Jane Creek, a 21-year-old woman in 18th century England, stole a loaf of bread to feed her starving family and was sentenced to 7 years transportation to Australia as a convict. She describes the difficult conditions on the convict transport ship and in the Australian penal colony, where she works as a charwoman. Now 23, she has learned her lesson and vows never to steal again, looking forward to reuniting with her family after her sentence is complete.

2. 
 In 1788 the First Fleet arrived in Australia and with it
so did many of our students from 4/5N.
 Here they will tell you about just some of their own
personal recounts and how they came to be a convict
from England living in Australia.
What have we been
researching?

3. 4/5N

4. 
Hello to whom it may concern,
my name is Jane Creek I
am 21 and was doing life pretty easy without my dad
until my mum passed away then life felt like a gun
shooting me. I was 21 and desperate for food so I
decided to steal a loaf of bread. Well yeah, it’s bad and
wrong but my 3 sisters and 2 brothers were sitting in
the gutter crying with sadness, loneliness and
hungriness. We would have died if we didn’t have food
but we could drink out of the puddles we had to think
about the positives.
My life as a convict

5. And of course I got sentenced it was for 7 years but
at least my family had food. I was so shocked! I got
transferred to the hulk on the ship called Friendship,
I was so cramped, so hungry, so desperate for
anything. When I got to the hulk it was different
than I expected, people were working as a brick
maker, charwoman, chimney sweeper, farmer,
weaver and hawker. I thought that the guards
wouldn’t trust people that stole things. Anyway I'm
now 23 and I've been put to work as a charwoman
and as long as I'm living I will never ever steal a
thing again trust me I've learnt my lesson.

6. 
On the kings birthday we all collect wood for the
bon fire then we got 510ml of rum. It was the best!
Then we all sat around the bon fire and started
chatting about random things. Once when I went to
get a jumper I saw someone trying to steal things
out of someone else's hut, luckily they got caught
and got 200 lashes across the bum, then got hanged
we couldn’t stop laughing over the lashes but
nearly cried when he got hung.
The kings birthday

7. 
When I'm cleaning I always think of my family
and if I get angry I think what mum and dad
would say. Because I am the oldest I keep
writing letters and hoping everything will be ok
but I don’t think it will. 2 more years to go, now
I'm 26 and my 3 sisters, 2 brothers and close
friends have been sending me letters its really
nice but it makes me feel sad that I can’t be with
them. In the end I realise we will be together
soon.
Back to life

8. I received lots of letters of course, its nice but
they say lots of things like I really miss you
and hope to see you soon it makes me cry,
then people tease me and bully me and say
what happen to you big fatty, Turbo was the
one that teased me.

9. 
It was July 2nd 1796 I was going home in
one week I was a little bit nervous and
very exited. I couldn’t stop telling my
hulk neighbour about it, but he just
blocked his ears, and again turbo teased
me but this time he got lashes because the
guard heard him saying mean things.
Nervous

10. 
I can remember on my way back to my
family and I loved the fact that I could see
my town London. I could also remember
when I stopped and my family and close
friends were standing there dancing in
happiness and crying of joy I was also
crying of joy. Then we went to my cousins
house, I never stole a thing again just like I
said before my family were happy for the
first time in 7 years.
Leaving

12. I was born in England and my name is
James. When I was 15 years old, I was
working on a farm just outside my town.
It was scary because the farm owner was
always angry and would never pay us our
money. I lived in Yorkshire the house was
old and broken down, my family was
poor. I was caught stealing money and
warm clothes the police caught me. I went
to court then went to the prison. The cells
were full, so they sent me on the
Alexander to Australia.

13. 
Day 2
 I didn’t know where I was going. When I got there
we had to build a hut, then collected some sticks,
made a campfire and then we went to sleep. The next
day I started working on the farm, I didn’t expect it. I
had to pull logs it was very hard I had to work till
lunch then have a couple hours break then work till
five pulling logs then go home. I had to stay there for
7 whole years. The next day we had to pull a horse
cart.

14. 
7th year
 When I got back to England I was good.

16. 
I was a convict
 When I was a little girl I did something very very bad. I stole silk that was
valued at 90 shillings. I felt so bad for what i did but it was only because I
was poor and if I didn’t steal how was I supposed to live. I was sentenced
to be hung but they had changed so I was sentenced to be transported to
Australia, the hulk for 10 years. On the ship to Australia I met a boy called
Biscuit. Biscuit was 11 years old, the same age as me. Because of his name
he got teased a lot by everyone, but he got teased the most by someone
particular and his name was Turbo Henderson. Turbo was not just mean to
Biscuit he was mean to everyone but just worst to Biscuit. Turbo Had
brown curly hair and blue eyes, he was always saying that me and biscuit
were going out but we didn’t listen. Me and Biscuit were so lucky
because we were side by side in our cells. I don’t think you want to know
what they fed us for breakfast, lunch and tea, but I will tell you anyway.
We got rotten, slimly discussing slop. It was so bad it didn’t even have a
name.

17. 
It was so bad
Some of us ate it, some of us didn’t. The cells were like a petting
zoo for insects. There were cockroaches, flies, maggots from the
food, and slim because of the condition it was in. I can’t believe
how disgusting it was in the sells. But me and Biscuit didn’t care,
we were tough and strong and didn’t disobey any of the guards or
the boss. In winter it was freezing and I tell you what they didn’t
give us very sensible clothes to wear. The only thing we got to
wear was a singlet and shorts. Me and Biscuit of course we chose
the same job. We chose the hardest job ‘farming’. There were all
different kinds of jobs like pulling logs, char woman, chimney
sweeper, brick maker, a carpenter, a weaver, a miller and a labour.

