ABSTRACT
The gradual abandonment of transportation from the late 1840s onward was accompanied by doubts, confusion and public controversy. One lesson which had been well learned, and about which there was a wide measure of agreement, was the need to avoid swamping the colony of consignment with convicts: if a colony were to prosper, enough free settlers had to be available to help to establish those institutions, activities and standards of behaviour upon which stability and development depended. It was on the basis of these assumptions that in June 1849 Western Australia was designated as a suitable area for a penal establishment. This was at the colonists' request, since their settlement had not proved successful, being, indeed, 'on the verge of extinction', and they hoped that a convict station might stimulate economic growth. 1 By sending out free emigrants equal in number to the transported convicts it was expected that the colony would be enabled to expand at a pace sufficient to allow it to absorb annually a reasonably large number of convicts. But the discovery of gold in New South Wales and Victoria in 1850 proved a strong counter-attraction to most of those contemplating emigration and the government was faced with the fact that their plans were shaping badly and that the public works prison system would have to be enlarged and adapted to house all but a small proportion of convicts, with the prospect besides of their release in the home country. In the meantime the first party of convicts arrived at Fremantle in June 1850, under the charge of Captain Edmund Henderson, who commanded a small group of Engineers. Those convicts who could not find employment with private individuals or firms were made use of by the government as labourers in roadmaking and the building industry for the benefit of the settlement. Henderson (who later became chairman of the Directorate of Convict Prisons) was a very capable administrator: as comptroller he had charge of convict discipline as well as public works, in a unified control that precluded the friction and deadlocks occasioned by the separation of these responsibilities in Van Diemen's Land. 2 The home government did not make immoderate demands upon the new depot which was regarded as markedly more successful than other ventures in transportation. Du Cane, who arrived in Western Australia as a subaltern in December 1851, and served there for four years, became strongly convinced of the benefits of well regulated transportation as a result of his experience:
Considered as a penal system, transportation, as carried on to Western Australia, was undoubtedly very successful, for a very large proportion of men, who would most likely have drifted back into crime in England, became peaceful and law-abiding citizens. 3
