How options for punishing criminals were changed forever
250 years ago, on 4 July 1776, 13 British colonies in North America declared independence. That decision was the start of the United States of America, and a war between the rebel colonists and the British. As our American friends celebrate the 250th anniversary, what impact did it have here?
The thing which was affected first was that of transporting criminals. It had been the practice for most of the 18th century to send some convicts (both male and female) over to the American colonies to serve hard labour there, usually for a term of seven years. The Reading Borough Quarter Sessions records show that the last men they tried to send were as late as 1775, when two individuals were due to go: John Draper to Maryland in April for petty larceny, and William Dansey also to Maryland in July. It is, however, questionable as to what actually happened to Draper and Dansey, as we know that the rebel Americans were closing their harbours to convict ships from April 1775.
Dansey's sentencing and order to be sent to America.
So, the last we can really be sure about are Joseph Saunders, Thomas Chapman and John Excell, all convicted of petty larceny in 1772-3, who were sent to Maryland for seven years. They were not sent in official Government vessels, but with individual merchants, in this case Moses Israel Fonseca and Abraham Lopes Fernandes, both of London, who contracted with the court to deliver the men to Maryland. They were also responsible for Draper and Dansey.
The first page of Saunders, Chapman and Excell's sentencing and order to be sent to America.
A contract for use of Fonseca and Fernandes' ships as transportation.
Usually petty larcenists, whose thefts would have been valued at less than a shilling, were sentenced to corporal punishment instead, so these must have been persistent offenders. They would have been treated to the similar harsh conditions as the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, but with the hope of release at the end of their term.
The American Revolution meant the end of this option for dealing with criminals. It would be another 12 years before Australia became an alternative destination for transportation. It must have meant that Reading Gaol, then in cramped conditions in what is now St Mary’s Church Castle Street, was forced to house more convicts than it was used to. The building was already overcrowded and generally unsatisfactory, and this may have been one more straw leading to the move to a new prison built in the grounds of the Forbury some years later.