Australians study convict past online

Not so long ago, Australia's middle classes were deeply ashamed of their criminal ancestry.

Now Sydney dinner party conversations are dominated by boasts of convict lineage, as doctors, lawyers and politicians stake their claim to belonging to one of the founding "first families" of Australia.

From today, descendants of criminals sentenced to servitude in the New World will be able to authenticate claims through an online scheme to release documents of thousands of trials held at the Old Bailey.

Researchers said they have been bombarded with requests from Australians desperate to find a relative convicted at Britain's most famous criminal court.

Tim Hitchcock, the Old Bailey website project director, said: "In Australia these records form the equivalent of an aristocratic pedigree. To be descended from someone tried and convicted at the Old Bailey is to be able to claim to be from one of Australia's first families."

The archive includes both serious crimes as well as thousands of minor offences all thought suitable for transportation to Australia.

Between 1780 and 1834, 21,000 people were sent to live in Australia after an Old Bailey trial.

Together with thousands convicted in provincial courts, they formed the bulk of the population.

Among their number were five of the Cato Street Conspirators, whose plan to overthrow the government was uncovered by secret agents.

Other transportation cases published on the website provide fascinating insight into the criminal justice system in the early 19th century. Transportation as a solution to the punishment of Britain's criminals began with the passage of the 1718 Transportation Act.

From the court at the Old Bailey alone, more than 13,000 men, women and children were condemned to a period of servitude in North America. With the Revolution in 1776, however, this destination was closed, and from the 1780s, Australia was developed to receive prisoners.

"The online edition of the published Proceedings of the Old Bailey now makes available the full transcripts of the cases that sent these men, women and children halfway around the world. The details of the crimes of Australia's 'first fleet' emigrants, and the thousands who arrived in the first few decades of the 19th century, are available at the click of a mouse," says Professor Hitchcock, of Hertfordshire University's history department.

Under the terms of the new transportation policy, magistrates were encouraged to send more women to Australia so that the colony would properly flourish.

As a result, proportionally more female than male criminals faced the prospect of many years' separation from their families in exile.

Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Wills, for instance, was discovered on April 26, 1800, in a bog house, stripping the clothes from a 4-year-old girl, with the intention of selling them on. She was tried at the Old Bailey, found guilty and sentenced to seven years' transportation.

Louisa Marshall, 18, was also sentenced to seven years' transportation after being found guilty of pick-pocketing a handkerchief.

- INDEPENDENT