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Nothing to Lose but Your Chains

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Unfree Workers

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History ((PEHS))

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Abstract

This chapter places the role of unfree workers in Australia’s economic development and their resistance to labour exploitation in wider perspective. It includes an assessment of the scale of protest actions that followed the changes made to the management of convict labour in the early 1820s. Comparisons are also made with the mobilisation of free workers (both informal and through unions) during the period to the creation of the Australian Commonwealth in 1901. It demonstrates that the resistance mounted by convict workers remained unmatched in Australian history until the titanic strikes of the early 1890s. The chapter highlights how convict resistance secured a number of important victories and shaped later industrial struggles. It also demonstrates how ex-convicts were integral to building unions and labour movement developments after 1850.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Lydon, Anti-Slavery and Australia, 71 and 92; Ford, L. and Roberts, D.A. (2021) The Convict Peace: The Imperial Context of the 1833 Convict Revolt at Castle Forbes, Journal of Commonwealth and Imperial History, 49, 1, 2.

  2. 2.

    Tuffin, et al., ‘Landscapes of Production’, 50–76.

  3. 3.

    Tuffin, R., Maxwell-Stewart, H. and Quinlan, M. (2020) Reintegrating Historical Records Through Digital Data Linking: Convicts Prosecuted for Collective Action in Van Diemen’s Land, Journal of Australian Colonial History, 22(2), 55–60.

  4. 4.

    Atkinson, The Europeans, Vol. 1, 30.

  5. 5.

    Rusche, G. and Kirchheimer, O. (1939) Punishment and Social Structure, Columbia University Press, New York, 5.

  6. 6.

    Melossi, D. (2003) A New Edition of “Punishment and Social Structure” Thirty-Five Years Later: A Timely Event, Social Justice, 30(1), 250.

  7. 7.

    Braithwaite, ‘Crime in a Convict Republic’, 45–46.

  8. 8.

    As cited in Cary, H. (2019) Empire of Hell: Religion and the Campaign to End Convict Transportation in the British Empire, 1788–1875, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 55.

  9. 9.

    Nicholas, The Convict Labour Market, 111–126.

  10. 10.

    Ford and Roberts, The Convict Peace, 2–5.

  11. 11.

    Ely, R. (2004) Arthur, Sir George, in Blackwell Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, Vol. 1, 30.

  12. 12.

    Duffield, I. (2001) “State This Offence”: High-Density Convict Micro Narratives, in Frost, L. and Maxwell-Stewart, H. eds. Chain Letters Narrating Convict Lives, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 135.

  13. 13.

    O’Connor, T. (1999) Buckley’s Chance: Freedom and Hope in the Penal Settlements of Newcastle and Moreton Bay, Tasmanian Historical Studies, 6(2), 118.

  14. 14.

    Linebaugh, The London Hanged, 23–30.

  15. 15.

    As some convicts participated in multiple actions the number of unique protesters will be lower than these totals imply.

  16. 16.

    Estimates for the number who participated in this event vary. While it is possible that as many as 600 may have been involved we have only counted the 233 known to have taken up arms. This is consistent with the measure that we have used subsequently which is based on the number of absconders gazetted or convicts prosecuted and not on larger claims made, for example, in newspaper reports.

  17. 17.

    Worden, N. (1985) Slavery in Dutch South Africa, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 19–40.

  18. 18.

    Evans, R. and Thorpe, Bill (1996) Freedom and Unfreedom at Moreton Bay: The Structures and Relations of Secondary Punishment, in Dyster, B. ed. Beyond Convict Workers, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 64–82.

  19. 19.

    Hirst, Freedom on the Fatal Shore, 124.

  20. 20.

    For a broader discussion see Quinlan, M. (2020) Contesting Inequality and Worker Mobilisation: Australia 1851–1880, Routledge, New York.

  21. 21.

    Hirst, Freedom on the Fatal Shore, 124.

  22. 22.

    Newcastle Morning Herald, 2 February 1894.

  23. 23.

    Rudė, G. (1978) Protest and Punishment: The Story of the Social and Political Protesters Transported to Australia, 1788–1868, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 9–10.

  24. 24.

    Turner, J. (1982) Coal Mining in Newcastle 1801–1900, Newcastle regional Public Library, Newcastle, 40, 142.

  25. 25.

