The lives of WA Convicts

The convict era of Western Australia was the period during which Western Australia was a penal colony of the British Empire. Although it received small numbers of juvenile offenders from 1842, it was not formally constituted as a penal colony until 1849. Between 1850 and 1868, 9,721 convicts were transported to Western Australia on 43 convict ship voyages. Transportation ceased in 1868, but it was many years until the colony ceased to have any convicts in its care.

The Convict Interest Group of FamilyHistoryWA has undertaken a project to document the key events in each Convict's life focussing on their time as a convict and their life after arriving in WA.

The database provides users with links to images of original records and stories about each convict.  There is a change log where you check the progress of the as they work through the transportations ship by ship.  You will find this valuable addition to Western Australian archives at WA Convicts.

This photo is convict James Wilson (1836-1921), aka James Thomas or Séamas Mac Liammóir, an Irish Fenian and soldier, who was transported as a convict in 1867 and later escaped during the Catalpa rescue. 

The photograph was taken by Thomas Larcom (1801-1879) and is in the public domain.