Apart from describing each ship, the index gives the dates of each voyage, the ports they travelled between, the number of male and female convicts embarking and disembarking at each port and the route they took. Discrepancies between the number who embarked and disembarked were often due to deaths on board, transfers to other ships en route, or landing at other ports.

Transported convicts were handed over to the master of a ship at the beginning of the voyage and formally transfered into the custody of the Governor of the colony who was receiving them. Indents, or Indentures, were the documents used to record the transaction on arrival.

Conditions on Board
Convicts were housed below decks on the prison deck and often further confined behind bars. In many cases they were restrained in chains and were only allowed on deck for fresh air and exercise. Conditions were cramped and they slept on hammocks. Very little information seems to be available about the layout of the convict ships, but a few books do contain artists' impressions and reproductions of images held in library collections.

Although the convicts of the first fleet arrived in relatively good condition, the same cannot be said for those that followed during the rest of the century. Cruel masters, harsh discipline and scurvy, dysentery and typhoid resulted in a huge loss of life.

After the English authorities began to review the system in 1801 the ships were despatched twice a year, at the end of May and the beginning of September, to avoid the dangerous winters of the southern hemisphere. Surgeons employed by the early contractors had to obey to the master of the ship and on later voyages were replaced by independent Surgeon Superintendents whose sole responsibility was for the well being of the convicts. As time went on, successful procedures were developed and the surgeons were supplied with explicit instructions as to how life on board was to be organised. By then the charterers were also paid a bonus to land the prisoners safe and sound at the end of the voyage.

By the time the exiles were being transported in the 1840s and onwards, a more enlightened routine was in place which even included the presence on board of a Religious Instructor to educate the convicts and attend to their spiritual needs. The shipboard routines on some of the Western Australian transports during the 1860s have been transcribed and are worth reading.

Ship Naming Patterns
One thing that confuses many researchers is the naming of the convict transports. A system adopted by Charles Bateson is in common use today and makes provision for the multiple voyages made by some ships, the use of different ships with the same name, and the changing description of some ships after they underwent a refit. The shipping lists on these pages describe when the ships were built and where, their size and their type.

Name-wise, the Roman Numeral after the ship's name describes the individual ship, while the number in brackets describes which voyage the ship was making. As an example, three different ships called 'Mary' were sent to Australia with convicts and although the first two vessels only made one voyage each, the last one made five. In some cases, extra confusion arises when two ships with the same name were in active service at the same time.

Shipping Routes
Another point of confusion that often arises with convict voyages is the route they took. The convict shipping lists indicate if a ship travelled via other ports. That was especially so in the early days when ships were smaller, took longer and had to put in for supplies and repairs along the way. In later years, after other Australian settlements had been established, the transports often stopped at more than one destination to land convicts. From England the transports may have stopped off at Gibraltar, a port in the West Indies, South America, the Cape of Good Hope, and any one of the Australian penal settlements.

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Convict Ships

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WA Convicts

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Pensioner Guards

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Convict Women

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Convict Tales