The conditions were harsh, but largely depended on the colony to which they were sent. For example, Captain Logan, the first Governor of the Moreton Bay colony dealt particularly harshly in matters of discipline (and earned an untimely death via murder as a result). Punishment might have involved loss or reduction of rations or tobacco, while harsher punishments involved a lashing with the cat-o'-nine-tails, a cruel leather whip with 9 "tails", each with a sharp piece of metal in the end, which would gouge out the skin. A convict might receive 40 lashes or more.
A convict's nationality had a bit to do with how he or she was treated. The Irish were usually political convicts, and as such were suppressed more harshly than the British. Reverend Samuel Marsden, the "flogging parson" earned his nickname because he was determined to beat the Irish people's rebellion out of them.
Some convicts were assigned as servants to free settlers, and again, some settlers would treat them well, but others would treat them badly. Some convicts earned enough trust and respect to be given a Ticket-of-Leave, which enabled them to move freely within the colony, but they were not truly free until they gained a Free Pardon. They could work at their own jobs or be trained in a trade. After this, they might be assigned some land of their own to farm, or even have earned enough to purchase their own property.
Convicts, vagabonds.. but primarily convicts, as Australia was originally used as a penal colony.
well convicts didn't really live in England back in the victrian times they were set to Australia.
There were no convicts in Western Australia in 1829. The first convicts in Western Australia only arrived in 1850.
tents and small houses made out of the wood they could find from tree's
Convicts first arrived in Australia in January 1788.
There was only one way for convicts to travel to Australia, and that was by way of wooden ships.
Australia.
They were simply called "convicts".
Western Australia was the last of the states to have convicts. The last convict ship to Western Australia, the Hougoumont, left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868. Transportation of convicts to Australia ceased after this.
No. South Australia was the only Australian state to never use convicts for labour.
CONVICTS
The First Fleet carried the first group of convicts to Australia. It was followed later by the Second and Third fleets, but after that, shiploads of convicts sailed independently or in pairs.