    James Simms, per Katherine Stewart Forbes, Police No. 1516, T.A., Con 31-1-39.

  26. 26.

    Thomas, Susan (1974) The Bristol Riots, University of Bristol, Bristol.

  27. 27.

    North Devon Journal, 12 January 1832.

  28. 28.

    Thomas Evans Bendall, per Katherine Stewart Forbes, Police Number 1695, Con 31-1-4.

  29. 29.

    Precognition against John O'Donnell (as witness), Hugh Lafferty, Henry McConnell, Malcolm Cameron, Owen Callaghan, 1821, Scottish Records Office, AD14/21/64.

  30. 30.

    Henry McConnell, per Lord Hungerford, Police No. 435, T.A., Con 31-1-6; John Sharp per Lord Hungerford, Police No. 404, Con 31-1-38.

  31. 31.

    David Heath, per Eliza, Police No. 1219, T.A., Con 31-1-20 and Charles Pizzie, per Proteus, Police No. 728, Con 31-1-25; Salisbury and Wiltshire Journal, 17 February 1831.

  32. 32.

    Alfred Toogood, per Georgiana, Police No. 695, T.A., Con 31-1-43.

  33. 33.

    Thomas Grant, per Eliza, Police No. 739, T.A., Con 31-1-16.

  34. 34.

    Smith, Defiant Voices, 24; Quinlan, Origins of Worker Mobilisation, 100–101.

  35. 35.

    Kent, D. (1994) Customary Behaviour Transported: A Note on the Parramatta Female Factory Riot of 1827, Journal of Australian Studies, 18, 40, 75–79.

  36. 36.

    McQueen, ‘Convicts and Rebels’, 24–25.

  37. 37.

    Mudie, The Felonry, 122.

  38. 38.

    Oxley, D. (1996) Convict Maids: The Forced Migration of Women to Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 98–128; Nicholas, S. and Shergold, P.A Labour Aristocracy in Chains, in Nicholas, S. ed. Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia’s Past, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 98–110.

  39. 39.

    Carey, Empire of Hell, 75.

  40. 40.

    Laugesen, ‘The Politics of Language’, 29–30.

  41. 41.

    Murray, L. (1997) A Working Forest, Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, 365–370. See also Brownrigg, Jeff (2016) The Legend of Frank the Poet: Convict Heritage Recovered or Created? Journal of Australian Colonial History, 28, 1–22.

  42. 42.

    Maxwell-Stewart, H. and Duffield, I. (2000) Skin Deep Devotions: Religious Tattoos and Convict Transportation to Australia, in Caplan, J. ed. Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 118–135.

  43. 43.

    McGary, Reistance and Slavery, 35–54.

  44. 44.

    Panza and Williamson, ‘Australian Squatters, Convicts, and Capitalists’, 582–583.

  45. 45.

    West, J. (1852) The History of Tasmania, Henry Dowling, Launceston, reprinted Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide, 1966, Vol. 2: 231.

  46. 46.

    Ritchie, J. (1971) The Evidence to the Bigge Report: New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, Volume 2 written evidence, Heinemann, Melbourne, 44–52.

  47. 47.

    Ritchie, J. (1971) The Evidence to the Bigge Report: New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, Volume 2 written evidence, Heinemann, Melbourne, 70.

  48. 48.

    For a discussion of this evidence, and its relationship to the wider district where Murdoch farmed, is discussed in some detail see Dillon, ‘Convict Labour and Colonial Society’, 234–235.

  49. 49.

    Priestley, A. (1967) The Molesworth Committee and New South Wales, MA thesis, Australian National University, 164, 215.

  50. 50.

    Reid, K. (2003) Setting Women to Work The Assignment System and Female Convict Labour in Van Diemen’s Land, 1820–1839, Australian Historical Studies, 34(121), 4–8.

  51. 51.

    Dillon, ‘Convict Labour and Colonial Society’, 235.

  52. 52.

    Molesworth, W. (1838) Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Transportation, Henry Hooper, London, 9.

  53. 53.

    Cited in Dillon, ‘Convict Labour and Colonial Society’, 87.

  54. 54.

    Dillon, ‘Convict Labour and Colonial Society’, 135–136.

  55. 55.

    Dillon, ‘Convict Labour and Colonial Society’, 136–137.

  56. 56.

