Although the first British military outpost in Western Australia at Frederickstown (Albany) in 1826 included a small contingent of convicts, when a permanent colony was formed at the Swan River in 1829 much was made of the fact that it was a ‘free’ (non-convict) settlement. Twenty years later and in a precarious economic state due to a faltering economy, the Western Australian colonists appealed to the British Crown to send convicts. They appear to have had three goals in mind: obtaining cheap labour, stimulating growth through the convict system contracting for supply from local industries, and using the convicts to undertake essential public works throughout the colony.

The Western Australian convict system, starting in 1850 as transportation to Van Diemen’s Land was winding down, had several distinct features including no female convicts (as a bulwark against ‘moral decline’), and that the men had completed their penal phase prior to arrival, with most receiving their ‘Ticket of Leave’ immediately. The core of the system was labour distribution, where after a short period in the main Fremantle depot (later Fremantle prison) they would be sent to a ‘hiring depot’ in one of the regional areas.  Until such time as they were hired by local settlers, they were available for public works, although skilled convicts were generally engaged and removed very quickly, leaving most works incomplete.  In  some circumstances the government could retain workers in its employ, including in punishment gangs, to ensure critical roles and works were completed.

The hiring stations, often situated in or near an existing or intended town site, had a basic infrastructure of a barracks, commissariat, workshops, short-term punishment cells (serious offenders were returned to Fremantle), as well as administration offices a small military detachment and associated housing.  Nearby would be a series of small allotments for military pensioners who could be called upon as a militia force should trouble occur. The last convicts were transported to WA in 1868, with the system contracting back to Fremantle depot, which was finally transferred to the Colonial government in 1880. The convict era was seen as an aberration and best forgotten.

The WA Convicts project was to understand the structure and breadth of the convict system and its works, and then to archaeological identify what remained of this legacy.  In the long term the intention was to determine its relationship to its predecessor systems in eastern Australia, completing our understanding of the arc of convict transportation from 1788-1868.