page_title: Cornish Australians
section_title: Convicts
hierarchical_section_title: Cornish Australians / Immigration history / Early settlers / Convicts
caption_attribution_description: This is a photograph of Moondyne Joe's Jarrah lined "escape-proof" cell, Fremantle Prison.
context_page_description: Cornish Australians are citizens of Australia who are fully or partially of Cornish heritage or descent, an ethnic group native to Cornwall in the United Kingdom. They form part of the worldwide Cornish diaspora, which also includes large numbers of people in the US, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico and many Latin American countries. Cornish Australians are thought to make up around 4.3 per cent of the Australian population and are thus one of the largest ethnic groups in Australia and as such are greater than the native population in the UK of just 532,300.
  Cornish people first arrived in Australia with Captain Cook, most notably Zachary Hickes, and there were some Cornish convicts on the First Fleet, James Ruse, Mary Bryant, along with several of the early governors. The creation of South Australia, with its emphasis on being free of convicts and religious discrimination, was championed by many Cornish religious dissenting groups and Cornish people comprised a sizeable proportion of settlers to that colony. Large scale Cornish emigration to Australia did not begin until the 1840s, coinciding with the Cornish potato famine and slumps in the Cornish mining industry.
context_section_description: On the First Fleet 21 Cornish convicts arrived in Australia aboard the Charlotte and Scarborough in 1788. A further twelve were sent in the Second Fleet of 1790, though six died on the way, and sixteen were carried on the Third Fleet of 1791. Some 600 convicts were transported from Cornwall to Australia between 1787 and 1852, 78 per cent of whom were male. Some of the most famous of these included:
  James Ruse, known as Australia's first farmer, who had been transported from Cornwall in the First Fleet. Ruse, New South Wales was named after him. As well as being the first to set foot on the colony, he was also given the first land grant.
  Mary Bryant, the famous female convict and escapee, transported on the First Fleet. With her husband and children she became one of the first to successfully escape the colony, though her family all perished along the way.
  William Bryant, a fisherman, husband of Mary, also transported on the First Fleet. As a fisherman he was considered useful, and put in charge of looking after the fishing ships.
  William Philp, from Padstow in Cornwall, was transported on board the Argyle in 1831 with a life sentence. In 1833 he escaped by stealing the government schooner Badger with several other convicts. They sailed to Manila and then made their way to Macao. In Macao they were identified by a Royal Navy officer who requested their arrest. However the Portuguese authorities refused to arrest or deport them and they made their escape. They were never recaptured.
  Moondyne Joe, whose real name was Joseph Bolitho Johns (c. 1826 – 13 August 1900), was Western Australia's best known bushranger. He was convicted of burglary and stealing in 1849 and sentenced to ten years penal servitude. After being moved between several prisons he was transported to Western Australia. Due to his good behaviour he was released on a ticket of leave in 1864. In 1865 he was sentenced to a further ten years for Killing and eating a neighbour's steer, something he denied for the rest of his life. Determined not to serve his sentence he absconded from a work party. He was eventually caught but months later he escaped again. Trying to make his way to South Australia, Johns was again caught. This time he was placed in a specially built "escape-proof" cell in Fremantle Prison. Two years later he escaped through a hole he'd made in the prison wall. Keeping quiet and not committing any crimes, Johns managed to evade the law for two more years, but accidentally ran into police while making a robbery in 1869. Moondyne Joe was given a ticket of leave in April 1871.
caption: Moondyne Joe's "escape-proof" cell
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