G'day toadfrog,

I don't know where you are, so I can't hazard a guess at what books are currently available in your part of the world. In general, I can't think of a good single book on the transportation of convicts to Australia (or the earlier, and longer transportation to the Americas).

I have a number of specific books to which I refer ... mostly local, and some of them from small private imprints. I have often been frustrated by the lack a good, authoritative history of this aspect of the period. I know a lot of the NSW State records, covering this period, were destroyed in the 1881 (~?) fire in the 1880 Exposition Crystal Palace, which had then been used as a records store. It is often suggested that influential people in the Government wished some old records to go up in smoke!

The best-known book, world wide, on this period and area of settlement would be Robert Hughes The Fatal Shore. There are some who feel he pushes one particular line too far ... and others who reckon he gets it pretty right - but it is a big and expensive book.

I'm not sure about the 1850 date for your "sending some women" - by then transportation to the eastern states had almost ceased ... and would be completely killed by the announcement of gold finds on the Turon River in the next year or two. As well, pioneer social reformers like Caroline Chisholm were bringing out women as settlers to civilise the wild colonies.

This is dealt with well in another book called Damned Wores and God's Police (sorry, I can't think of the author, off-hand). The titles comes from an early remark of a "First Fleet" officer, on hearing that a new fleet would bring more women: "Oh no! More damned whores!" - contrasted to Caroline Chisholm's contention that women were needed as "God's Police" in the colony.

Transportation continued to Western Australia into the 1860s, but was opposed by Australian patriotic groups since the 1830s. The only ones wanting to maintain transportation were the large property owners who wanted cheap labour. If they had discovered gold in the west a bit earlier, it would have all finished then!

Regards,

Bob Bolton