1786 – 8 August, London: ‘His Majesty [King George 111] has thought advisable to fix upon Botany Bay’
1788-1868: Britain transported approximately 163,000 convicted criminals to Australia in the period 1788 to 1868. Of these only 25,000 were women with a half – 12,595 – going directly to Tasmania.
1858 – 1868, England: Under Home Secretary Duke of Buckingham, Britain began shipping convicts to West Australia – 10,000 male and zero women prisoners.
1868 – Portsmouth: Hougoumont, the final convict transport sailed from England for Freemantle with two hundred and eighty (280) male convicts.
‘Without a sufficient proportion of that [female] sex it is well known that it would be impossible to preserve the settlement from gross irregularities and disorders’. Heads of a Plan for Botany Bay, Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1, Parts 1 & 2