The mad, the bad and the sad: life courses of convict women transported to Van Diemen's Land

Around 12,000 of the 73,000 convicts transported to Tasmania, 1803-1853, were women. This paper reports on a study of a sample of 2,500 of these convicts. We investigate the backgrounds of these women before conviction, and trace them from transportation through to death. We find that many of the women, particularly the Irish, were without family or household and committed crimes of poverty in order to survive. We contrast the life courses and demographic characteristics—including mortality and fertility—of the transported women under and after sentence with those of women who remained in their place of origin. We find that many vulnerable women were wrecked by the convict system, debilitated by alcoholism and unable to successfully negotiate life in the colonies.