Distribution Lists: Convicts Arriving in NSW 1813-1822

The Australian Research Council-Discovery Project, Enquiring Into Empire (DP180100537), and has been compiled by staff, students and associates involved in the University of New England’s Convict History Research Collective has published open access the Macquarie’s Distribution Lists: Convicts arriving in New South Wales, 1813-1822. Created by Chris Bedford, David Andrew Roberts and Cathy Dunn.

This dataset is based on transcriptions of  ‘convict distribution lists’, dating from 1814 to 1822, which are scattered through the New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s copies of out-letters. They are lists of some of the convicts freshly disembarked from 76 convict ships that arrived in those years. Signed by William Hutchinson, the Principal Superintendent of Convicts, the lists were transmitted with letters from the Colonial Secretary to a small number of magistrates outside of Sydney, mostly for ‘general distribution’ among local settlers, or, in some cases, for distribution to named employees. There are batches also of men and women being sent to public institutions, notably the Parramatta Female Factory and (from October 1819) the new agricultural establishment at Emu Plains on the Nepean River.

More details and download database: Macquarie’s Distribution Lists, 1813-1822 – UNE Convict History Research Collective