Mortality under and after sentence of male convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), 1840–1852 Rebecca Kippen and Janet McCalman* Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia (Received 2 February 2015; accepted 3 February 2015) This article reports on mortality in a cohort of 7084 English, Irish and Scottish- born convict men who were transported on 30 ships to Tasmania between 1840 and 1852. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of convict mortality that systematically traces the mortality of convicts after emancipation as well as under sentence. This pilot study investigates the relationship between pre-transportation characteristics, convict discipline, reactions to convict discipline, and mortality under and after sentence of the male convict population. The convict men were various in their origins but shared the experience of penal servitude under the gaze of a paper panopticon. Controlling for other factors, the authors find that the convicts were more likely to die under sentence if they were born in Scotland, London or an industrial- urban area; if they exhibited disturbed mental behaviour under sentence, such as tearing their clothes; or if they had more time in solitary confinement or more accumulated insults of their mind and body. For those who survived sentence, mortality was higher for those born in an industrial-urban area, those who had more alcohol-related offences under sentence, those with more time in solitary confinement under sentence, and those who were violent or threatened violence while under sentence. Keywords: Van Diemen’s Land; Tasmania; Australia; convict history; mortality; nineteenth century 1. Introduction The transportation of convicts to the island of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) from 1803 to 1853 provides a closely observed natural experiment into the possible effects of background characteristics and insult accumulation on the mortality of a historical cohort artificially created by an institution (Kuh & Smith, 1993; Kuh, Ben-Shlomo, Lynch, Hallqvist, & Power, 2003). The convicts had varied ethnic, economic and social characteristics, but were processed through a system where they shared the same food, the same disciplinary regimes and the same work. That institutional stress regime recorded their reactions to its provocations, injustices and regulations, their moral careers, and the insults inflicted on their bodies and minds. These can be calibrated and measured with background characteristics against outcomes in mortality. The rich historiography of Australian convicts has hitherto been restricted to records created by the penal system and the courts, and to individual biographical data (Alexander, 2010; Johnson & Nicholas, 1995; Maxwell-Stewart, 2008; Meredith & Oxley, 2005; Nicholas, 1988; Oxley, 1996; Robson, 1994). Life before sentence has been inferred from the innovative utilization of convict heights (Johnson & Nicholas, 1995; Nicholas & Oxley, 1993; Nicholas & Steckel, 1992; Oxley, 2004). Life after sentence has been q 2015 Taylor & Francis *Corresponding author. Email: j.mccalman@unimelb.edu.au The History of the Family, 2015 Vol. 20, No. 3, 345–365, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2015.1022198 Downloaded by [The University Of Melbourne Libraries] at 00:15 14 August 2015