The Convicts of the Eleanor

Winner of the 2003 State Records - John and Patricia Ward Prize in the Australian Premier's History Awards

The Convicts of the Eleanor
Protest in Rural England, New Lives in Australia

by David Kent and Norma Townsend

This book focuses on the men of the convict transport Eleanor who arrived in NSW in 1831. They were all from the counties of Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire and were transported for their part in the Swing riots - the great agricultural uprising of 1830-31. This episode which touched thirty counties and has been called 'the last peasants' revolt' led to more than 480 people being sent to Australia ('the largest single group in the history of transportation' (George Rude). The men on the Eleanor who made up 30% of the Swing transportees. Part I of the book deals with the men of the Eleanor in their English setting, Part II with their experiences as convicts and free men in New South Wales. The chapter headings below give a clear indication of the contents of each chapter and the focus of the book on ruined and then reconstructed lives

Written with full academic apparatus but with that elusive being the general reader in mind, this theme will appeal to that large readership in England which is interested in rural social history and popular protest. In Australia there is a large and enthusiatic readership for books on colonial history, convictism and works which provide a context for family history. This book also has the advantage of being focussed on Hardy's Wessex and is thus, to some extent, a contribution to the regional history of southern England. The Swing Riots are a topic which features in the history syllabuses of most examination boards in southern England.

CONTENTS
Part I Ruined Lives
1. 'Men of honest principle': The Convicts of the Eleanor
2. "We don't want to do any mischief": The Voice of Protest.
3. 'The worst used labouring people on the face of the earth': Paupers and Proletarians.
4. "Money or blood": Protest and Customary Behaviour.
5. "The machine-burning...was like a civil war in the country": Reaction and Repression.

Part II Reconstructed Lives
6. "Farewell! I shall never see you more": From English Village to Australian Bush.
7. A 'Just and equal distribution of the prisoners of the Crown': The Process and Pattern of Assignment
8. 'I had to cook my own victuals': Coping with Assignment
9. 'It seems so hard never to see you but you have never been forgotten': Colonial Marriage
10 'All now considered themselkves free': Living, Working and Dying in New South Wales.