Prior to transportation, convicts were often imprisoned in the hulks of many famous old warships
which had been moored in the Thames Estuary or Plymouth Harbour. Conditions on board those
floating gaols were apalling and the standards of hygiene were so poor that disease spread
quickly. As mentioned in the section on English prisons, although there was a strong lobby
movement regarding the living conditions on the hulks, the English government delayed building
new gaols and preferred to search for new places to send her convicts instead. Many of the
convicts sent to New South Wales in the early years were already disease ridden when they
departed and a huge loss of life through typhoid and cholera epidemics was the result.
The State Archives Office of New South Wales (SAONSW) has a microfilmed collection of the
English Hulk Returns dating from 1783 to 1803. They list the prisoners awaiting transportation
and give their name, age, place and date of conviction, their sentence and in some cases, a
record of their state of health and when and where the discharge took place. These records are
also readily available elsewhere in Australia and outline the costs associated with the hulks.
The Phoenix Hulk was used as a prison ship in Sydney Harbour from 1825 to 1837 and the SAONSW
also holds hulk records for that period. They give the convict's year of arrival, ship, free or
bond status, place of origin, religion, trade or calling, details of admission to and disposal
from the hulk, and occasionally a note about their behaviour on board the hulk. Description
Books (1833-1837) and Discharge Books (1825-1833) were also kept and the Entrance Books are
partially indexed. In Tasmania, an ex-naval ship called the Anson was used to accomodate female
convicts.
Some hulk lists are included in the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) but may not be very
extensive. Several specialist books have been written about various hulks and the conditions the
convicts were exposed to. Although it does not list the convicts on each hulk as such, Charles
Campbell's "The Intolerable Hulks - British Shipboard Confinement 1776-1857" does list the hulks
by name, the year they were placed into service, the estimated time they stayed in service,
their typical prisoner count and station.
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All the Convict Ships
