The Arrival of Europeans to Australia

On the 13th of May 1787 the first Fleet set sail with 11 tall ships, carrying 759 convicts (568 men and 191 women) from Portsmouth, England bound for Botany Bay. The Fleet was captained by Arthur Phillip, who was a semi- retired naval officer (working as a farmer). Phillip had orders to establish a penal colony in New South Wales, Australia and become the first governor of Australia.

Convicts On Board

• On board the Scarborough were 205 men.
• On board the Alexander were 198 men.
• The Lady Penryhn had 1 man, 104 women, 2 boys, and 1 girl on board.
• On the Charlotte were 83 men, 30 women, 1 boy and 1 girl.
• The Friendship had on board 75 men, 39 women and 3 girls.
• On board the Prince of Wales were 13 women and 1 girl.

A total of 568 males and 191 females were on board the listed vessels.

There were eleven ships in the fleet consisting of; two Royal Navy ships, Sirius and Supply, six transports; Alexander, Lady Penrhyn, Charlotte, Scarborough, Friendship, and Prince of Wales, and three store vessels, Fishburn, Golden Grove, and Borrowdale.

The ships, supplies, crews, and other requisites began assembling during the winter of 1786-1787 but the operation fell quickly into disarray until taken over by Arthur Phillip. His discipline continued to be influential after embarkation. An extremely dangerous 24,000 kilometre voyage via Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro, and Cape Town in the relatively small tall ships was accomplished in about 250 days with the loss of only 32 passengers out of 1,475. More than 1,000 people safely arrived at Botany Bay on January 18, 1788 to begin the new settlement.

Britain had been transporting convicts to its colonies in North America since 1716 but that was no longer an option because of the American War of Independence from 1775 to 1783. Transportation eased overcrowding of prisons in Britain and provided free settlers in colonies with cheap labour.  When the colonies won their independence from Britain they would no longer accept convicts. Britain looked at other colonies such as Canada, Southern regions of South America and northern regions of Europe and Asia, Africa and India but they all were ether too cold or too hot. So therefore Britain had nowhere to transport their convicts to and the local prisons were becoming full. Then Britain discovered Terra Australis (or Australia) and decided it would be suitable for a prison colony and officials started to plan the voyage.