New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia, Convict Pardons, 1834-1859
Source Information
About New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia, Convict Pardons, 1834-1859
This database contains convict pardons and tickets of leave from New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia from 1834-1859.
Pardons were generally given to convicts with life sentences and shortened the sentence by granting freedom. There were two types of pardons – conditional and absolute. Conditional pardons required that freed convicts remain in the colony. Absolute pardons allowed freed convicts to return to the U.K.
Tickets of leave allowed convicts to live and work for their own wages wherever they wanted to within a certain Police District. Tickets of leave were generally given to convicts with good behavior. Convicts became eligible for a ticket after a certain amount of their sentence had been served. Generally a convict became eligible after 4 years for a seven year sentence, after 6 years for a fourteen year sentence, and after 8 years for a life sentence. Once a year the convict had to report in at the ticket of leave muster or else the ticket was revoked.
Pardons and tickets of leave contain similar information. Some of the information you can find on these records includes:
- Convict’s name
- Ship of arrival
- Date of arrival
- Birthplace
- Trade or occupation
- Trial/conviction place
- Trial/conviction date
- Physical description
- District to which confined
Some of the above information may only be obtained by viewing the image of the original record.
Related Databases:
New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia Convict Musters, 1806-1849
New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia, Settler and Convict Lists, 1787-1834
Having Trouble Finding a Passenger?
Given the nature of record keeping in England during the period covered by this collection, convict passenger lists for certain ships do not appear within this collection. Ancestry is currently sourcing the missing material from local archives. Should you be unable to find reference to a particular convict in this collection, please search within the following collections on Ancestry as individual convict records will in most cases exist elsewhere in this collection.
Australian Convict Transportation Registers – First Fleet, 1787-1788
Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Second Fleet, 1789-1790
Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Third Fleet, 1791
Browse this collection
OR
Browse Individual Records in this Title
Place
Title
Year or Year Range
Related data collections
Australian Convict CollectionNew South Wales, Australia, Settler and Convict Lists, 1787-1834
This database contains lists of male and female convicts and settlers of New South Wales, Australia from 1787-1834. Information available on these lists includes: name of convict or settler, age, date of arrival, name of ship arrived in, trial/conviction date and place, sentence, and occupation.New South Wales, Australia, Registers of Convicts' Applications to Marry, 1826-1851
This database contains registers of convicts’ applications to marry between 1826 and 1851. Information listed in the registers includes: names of individuals intending to marry, their ages, and date of permission or refusal to marry.New South Wales, Australia Convict Ship Muster Rolls and Related Records, 1790-1849
This database primarily consists of ship muster lists of convicts being transported from England to New South Wales, Australia between 1790 and 1849. However, some of the records are of convicts being transported from other places throughout the British Empire (such as Canada, India, South Africa, and other areas of Australia) and to other parts of Australia (such as Van Diemen’s Land, South Australia, or Western Australia).New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia Convict Musters, 1806-1849
Musters were conducted periodically as a means for keeping track of and enumerating convicts in the colony. The first muster was held in 1795. General musters usually included both convicts and ex-convicts. This database contains muster and convict lists for New South Wales (1806, 1811, 1822-1825, 1837) and Van Diemens Land (Tasmania) (1808-1849). Information listed in these records can include: name of convict, name of ship of arrival, date of arrival, where tried, date of trial, and sentence.