EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT IN AUSTRALIA

The judicial thinking in eighteenth century Britain was that harsh punishments were needed to deter potential criminals. The existence of a ‘criminal class’ was one of the prime sociological beliefs. The Industrial Revolution had seen a dramatic rise in the population of cities and petty crime had become a major problem. Crimes against property attracted severe penalties and stealing was a serious offence. Summary offences included vagrancy, poaching, petty theft and drunkenness. Jails became overcrowded and the British Government started to use transportation of convicted criminals to the colonies as an alternative. Britain was forced to look at other locations for its convicts when it lost its American colonies after the War of Independence. Lord Sydney, Home and Colonial Secretary in 1783, needed to solve the problem of overcrowded criminal confinement. During his voyage to the South Pacific in 1770 Captain James Cook had made landfall on a new land and claimed the new land for Britain. The Transportation Act 1784 (UK) authorised transportation to places other than America and in 1786 the Pitt Cabinet made a decision that Botany Bay would be such a place. Captain Arthur Philip was chosen to lead a colonisation expedition to the eastern coast of this recently claimed land and govern the new colony to be called New South Wales.