All transportation to New South Wales ceased in 1840, the year that the assignment system was replaced by the probation system. The comments from the 1841 Quarterly Review are applicable to Van Diemen's Land to Van Diemen's Land where most of the convicts (except for 1700 at Port Phillip, 500 at Moreton Bay and 2,600 to Western Australia) were directed until transportation to Van Diemen's Land ended in 1853. Although the first convicts arrived in Van Diemen's Land in 1803, only 1100 male and less than 200 female convicts had been received at the end of 1818. By the end of 1853, Van Diemen's Land had accepted about 67,000 of the 160,000 prisoners eventually sent to Australia. Transportation to Western Australia commenced in 1850 and 9,700 men were landed there before its abolition in 1868.
However, neither the assignment nor the probation rules applied to the small percentage of convicts who were redirected from New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land to the secondary penal establishment for persistent offenders, at Norfolk Island (for the Second Settlement only, 1825-1855) and at Macquarie Harbour (1821-1833) and Port Arthur (1831- ) in Van Diemens' Land, where life was undoubtedly That Bad.
It can also be argued that many convicts who were exposed to the assignment system, were able to achieve in a manner that would not have been possible had they remained in Britain. It is often forgotten that in the early years, convicts were able to sell their labour and skills "in their own time" after they had completed the regulation hours or the established piece-work quotas. This caused envy among free settlers who complained when some convicts were able to promenade through the streets of Sydney and Hobart wearing finery beyond the reach of other people. Before the establishment of convict barracks at Sydney in the time of Governor Macquaire, newly-arrived convicts landed from a transport were "given the day off" to seek out lodgings before reporting for the muster the following morning !!
The scarcity of women in Van Diemen's Land would have ensured that prior to the 1820's, when the female factories or houses of detention were built, convict women enjoyed unexpected advantages in the southernmost colony. A muster taken at the Derwent in 1811 showed that there were approximately 370 emancipated males and 107 emancipated females. The 1818 muster of the free population revealed that there were then 640 males matched by 333 free females. Earlier in 1814, Governor Macquaire had deemed it necessary to direct that 60 of the Irish convict women who arrived on the Catherine be sent from Sydney to Van Diemen's Land aboard Kangaroo, to help correct the imbalance of the sexes.
The situation of many of these convict women may have been typified by the experience of Catherine Geran who, with her three male partners in a crime of robbery with violence in County Limerick, had been sentenced to hang in March 1813. The three men were hanged, but, after initially deferring her hanging for a month, she was transported for life aboard Catherine. On the voyage to Van Diemen's Land aboard Kangaroo, the 28-yearold Geran met the newly pardoned English highwayman, William Newman; within months of their arrival at the Derwent they were formally married. In the next few years at the Derwent, the Anglican Rev. Robert Knopwood married at least 33 of the 60 women who were relocated on the Kangaroo. Catherine Geran had been sentenced to hang, but she died among her grandchildren in 1852 within seven miles of Hobart. Some of the convict records of the 1840s continued to list her as a convict with a life sentence but professed no knowledge of her whereabouts. Catherine Geran had effectively lived as a free woman after her arrival in Van Diemen's Land.
Any discussion on transportation to Australia needs to absorb Robson's The Convict Settlers of Australia, which the latter part of May Lee's essay has done. Every paragraph and every line of Chapters 5 & 6 of Convict Settlers is pure gold, after the volumes of examples of individual crimes and punishments are set aside. Each of Robson's interim and concluding assessments cannot be faulted, although some have queried his suggestion that the Irish provided a superior class of convict. The characteristics of the transported United Irishmen who arrived in 1800-1806 (a number of whom made substantial contributions to the Colony) and the Irish famines have tended to provide an umbrella for Irish convicts from all periods.
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