William Hunt

8.0
The Swan River Colony, 1853

History of Transportation of Convicts to the Swan River Colony [32].

The Swan River Settlement had been in existence for twenty years when it took the unusual step of electing to become a British penal settlement in 1849.

The British Government accepted the offer and quickly dispatched the vessel Scindian, which arrived off Fremantle on the 1st June 1850 with a cargo of 75 male convicts aboard. This was to be the first of 43 transportations of convicts to the colony over an 18 year period.

Although a total of 9,925 convicts were officially registered during this period, it is estimated that some 500 of these were local prisoners intermixed with the transported convicts.

Transportation of convicts to Western Australia ceased in 1868 as a result of a reassessment of British home policy. The last convict ship to Australia, the Hougoumont, arrived in the Swan River Colony on 10th January 1868 with 229 convicts aboard.

Wikipedia has an introduction to “Convicts era of Western Australia” [33] .

The Fremantle Prison, Convict Database [34] , shows William was admitted to the Swan River Colony on 30th April 1853, a slight difference to an earlier stated date. His year of birth is given as 1825, which is an error as he was born in 1828.

The record also gives William a ‘Ticket of Leave’ on 1st May 1853. [A Ticket of Leave allowed a convict to work for themselves if they remained in a specified area, reported regularly to the local authorities and attended divine worship every Sunday if possible, and they could not leave the colony.] He received a ‘Conditional Pardon’ [35] on 1st July 1854. [A conditional pardon allowed convicts with long sentences the freedom of the colony, but they were not allowed to return to the UK.]

William’s conditional pardon was reported in the Western Australian Government Gazette on Tuesday, 4th July, 1854, page 3 [36] . William had a registration number of 1878, his convict number.

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[32] The Australian Register UNESCO Memory of the World Program. Convict Records of Western Australia, 1838-1910
[33] Wikipedia “Convicts era of Western Australia”
[34] Fremantle Prison – Convict Database (search for William Hunt)
[35] Western Australian Government Gazette, 4th July 1854
[36] The W. Australian Government Gazette, Tuesday, 4th July, 1854