In the early 1800s ten female convicts in Bristol Newgate Gaol (now the site of The Galleries shopping centre) were sentenced to ‘transportation beyond the seas’ – Australia. While much is known about these women after they were transported, almost nothing is known of their lives, and crimes, here. We’re exploring their Bristol stories through a series of workshops with women who have experienced the criminal justice system today. Two of the ten women transported lived in Bedminster and […]
Through the stories of three prisoners, this project outlines the history of penology in Britain and the attempts to reform it. The case-studies involve Bristol architect Francis Greenway transported for forgery to become Australia’s leading architect, Douglas Curtis who moved from Cotham Grammar School to Dartmoor Prison to Cambridge University and Steve Robertson, one of the success stories of the Bristol New Careers project. Yet Britain now sends more people to prison than any other country […]
Anyone interested in the history of Australia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would do well to read Robert Hughes’s book. He describes in detail the development of the convict system and the colonisation of Australia from the first convict ship arriving at Sydney Cove in 1787 to the last convict voyage to Fremantle in 1868. With intensive research he has given the convicts a voice describing their own experiences of suffering, survival and resistance during that period. Robert […]
