The Botany Bay Medallion

1786 – London 1786, An unsigned ‘Heads of a Plan for effectually disposing of convicts [and] the establishment of a colony in New South Wales’ was circulated via the Home Office to Treasury and Admiralty

1786 -Whitehall, 8 August: ‘His Majesty [King George 111] has thought advisable to fix upon Botany Bay…to form a military establishment [with] two companies of marines. Orders [were] issued for the transportation of six hundred and eighty [680] males and seventy [70] female convicts to New South Wales’. Lord Sydney Home Secretary to Treasury.   

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‘Without a sufficient proportion of that [female] sex it is well known that it would be impossible to preserve the settlement from gross irregularities and disorders’. Heads of a Plan for  Botany Bay, Frank Murcott Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales,  Vol. 1. Parts 1 & 2

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‘It was the custom in the eighteenth century for the authorities to consider the sex problems of convicts or others in similar positions’. Commentary, Historical Records of New South Wales. Vol. 1

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‘Rape is a biological possibility for the male”. This biological fact; when situated in a culture in which men monopolize political, economic, legal, military, religious and other forms of power has the potential to create a disposition amongst men to view sexual intercourse as one additional piece of weaponry in their armour of power, one that they can use whenever and upon whomsoever pleases them’. Anne Summers, Damned Whores and  God’s Police, Penguin, 1975

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Convict numbers were amended. Male convicts decreased by one hundred (100) and females increased by thirty (30).

Between 1788 to 1868 Britain transported 163,000 convicted criminals to Australia. Only 25,000 were women. Of these 12,595 went directly to Tasmania.

Between 1858 and 1868 West Australia, an embryonic white settlement, received 10,000 male and zero female prisoners. Hougoumont, the last convict transport, reached Fremantle in 1868 with two hundred and eighty (280) convicted criminals.

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‘Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group, such as;

killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

imposing measures intending to prevent births within the group;

transferring children of the group to another group’. Article 2, United Nations 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

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“Rape is a biological possibility for the male”. Cited, Anne Summers, Damned Whores and God’s Police, Penguin, 1975

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London –  1786, August 8: ‘His Majesty [George III] has thought advisable to fix upon Botany Bay…. orders …issued for the transportation of six hundred and eight (680) males and seventy (70) female convicts…to New South Wales’. Frank Murcott Bladen, Home Office, Heads of a Plan for Botany Bay. Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales

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‘It is well known…without a sufficient proportion of that [female] sex…it would be impossible to preserve the settlement from gross irregularities and disorders…HMS Supply…may be employed in conveying to the new settlement a further number of women from the Friendly islands, New Caledonia etc…from whence any number may be procured without difficulty’.  Bladen, op.cit

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1786 – London, August: ‘His Majesty [George III] has thought advisable to fix upon Botany Bay [with] two companies to form a military establishment’. Bladen. ibid.

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‘It was the custom in the eighteenth century for the authorities to consider the sex problems of convicts or others in similar positions’. Commentary, Bladen, Historical Records of New South  Wales, Vol. 1

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