The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 British ships that took the first British colonists and convicts to Australia. It comprised two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, with over 1400 people, left from Portsmouth, England and took a journey of over 24,000 kilometres (15,000 mi) and over 250 days to eventually arrive in Botany Bay, New South Wales, where a penal colony would become the first British settlement in Australia from 20 January 1788.
An engraving of the First Fleet in Botany Bay at voyage's end in 1788
Lady Penrhyn
An English Fleet in Table Bay in 1787, by Robert Dodd
The First Fleet arrives in Port Jackson, 27 January 1788, by William Bradley, an officer on HMS Sirius.
Penal transportation was the relocation of convicted criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a colony, for a specified term; later, specifically established penal colonies became their destination. While the prisoners may have been released once the sentences were served, they generally did not have the resources to return home.
Women in Plymouth, England, parting from their lovers who are about to be transported to Botany Bay, 1792
Neptune, a 19th-century convict ship that brought prisoners to Australia
Joseph Lycett, an artist transported for forging bank notes, The residence of Edward Riley Esquire, Wooloomooloo, Near Sydney N. S. W., 1825, hand-coloured aquatint and etching printed in dark blue ink. Australian print in the tradition of British decorative production.
1848 Woodcut of HMD Bermuda on Ireland Island, Bermuda, showing prison hulks
