Contents
PROLOGUE: Lashland
INTRODUCTION
1 UNPROMISING BEGINNINGS
Trouble on the Way
The Hungry Land
The Orgy That Wasn’t
Encountering Others
Laying Down the Law
A Practical Problem
The Lure of Gold
This Solitary Waste of the Creation
Free by Servitude
A Meek and Tender Wife
The Last First Fleeters
2 PERILOUS VOYAGES
A Sight Truly Shocking
Irish Rebels
The Fever Ships
Attacked by America
The Might-Have-Been Mutiny
A Melancholy Mystery
Skeleton Island
3 THE CONVICT UNDERWORLD
Wife for Sale
Convict Magic
Mrs Gravy’s Husbands
Special Treatment
Stitches in Time
No Common Criminal
The Flash
Skin Deep
The Jury Guilty Found Her
4 THE SYSTEM
The Hulks
The Dogline
Canaries and Magpies
Obtaining a Wife
The Convict’s Lament
The Ironed Gang
The Innocence of Thomas Drewery
‘The Most Absurd, Prodigal, and Impracticable Vision’
5 PAIN AND SUFFERING
Hanged Three Times
The Lash
The Treadmill
The Iron Collar
Whipping Boy
The Hanged Boy
One Hundred Lashes
To Plough Van Diemen’s Land
6 TROUBLEMAKERS
Botany Bay Hero
Thrown Unpitied and Friendless Upon the World
The Beast of Goat Island
Nymphs of the Pave
Flash Mob at the Cascades
The Patriots
The Old Lags’ Hero
The Ghost Poet
7 PLACES OF CONDEMNATION
Pluto’s Land
The Rats’ Nest
Coal River
The Norfolk Island Suffering of Thomas Cook
On the Square, Ever
The Water Rats
A Running Fire of Curtseys
A Convict’s Dream
Not a Bad Man at Heart
8 DESPERATE ESCAPES
A Heroic Struggle for Liberty
The Vagabond of the Woods
Charlotte the Pirate
A Taste for Flesh
From Hell’s Gate to Chile
The Great Escaper
Rebel Heroes
9 THE FELONRY
The Man Who Invented Australia’s Beer
The Real Artful Dodger
The Botany Bay Rothschild
The Legend of Margaret Catchpole
The Convict King
The Solicitor’s Tale
A Convict Maid
A Broken Down Gent
The Poacher’s Fate
10 A CONVICT STAIN
Tom Tilley’s Token
The First Australia Day
Floating Brothels
The Stain That Would Not Fade
The Cabbage Tree Mob
Bottoms Up!
The Gundagai Cat
Shades of the System
Last of the Expirees
APPENDIX
Convict locations
GLOSSARY
NOTES AND SOURCES
FURTHER READING
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PHOTO CREDITS