Sickness and Death on Convict Voyages to Australia

The passage taken by convict vessels en route to Australia was one of the longest that any unfree migrants have been subjected to – an average of four months at sea. Only French prisoners shipped to New Caledonia (1864–97) and Russian convicts sent from Odessa to Sakhalin (1879–1905) were moved greater distances.1 Despite the length of the voyage, monthly mortality on Australian-bound convict vessels was not excessive. In this chapter we put this experience into a wider context. As a number of historians have pointed out, ocean voyages in the eighteenth and nineteenth century became progressively less deadly, although there is some disagreement about the factors responsible for this change. Using the detailed records available for convict voyages, we explore the ways in which experiences on land and sea affected voyage outcomes for both male and female prisoners. Finally, the chapter will relate these findings to the wider debate on mortality decline in the age of sail.