English: Print of the ship the Charlotte from the First Fleet. The image was of the ship at Portsmouth (England) prior to departure in May 1787. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Australian History: The First Fleet

There were eleven ships in the First Fleet. They were all small ships that included two naval ships, six convict ships and three storeships for supplies. The ships were specially built for the long eight month voyage which had to carry prison chambers for the convicts, and also carry food and animals. The animals included sheep, goats, chickens, dogs and cats, that also needed special areas to place them. The supply ships were loaded with enough supplies for the new settlement to survive for two years, after which they would have to make use of the land, local animals, and materials. The supply ships had all sorts of things such as clothes, tools, building materials (bricks, nails, ready-cut wood), cooking equipment (including some complete cast-iron stoves), plant seeds, furniture and even a portable canvas house for the governor. The ships left from Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 and were made up of:

2 Naval Ships:

• HMS Sirius
• HMS Supply

6 Convict Ships:  

• Alexander
• Charlotte
• Friendship
• Lady Penrhyn
• Prince of Wales
• Scarborough

3 Supply Ships:

• Golden Grove
• Fishburn
• Borrowdale

The exact numbers is not exactly known but the following numbers are given in Gillen (1989):

	Departed Portsmouth	Landed at Port Jackson
Officials and passengers	16	14
Ships’ crews	324	269
Marines	247	245
Marines wives and children	46	54
Convicts (men)	579	543
Convicts (women)	193	189
Convicts’ children	14	18
Total	1,403	1,332

William Bradley’s ‘Entrance of Port Jackson 27 January 1788’ records in watercolour the 11 ships of the Fleet entering Port Jackson after Botany Bay was found unsuitable.
Mitchell Library  [State Library of New South Wales, Bradley’s Journal]

Reference:
Mollie Gillen. The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989). Page 445

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Categories: Historic world events