Read all about our project exploring the lives of ten female convicts transported to Australia in 1817, then watch the film we made imagining their voices…

All ten had been found guilty of property crimes, theft and receiving, and sentenced to ‘transportation beyond the seas’ for 7 or 14 years (7 years for theft, 14 for receiving!). While all the crimes were committed in Bristol, only two women claimed Bristol as their ‘parish’. Two were from Leicestershire, one from Birmingham, and for the other five – half the group – we have no place of origin.

The three women who received 14 years lived in Bedminster and were convicted of selling goods stolen by the men they lived with. One theft was a gold watch from a jeweller just off Broad Street, close to the prison.

The women gave ages ranging from 17 to 26, and their work as servant, needlework, market woman, lace maker, hat binder and picker, and pipe maker. We have no images of them but Paul Sandby’s early 19th century watercolours show women doing similar occupations.

BRISTOL NEWGATE opened in 1690, in a building that was even older. It was close to the heart of the ‘old city’ and Bristol Bridge. By 1817 it was notorious for overcrowding and disease. The majority of people imprisoned were working class, and while we still know comparatively little about them, the archive of the criminal justice system offered a way to uncover their lived experience.

Bristol Newgate finally closed in 1820 – three years after our women were transported. It was replaced by the ‘New Gaol’, damaged in the Bristol Riots of 1831 and the rioters hanged from the gatehouse – which still survives on Cumberland Road. While the site and history of the ‘New Gaol’ is comparatively well known, the story of Bristol Newgate – and the men and women incarcerated there – has been almost entirely forgotten.

Funding from Historic England and UWE has enabled Show Of Strength Theatre Company to explore forgotten working class lives with women in HMP Eastwood Park and record their work in the exact location where ten women awaited transportation to Australia in 1817.

From 1787, convicts were shipped to Botany Bay, the first British penal colony in Australia. The women convicted at Bristol in 1817 endured six months at sea aboard The Friendship before arriving at Port Jackson in January 1818.

In October and November 2023, with funding from Historic England and the University of the West of England, we explored the forgotten lives of these women in a series of workshops with women in Gloucestershire’s Eastwood Park prison. Each session included creative writing, finding and exploring the voices of some of these early 19th century women through historic images and manuscript material from Bristol Archives, and writing their stories in the first person as short monologues. The women who participated in this project provided unique insights on these historic experiences, and brought the women’s stories to life.

The workshops were led by Show Of Strength’s Creative Producer Sheila Hannon, actor Lynda Rooke and historian Rose Wallis – who also contributed scripts. Actors Gerard Cooke and Rachael Fagan joined the final session where scripts were read aloud and workshop participants provided feedback on the performance. Prison confidentiality means we can’t credit our participants/writers, so all pieces are ‘anonymous’ – including those by workshop leaders.

All 12 scripts were recorded with the same voices: Gerard Cooke, Rachael Fagan, Lynda Rooke and Sheila Hannon, and an introduction by Rose Wallis.

Audio and video recordings directed by Andy Hay.

Watch From Bristol to Botany Bay