Peter R. Shergold

Internal migration in England, 1818–1839

From indents of 10, 151 English men and women transported to the penal colony of New South Wales, Australia, it is possible to measure English intercounty migration between 1818 and 1839—a period of industrialization for which data on population movement are absent. Comparisons with the 1841 census indicate that transported convicts were broadly representative both of the English prison population and of the non-criminal working class. Almost one-third of the workers in the sample moved between counties. The working-class intercounty migrant was young, literate and skilled; the median distance travelled was 59 miles. Regional migration pathways are described. Rural workers moved more frequently than urban workers, but urban workers travelled a greater median distance than their rural counterparts. Estimating a gravity-flow migration model, migration is found to be highly sensitive to intercounty job opportunities and wage rate differentials, but relatively insensitive to distance (which acted as a deterrent to movement). While regional biases existed, the regression results imply that labour market signals were effective in transferring labour from rural to urban locations.

Unshackling the Past

Introduction During the first quarter of a century of white settlement in Australia, the economy and society was the creation of convict workers transported from Britain and Ireland. No other period of Australian history evokes such strong images in the popular mind than the convict years. Collectively, Australians perceive their past in terms of a fatal shore, the convict stain and the shame of Botany Bay: the sombre shadows of Australias history reveal the silhouettes of the gallows and the triangle. To a remarkable extent these images have been created from the detailed academic work on the convict period by Australian historians. For more than a generation, the received interpretation of our past has emphasised male convicts as hardened and professional criminals, females as prostitutes and convictism as a brutal and inefficient system of forced labour. This book offers a new and dramatic reinterpretation of the convict system. As economic historians, trained in economics and quantitative techniques, we ask new and different questions about the early economic and social development of New South Wales. Our methodology is empirical and comparative. Data on 19,711 convicts transported to New South Wales between 1817 and 1840 form the quantitative basis for our analysis of the convict system. Our sample represents about one-third of the post-1817 convict inflow into New South Wales and nearly one-quarter of the total convict arrivals.

Human capital and the pre-Famine Irish emigration to England

Abstract This paper analyzes the human capital resources of pre-Famine Irish emigrants to England. The data source comprises over 16,000 Irish and English convicts transported to New South Wales between 1817 and 1839. The convict indents distinguish between those convicts transported directly from Ireland (the stayers) and those Irish-born transportees convicted and sent from England (the emigrants). A comparison of the skill, literacy, and age characteristics of the stayers and emigrants suggests that Ireland lost skilled workers in the pre-Famine period. A logit micromigration model confirms the “brain-drain” hypothesis for Irish workers emigrating to Britain. Finally, the human capital of the Irish emigrants is found to compare favorably with that of the native English workers transported to Australia.

The heights of British male convict children transported to Australia, 1825–1840. Part II

ABSTRACT. This survey of 7,877 indents of convict arrivals at Port Jackson 1825–40 challenges the hypothesis of Dr. Bryan Gandevia that the convict boys were of very short stature. It is argued that mean age‐specific heights of male juveniles were from 3–9 cm taller than the earlier estimates suggest, and the transported convict boys were of similar stature to British non‐convict boys of comparable socio‐economic status.