18. 
It was hard work
 We had to work very very hard in farming. We had to sow the
crop, harvest and pick them by hand. The bosses and the
guards worked us like pit balls. The boss was never happy,
there was always something wrong, weather someone isn’t
doing it right or if they just don’t do it at all. The only time we
were let out of our sells were when it was breakfast, lunch or
tea. I didn’t really want to because I knew what the food was
like. It wasn’t really fun but it was the most fun I have ever had
since I have been here. It had been 9 years and 10 months since
I was in Australia.

19. 
The tough days
I was lucky that I only had 2 months. But the bad thing was
Biscuit had already left. He only had 9 years and 9 months, so I
was left with the one and only Turbo Henderson. But after Biscuit
had left things got a little bit better for me but certainly not for
Turbo. Turbo had disobeyed the guards and the bosses, which I
wouldn’t have dared to do such a thing like that. You know the
old saying about if you did something bad there were bad
consequences, well he got the worst consequence you can think of.
He had to get wiped with a hard rope 49 times. As I said before I
didn’t like him because of his personality but I actually felt bad for
him. Sadly all the convicts had to watch his red fire face going red
every time the rope struck him.

20. 
The unexpected thing
 After that we became friends and he was very very nice to
me. My two months were up and I was free. When I got
out I had enough money to be shipped back to New
Zealand my home town. It was one in a million chance to
see Biscuit again but then while I was walking down the
street ii bumped in to the unexpected person that you
wouldn’t have guest. I helped him pick up all the things
he dropped and then he said hi and I said hey and then
we realised who we were. After that we hugged each
other and then we lived next door to each other and
every one was happy expect Turbo. I don’t really know
what happened to Turbo but I hope he changed his
personality.

22. 
life as a convict

23. 

25. 
My life as a convict
Hello my name is Jordan and I'm going to tell you about my life as a convict.
It was quite some time ago I was a young lad, living in London I was ten years old I was an
orphan desperate for food so I just decided to try and sneak a small, harmless snack BUT! I
was caught red handed they said I had to be sentenced for transport to Australia for 14 years
on the Alexander. I was scared they said the boat ride was going to be 5 hours but then I
knew I wasn’t alone. I met a friend and his name was Henry, he was the same age as me, 10.
We started to play a few games like guess the animal and cards. Also we both got sea sick just
sitting around there, we also played with the other convicts but just as we were having fun
we had to do work like washing the floors and hoisting the sails and stuff like that. But just as
we were chatting it up the captain said
“Come on you lot we've arrived.”
Henry and I went off first, the captain said when we all got off
“Ok now you guys are going to stay here, no excuses and you’re going to survive whether
you like it or not.”
So Henry and I just went along like we were told but then we knew we weren't all alone there
were creatures which snap, trap and kill so because it was late by the time we got there we
went to sleep like everyone else.

26. 
The next day making
friends
We woke up and we saw someone else sleeping right next to us we told him go away but
he was still asleep. Eventually he woke up he said he had no friends so we decided he can
be friends with us. We asked what his name was and he said
“I'm Brayden Gibson, who are you?”
“I'm Jordan and this is Henry.“
“Hi” said henry
We said we were going to be best friends and then someone else came over he asked if he
could join us as well we asked what his name was and he said
“I'm Alex Gillard, who are you?”
“I'm Jordan and here is Brayden and this is Henry”
we agreed to let him join then the leader said
“OK I'm in charge so you listen to me. First I want you lot to gather wood and you guys
to do construction and you four get me a snack”
We did get him a snack but because he was being a little lazy bully we got him rotten
fish’ vegetables and fruit by the time we all got back we took so long everyone fell asleep
and the huts were built in so we thought we would just sleep outside because we didn’t
know if we had huts chosen for us or not.

27. 
Day 2 sneaking around
We’ve woken up earlier than we thought we usually would,
“I wonder if we went out to gather wood we would get a cabin to our selves”?
So we went but then we saw smoke coming from a distance, we hurried over to check it out then Alex said
“Wait we don’t know if it’s a forest fire, we don’t know what's out there we could be killed or something like
that, maybe we should warn the others?”
“Alex stop being such a hypochondriac.” said Henry
“How about we just go over have a quick peek and just tell the other convicts?”
We went over and just as we peeked through the bushes there were other people that were dancing near a
fire.
“What do you think we should do?” asked Henry
“We warn the others.” said Alex
So we went back, told the others and got
ready for attack but by
the time we got ready
it was night so we went
back to the cabins and
Me Alex, Brayden & Henry got our own cabin.

28. 
Day 3 friend or foe?
We've woken up ready with our weapons. We went out to find the people but we
were alone. The other convicts were still asleep so we decided to go alone but by
the time we got there they were ready for war too.
“They must have heard us sneaking through the bushes” said Alex
“Yeah good thinking lets just use these weapons to good use.” said Jordan
“WAIT”! Shouted Henry
“Shh” said everyone
“What if we just try to make friends and live the life they live it’s a really good idea
who's with me?”
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” said Jordan
so we went out and they starred at us but in a good way they greeted us and we
asked if we could become friends with them and live there life so when we asked
they said we had to dress like them and behave like them so we did and by the
time we were done there wasn’t a fight at all.