Parkhurst Prison 1847, courtesy of University of Leicester.
Details
The first formal scheme of unaccompanied child migration to Western Australia occurred with the arrival of its first convicts. These convicts were juvenile offenders from Parkhurst Prison in England. In a nine year period from 1842, boys and young men (aged 12 to 21 years) were brought in to provide a source of cheap labour for settlers in the Colony.
The colonial government in Western Australia passed legislation and appointed a Guardian of Juvenile Immigrants in 1842. The first ship to arrive with former Parkhurst prisoners was the 'Simon Taylor', in August 1842.
Sources used to compile this entry: Chate, A.H; Graham, Bruce; Oakley, Glenda, Date it!: a Western Australian chronology to 1929, Friends of the Battye Library (Inc.), Northbridge, Western Australia, 1991; Hetherington, Penelope, Paupers, Poor Relief and Poor Housing in Western Australia 1829 to 1910, UWA Publishiing, Crawley, Western Australia, 2009; Steve Howell, 'Dead Reckoning', in State Library of Western Australia website, https://slwa.wa.gov.au/dead_reckoning/.
Prepared by: Debra Rosser
Created: 18 January 2012, Last modified: 25 February 2016
Last updated: 17 October 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/wa/biogs/WE00518b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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