Download a .pdf version of this article.
There are many CSO records which present a wonderful source for Famine research, often constituting the major source for a particular subject - one such instance is convict management. As the voluminous collection of convict prison correspondence does not begin until the formation of the Government Prisons Office in 1851, it is therefore essential to examine the indexes to the CSO records including the registered papers described above, for the relevant years under various headings.
Although not specifically Famine documents, they nonetheless are a very good source for examining the impact of the crisis on the management of convicts, particularly with reference to its effect on crime and prison statistics, on criminality as a response to distress, and on the effects of distress on prevailing penal theory etc.
In this period the most common sentence handed down for what were then considered serious offences, was that of transportation to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), usually for a period of seven years (the other terms were ten years, fourteen years, or life). The term convict referred to the more serious offender who received a sentence of either death or transportation (after the passing of the Penal Servitude Act in 1853, the sentence of penal servitude replaced that of transportation).
Until the passing of the General Prisons Act in 1877, all aspects of convict management, including the transportation system, were under direct government control, and expenses incurred in the administration of the Convict Department were financed from exchequer funds. Local prisons, housing the less serious offenders (usually referred to as local prisoners), under the direct management of the Grand Juries, were funded from the local rates and were subject only to government inspection, not control. Convicts were usually housed separately in local or county gaols, however, while awaiting the carrying out of their sentence.
Subjects covered in these papers include supervision of convicts prior to embarkation, the engagement and fitting out of convict vessels, the supply of provisions and medicines for the voyage, conveyance of convicts to the ships for embarkation, medical inspection of convicts prior to embarkation, provision for the transporting of convicts' children etc. At the outbreak of the Famine, pressure from the Australian authorities for the ending of the system was so severe that it was decided in 1846 to suspend temporarily all transportation of Irish males for the following two years. This coincided with a large increase in transportation sentences due to the Famine, and caused a crisis in the Convict Department. The problem was avoided with respect to female convicts, as the numbers of females sentenced to transportation during 1847 did not increase at the same rate as the males.
In the ensuing interval, the haphazard ticket-of-leave arrangement was tightened up and the system was completely re-modelled under the secretary of state for the colonies, Lord Grey. Under the old system, the convicts, having been embarked as soon as possible after receiving their sentence, worked for unspecified periods in domestic service or in public labour gangs. Pending good conduct, they eventually received - at the governor's discretion - a conditional pardon or ticket-of-leave. This excused convicts from compulsory labour, allowing them to work for themselves. The new re-modelled system which was put into operation when the transporting of males was resumed in 1848, was a three stage system known as the exile system. Under the exile system each convict was to spend between 12 and 18 months in solitary confinement in prison at home, one to three years on public works in Gibraltar or Bermuda (this applied only to men), leading to the third stage which was transportation to Australia on ticket-of-leave.
This re-modelled system contained many inconsistencies, not least of which was its lack of clarity in relation to female convicts. As there was no equivalent to the public works at Gibraltar and Bermuda for women, the intention seems to have been that facilities would be made available to aid reformation, both in prison and on board ship. (The term usually adopted to illustrate the requirement for successful reformation was moral and industrial training.) This process was to continue on arrival in the colony, where they were to be removed to a new penitentiary to be built near Hobart in Tasmania (transportation to New South Wales ended in 1842). The new penitentiary was to replace two old run-down barracks used to house the convicts, one near Hobart and the other at Launceston. After six months reformatory treatment there, a process would begin leading to a probation pass on release. Like the ticket-of-leave, this would enable them to enter employment.
It was not possible to operate this system in Ireland because lack of accommodation made it impossible to fulfil the strict 12 to 18 months of solitary confinement which constituted the first phase of the regime. Accommodation consisted of a temporary depot which had been opened at Spike Island in 1846 for men and depots at Cork and Grangegorman, Dublin, for women, both of which were overcrowded because of the increased intake due to the Famine.
The CSO correspondence charts this decline of the system. In 1849, a proposal was put forward by Lord Grey that, instead of all Irish convicts being allowed to travel with tickets-of-leave, which was now the case, only those with the minimum sentence of seven years who were well behaved could in future do so. For those with longer sentences it was planned to commute their sentence to terms of imprisonment to be served at home. As well as seeking the approval of the governor of Van Diemen's Land in this matter he also asked if he might himself arrange some training for Irish transportees on their arrival which would prevent them being too suddenly exposed to the temptations of the colony. It was also envisaged that they would contribute to the cost of their removal from Ireland.
Governor Denison did not agree to this and complained that of the 298 Irish female prisoners disembarked on the Pestonjee Bomanjee in January 1849, 272 had been convicted in 1847 and four in 1848 so that, having undergone only a short period of imprisonment, they were now ticket-of-leave holders earning higher wages and living better than they ever could have hoped to do in their native country...they seem not to look on their removal as a punishment. Besides, it was impossible to enforce the ruling whereby they were to contribute financially to the cost of their removal. The counter argument put forward by the Irish government, however, was that the crimes of the Irish convicts were not the result of profligacy and vicious contamination, insisting that their offences were merely thefts to which they were driven by distress connected with the possession of land or with local feuds and factions:
"These crimes are not considered by the people to involve the same degree of moral turpitude as they would in England, nor does it follow that their perpetrators, when unexcited by the causes, should be irreclaimable characters. Transportation has till lately, been viewed with the greatest terror by the Irish, and the severance from home and family ties, except where starvation awaits the unfortunate criminal in his own country, has been regarded with much more fear than any term of imprisonment. It is doubtless most desirable that the system of transportation with tickets-of-leave should not be regarded in the light which Earl Grey apprehends nor will there be much danger of this when the precise nature of the liberty they will enjoy under ticket-of-leave shall be impressed upon the minds of the convicts."
Despite the protests, Governor Denison refused in July 1850 to allow any more Irish convicts to travel with tickets-of-leave. Instead they were to go out, as previously, to work in gangs on public works. He declared his decision to be based on their insubordinate habits and subservience to their religious instructors, which rendered them unfit as settlers.