ABSTRACT
In the 19th century large numbers of workers were brought before the courts, charged and almost invariably convicted for not fully cooperating with their employers—in essence a failure to accept the inequality, indignity and exploitation associated with formal legal subordination. The UK government enacted and periodically amended laws on convict transportation that mandated shipboard rations, required surgeons on transport-ships and set rules governing convict sentences. The most striking feature of the regulatory regime was its one-sided and punitive character, indicative of the critical role of the state in subordinating labour/entrenching inequality at work. This applied to free and unfree-labour, men and women. Court records add an important gender dimension to worker dissent. Apart from Female Factories, women were located in activities with limited opportunities for collective action. Collective action was in part a response by workers to inequalities entrenched in the legal regime as well as other efforts to subordinate them.
