Jewish convicts

In the late 18th century, London was home to Jewish people from two distinct cultures. Sephardi Jews of Mediterranean origin had settled there in the seventeenth century, while the Ashkenazi Jews were more recent arrivals, escaping oppressive conditions in Germany and eastern Europe during the eighteenth century.

Jewish people found employment in London difficult. Jewish merchants and tradesmen were required to obtain the freedom of the City in order to conduct business there which entailed the taking of a Christian oath. Living in squalor and poverty, it is not surprising that many Londoners – Jews among them – resorted to theft in order to feed their families.

As England’s prisons began to overflow, convicts were transported to the British colonies in North America until 1775, when British ships were refused entry into North American ports as a precursor to the War of Independence. Transportation recommenced in 1787, when Commodore Arthur Phillip was sent to establish the new colony of New South Wales with soldiers, marines and over 700 convicts.

'A Fleet of Transports under Convoy', c.1788, by Carrington Bowles. Mezzotint print. DL Pd 789
Prisoners being led from Newgate Prison to their fate in a distant penal colony, the two first conform to contemporary stereotypes of Jewish people.

It is difficult to establish the precise number of Jews sent to Australia during the convict transportation era. Indents did not include details of a convict's religious affiliation until the 1820s. Some early convicts have been identified as Jewish based on typically Jewish surnames (such as Abrahams, Jacobs and Levy). Others were identified as Jewish because they had sworn on the Old Testament (rather than the New Testament) when tried in court.

Despite arriving in Australia as convicts, many Jews were soon pardoned and, once their sentence had expired, went on to become respectable, reputable colonists. Many other Jews chose join transported family members in Australia, making the most of the wide ranging opportunites on offer and rising to prominent positions in society, politics, business and the arts. 
 
> Read about the life and time of Esther Abrahams, first lady of the colony in 1808 

> Read the confession of convict Michael Isaacs, 'a Jew in Van Diemen's Land'

> Read about Sydney convict, Joseph Raphael

 > Learn about the notorious Ikey Solomon