1786 – London, 21 August: The Home Office informed Treasury; ‘to New South Wales…orders had been issued for the transportation of six hundred and eight (680) males and seventy (70) female convicts…[with] two [2] companies of marines to form a military establishment’. Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1
Britain’s invasion of Australia was unique in so far as the first generation of occupiers 1788 to 1813, were almost exclusively male – both criminal and military.
1788-1868: In the period 1788 to 1868 Britain transported approximately 163,000 convicted criminals to New Holland, then New South Wales, now Australia.
Of these only 25,000 were women with 12,500 going directly to then, Van Diemens Land now Tasmania. West Australia, where transportation ended in 1868, received 10,000 male criminals and zero (0) women.
It is well known…without a sufficient proportion of that [female] sex…it would be impossible to preserve the settlement from gross irregularities and disorders’. Heads of a Plan for Botany Bay.