 October 1798 – Muster master came on board and paid the ship’s company their river money. The pilot came on board to take them to the Downs. The convicts who worked at the anchor were served with butter. (Noah, p.13)

Tea

A female convict wrote from Port Jackson in November 1788 that on the voyage out, some of the seamen had supplied the women with ‘tea and other things’. They were deprived of this indulgence in the colony, and she included this as an example of ‘the distresses of the women’, which were ‘past description’ (Letter from a female convict, 14 November 1788, Derby Mercury, 28 May 1789, p.2; HRNSW 2:747)

Further evidence confirming the use of tea as a currency in trade between seamen and women convicts in the case of R v Jackson, which was heard before the Bench of Magistrates at Port Jackson on 19 February 1788. A seaman in the Lady Penrhyn named Edward Dease had complained that a female convict named Mary Jackson, who had sailed in that same ship but was by then on shore, had withheld items of clothing which he had brought to her to wash. He claimed that he had brought half a pound of tea as payment, as well as the soap with which to wash them. She claimed that he had given her some of the clothes as a gift, in an attempt to entice her on board the ship. She was reprimanded for not returning the clothing but discharged, suggesting that the court believed her account – (R v Jackson, Magistrates Court, 19 February 1788, SRANSW COD 17)

Tobacco

Given how much the convicts longed for tobacco, and traded for it among themselves, it seems likely that it was a common form of payment for convict services. On the Minerva, surgeon Price noted the high demand for tobacco among the convicts:

"Their correspondence invariably ends in petitioning for clothes, etc. and tobacco, perhaps a want of the latter which is considered a great luxury by its admirers, among the lower class of life, might be more severely felt from their being debarred in all cases whatever, sickness excepted, from the use of vinous and spiritous liquors." (Price, p.18)

A later surgeon superintendent, Peter Cunningham, reported that he used tobacco to pay the men who assisted him in managing the convicts.

Cunningham (1827)

"The captains of the deck have double allowance of wine each day it is served, and a glass of rum during the other days of the week. The rest of the individuals in office have only double allowance of wine for their trouble, but all official characters are permitted to carry their wine away and drink it, the remainder being obliged to drink their at the tub. I also allow each captain of the deck and hospital-man two pounds of tobacco for use on the voyage, served out in portions to the monthly, besides giving them the choice of the clothes. . . Six or eight pounds expended in this way by the surgeon, out of his own pocket, will be amply repaid him in the greater ease with which he can carry on duty. . ." (P. Cunningham, ‘Two Years in New South Wales’, London: Henry Colburn, 1827, Vol.2, pp.217, 219-221)

Cash

Convicts on the Minerva (1799) were paid in cash for their services at the end of the voyage (Price, p.139)