Convict Labour Extraction and Transportation from Britain and Ireland, 1615–1870

In 2010 unesco inscribed eleven Australian convict sites onto the World Heritage Register. These sites were chosen as illustrative examples of the institutional arrangements put in place to regulate the lives of the 166,000 men, woman and children transported as convicts to the Australian penal colonies between 1787 and 1868. The listing endorsed two arguments put forward by the Australian government. The first was that convict transportation was part and parcel of a wider global mobilisation of unfree labour. Since previous listings had recognised the role that slavery and indenture had played in shaping the modern world, the Commonwealth of Australia argued that it was only proper that similar recognition should be extended to convict transportation. The second argument was that Australia represented the most important penal destination, both in terms of the number of convicts received, and the range of experiences to which they were subjected.