    Meredith and Oxley, ‘Contracting Convicts’, 46–52.

  57. 57.

    Meredith and Oxley, ‘Condemned to the Colonies’, 36.

  58. 58.

    Tuffin and Gibbs, ‘Uninformed and Impractical’, 98–99.

  59. 59.

    For an examination of worker anti-transportation struggles see Quinlan, Origins of Worker Mobilisation.

  60. 60.

    Sydney Gazette, 24 June 1824.

  61. 61.

    Quinlan, Origins of Worker Mobilisation: Quinlan, Contesting Inequality.

  62. 62.

    For a summary of this debate see Orth, J. (1987) English Combination Acts of the Eighteenth Century, Law and History Review, 5(1), 175–211.

  63. 63.

    ML Tasmanian Papers 271 Hobart Benchbook 2 October 1819.

  64. 64.

    See Quinlan, M. (1989) Pre-Arbitral Labour Law in Australia and Its Implications for the Adoption of Compulsory Arbitration, in McIntyre, S. and Mitchell eds. Foundations of Arbitration, Oxford University Press, 25–47; Quinlan, ‘Australia 1788–1902’, 219–250.

  65. 65.

    Vito and Lichtenstein, ‘Writing a Global History of Convict Labour’, 285–325.

  66. 66.

    Quinlan, The Origins of Worker Mobilisation, 101, 108; Moore, Death or Liberty, 207.

  67. 67.

    Quinlan, M. (1986) Hope Amidst Hard Times: Working Class Organisation in Tasmania 1830–1850, Industrial Relations Research Centre Monograph, University of New South Wales, 58–74.

  68. 68.

    Northern Star, 4 September 1928.

  69. 69.

    Quinlan, Contesting Inequality and Worker Mobilisation, 275.

  70. 70.

    Alexander, A. (2010) Tasmania’s Convicts: How Felons Built a Free Society, Allen & Unwin, Sydney; Maxwell-Stewart, H. and Kippen, R. (2014) What Is a Man That Is a Bolter To Do? I Would Steal the Governor’s Axe Rather Than Starve”: Old Lags and Recidivism in the Tasmanian Penal Colony, in Campbell, J. and Miller, V. eds. Transnational Penal Cultures, Routledge, London, 75–76.

  71. 71.

    For an examination of union growth in Victoria and some evidence of union links between Victoria and VDL see Quinlan, M. (2018) The Origins of Worker Mobilisation: Australia 1788–1850, Routledge, New York; Quinlan, M. (2020) Contesting Inequality and Worker Mobilisation: Australia 1788–1850, Routledge, New York.

  72. 72.

    Maitland Mercury 25 April 1894.

  73. 73.

    Newcastle Morning Herald (UK) 2 and 3 February 1894.

  74. 74.

    Gollan, R. (1972) Fletcher, James (1834–1891), Melbourne University Press, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fletcher-james-3538.

  75. 75.

    Quinlan, Contesting Inequality and Worker Mobilisation.

  76. 76.

    Ward, R. (1956) The Ethos and Influence of the Australian Pastoral Worker, PhD thesis, Australian National University, 132.

  77. 77.

    McKay, The Assignment System of Convict Labour, 28.

  78. 78.

    Mundy, G. (1852) Our Antipodes or, Residence and Rambles in the Australasian Colonies, with a Glimpse of the Goldfields, Richard Bentley, London, 459.

  79. 79.

    Quinlan, Contesting Inequality and Worker Mobilisation, 168.

  80. 80.

    Panza and Williamson, ‘Australian Squatters, Convicts, and Capitalists’, 568–594.

  81. 81.

    Panza and Williamson, ‘Australian Squatters, Convicts, and Capitalists’, 569–570.

  82. 82.

    Dyster, Argentine and Australian Development Compared, 91–110.

  83. 83.

    For an examination of these aspects see Quinlan Contesting Inequality and Worker Mobilisation.

  84. 84.

    Roscoe, ‘Work on Wadjemup’, 79–96.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia

    Hamish Maxwell-Stewart

  2. School of Management, Business School, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Michael Quinlan

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Correspondence to Hamish Maxwell-Stewart .

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Maxwell-Stewart, H., Quinlan, M. (2022). Nothing to Lose but Your Chains. In: Unfree Workers. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7558-4_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7558-4_11

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