The flagship Sirius set sail from the Motherbank off the northeast coast of the Isle of Wight with the 1st consignment of convicts bound for Australia 236 years ago.
Altogether, a total of 11 ships set sail for the land down under on 13th May 1787, carrying a total of over 1,000 prisoners sentenced to transportation. The cost of dispatching the fleet was £84,000 (over £10 million in today’s values).
The 1st fleet to Australia took a total of 252 days to complete its epic 15,000-mile journey, arriving in Botany Bay on 20th January 1788. 48 members of the fleet to Australia died en route, including a marine, the wife of a marine, the child of a marine, 36 male convicts, 4 female convicts and 5 children of convicts.
28 children were born on the voyage. The fleet also carried 7 horses, 29 sheep, 74 pigs, 6 rabbits and 7 cattle.
2 days after the 1st Fleet had landed in Botany Bay – planting the Union Flag and declaring the land for Britain – 2 French ships were seen off the coast. Had they beaten the British fleet to Australia, they may have claimed the land for France, and present-day Australians would speak French rather than English.
On their return, the French vessels were wrecked off the Solomon Islands.
After Sirius landed at Botany Bay, it was decided that this was an unsuitable site for the 1st Australian colony. On 26th January, the ships set sail for a new anchorage with deep water close to the shore, which they christened Sydney Cove, after the then British Home Secretary, Lord Sydney. This date – marking the beginning of the British settlement of Australia – is celebrated as Australia Day.
In October 1788, Sirius left Sydney bound for the Cape of Good Hope to gather supplies for the new colony, circumnavigating the world on its voyage. It returned 7 months later, just in time to save the fledgling colony from starvation.
On 17th March 1790, Sirius was wrecked on a reef off Norfolk Island (between Australia and New Zealand).
In 1991, a bas-relief memorial to Sirius was erected at Appley Beach, Ryde. Other memorials to the ship were also placed in Sydney and Norfolk Island.
This sounds like a much better idea than a suspended sentence and a £2.99 fine
They needed a bigger ship, left too much dross criminal dna behind, but I guess would have made no difference to crime rates as now we import daily even worse dna which soon fills our prisons.
I guess the poor here being transported for stealing to prevent their kids starving are nothing compared to gangs of men targeting young white girls to gang rape which we now ‘allow’ to live here.
Anychance we could start this up again and send a few of ours over? Mayby to Afghanistan?
Interesting story. 200 years on & criminals are welcomed here.
And people are complaning about sending illegal immigrants to Ruanda.
Where’s Ruanda???
Next door to Ruarma
The French ships couldn’t land first because they didn’t know the way to Australia, so they followed the British.
So where were convicts from ,mainland ? also were they held on i.o.w prior to sailing
Very informative article, much appreciated.
I left England for a holiday to Brisbane , i stayed got an aged apprenticeship making Explosives , its still the lucky country , as for England why would anyone want to live in a place Drs , Dentists hospital visits are hard to get , you still pay TV licences and M.O.T for the car , oh and we get the sun nearly 260 days a year , those lucky Convicts