Marital Status	Percentage
Single	72
Married	24
Widowed	4

Religion	Percentage
Protestant	53
Roman Catholic	19
Unknown	28

Length of Sentence	Percentage
1 to 7 years	31
8 to 14 years	44
15 years to life	25

Age	Percentage
Under 20	15
20 to 24	31
25 to 30	23
31 to 40	17
Over 40	8
Unknown	6

Regions	Percentage
London & south east	19
South west	14
West midlands	9
East of England	8
Lancashire & the north west	10
Yorkshire & the north east	12
Scotland	9
Wales	2
Ireland	5
‘Overseas’	6
Unknown	6

The qualified statistics above are based on a one in eight analysis of an alphabetical listing of convicts from the WA Biographical Index (percentages taken to nearest whole number). From Tom Stannage, "Interpreting convicts in Western Australia", unpublished lecture, 1979.

Sandra Taylor has compared statistics of Western Australian convicts with convicts transported to the eastern states and discovered a number of interesting findings. Contrary to popular belief and the rhetoric of the day, it appears that the men sent to Western Australia were more often convicted of more violent crimes. The percentage committing these more violent crimes also increased over time. The men in the eastern states more frequently came from rural areas, they were older and a larger proportion were agricultural workers.

Within the Western Australian system, as well as being convicted of more violent crimes, the men arriving in the later years were more likely than earlier transportees to have come from an urban background. Correspondingly they were more likely to be artisans rather than agricultural workers and were more likely to be literate and married.

Other interesting finds when comparing convicts transported to the eastern states and Western Australia indicate that those sent to Western Australia :

• were more Scottish, less Irish, and perhaps more urban in origin.
• were convicted on proportionately more crimes against the person and more serious crimes against property.
• approximately the same proportion were single,
• were proportionately more likely to be Protestants.
• their age at conviction was roughly the same, but probably slightly fewer had previous convictions.
• were less likely to be seven year men
• had far fewer serving life sentences.

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© Fremantle Prison 2002