An explanatory list of official and unofficial terms about or related to transported convicts in Australia. Some of these descriptions might give the impression of a well-ordered and efficient set of documentary procedures, but there was considerable variation in how tickets-of-leave, pardons and assignments were applied and administered, depending on who was in charge and what was needed at a particular time and place. There was also a thriving industry in forging official documents that could further undermine ‘the system’.
Assignment: The process of allotting convicts to particular jobs under the supervision of an official or a civilian ‘master’. Convicts so deployed were usually called ‘assigned servants’ or ‘assignees’.
Cant: Slang of British criminals, also spoken in Australia and influencing Australian colloquial speech.
Cat (the): Short for ‘cat of nine-tails’, a whip with a wooden handle to which a varying number of tough leather thongs were fitted, often knotted to cause maximum pain for the victim. A single whip might also be used for floggings, though the crueller ‘cat’ was generally preferred.
Certificate of Freedom: Given to convicts at the end of their sentence as proof that they were once again free citizens with full rights.
Chains: These items of restraint included neck collars, leg irons and a variety of handcuffs. Chains were also weighted, the heavier varieties being used for more severe punishments. ‘Working in chains’ or being on an ‘iron(ed) gang’ meant performing very hard labour while wearing chains.
Conditional Pardon: Freed a convict of a life sentence on condition that he or she did not return to Britain, on pain of death. Could be revoked.
Emancipist: Term used mainly in New South Wales and, to some extent, in Van Diemen’s Land, for a convict who had received either a conditional pardon or a full pardon. Came to be used broadly for all ex-convicts and to denote a political faction championing the civic and political rights of ex-convicts.
Expiree: Term used mainly in Western Australia for a convict who had served out a sentence or been given a conditional or complete pardon.
Female Factory: Prison for women combining incarceration, manufacturing labour (hence the name), childcare and, in theory at least, reformation. The ‘factories’ at Parramatta and Hobart (at the Cascades) were the best known but not the only such institutions.
Lag: A convict, often as ‘an old lag’, usually meaning a re-offender. To be ‘lagged’ was convict slang for receiving a guilty verdict and subsequent sentence.
Muster: Roll call of convicts to verify their presence.
Pardon (also Free, Full or Absolute Pardon): A full pardon without conditions. Usually issued after ten or twelve years to those with life sentences.
Passholder (Class Probation Pass Holder): Term used in Van Diemen’s Land for documentation regulating wages and conditions for assigned convicts.
Slops: Official issue of convict clothing.
Stockade: From military stricture for an enclosed, secure area. Floggings and musters were often carried out in stockades.
System, The: Unofficial but widely used term for the British imperial penal arrangements in Australia.
Ticket-of-Leave: Allowed a convict to live and work freely as long as he or she did not leave a designated area, reported regularly to the authorities and attended church on Sunday (if possible). Infractions could, and often did, mean a return to servitude.
Transport: Could refer to a convict who had been transported or to a ship used to transport convicts.
Triangle: Triangular wooden structure for flogging. Victims hands were tied together at the top and their feet tied apart at the bottom, ensuring taut skin for the maximum infliction of pain.
Turned off: Hanged.
Workhouses (also known as Poorhouses): Early form of British welfare in which the parish was funded to build and run establishments to house the poor. Inmates were required to work to defray the public costs. Workhouses were dreaded by those who had need of them as they often separated families and were generally places of profound misery and, sometimes, corruption.