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Friendship

Convict transport

Acting as a punishment ship to which troublemakers from other ships were transferred, Friendship had its own share of trouble with drunkenness and fighting between marines and sailors, and seamen discovered in bed with the female convicts.

From the outset Francis Walton, captain of Friendship, failed to stop the ‘connections’ between his crew and the convict women. According to the young and very moralistic Lieutenant Ralph Clark who travelled on board, the men broke through the bulkhead while they were still anchored at Portsmouth. On 16 May 1787, three days after their departure, Clark wrote scathingly of the convict women:

I never could have thought that there wair so many abandond wretches in England, the[y] are ten thousand time worse than the men convicts, and I am afraid that we will have a great dele more trouble with them.

Ship size
Length: 22.9 metres (75 feet); width: 7 metres (23 feet)

Weight
282 tonnes (278 tons)

First Fleet Ships

First Fleet Ships

At the time of the First Fleet’s voyage there were some 12,000 British commercial and naval ships plying the world’s oceans

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The ships

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship
First Fleet Ships

Alexander

Length: 34.75 metres (114 feet); width: 9.5 metres (31 feet); weight: 460 tonnes (452 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.
First Fleet Ships

Borrowdale

Length: 22.7 metres (75 feet); width 6.7 metres (22 feet); weight: 276 tonnes (272 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.
First Fleet Ships

Charlotte

Ship size length: 32 metres (105 feet); width: 8.5 metres (28 feet); weight: 343 tonnes (338 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet Ship
First Fleet Ships

Fishburn

Length: 31.4 metres (103 feet); width: 8.8 metres (29 feet wide); weight: 384 tonnes (378 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.
First Fleet Ships

Golden Grove

Length: 31.4 metres (103 feet); width: 8.8 metres (29 feet); weight: 336 tonnes (331 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.
First Fleet Ships

HMS Sirius

Length 35.5 metres (110 feet); width: 9.8 metres (32 feet) weight: 549 tonnes (540 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.
First Fleet Ships

HMS Supply

Length: 21.3 metres (70 feet); width: 7.9 metres (26 feet); weight: 173 tonnes (170 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.
First Fleet Ships

Lady Penrhyn

Length: 31.3 metres (103 feet); width: 8.2 metres (27 feet); weight: 337 tonnes (333 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.
First Fleet Ships

Prince of Wales

Length: 31.3 metres (103 feet); width: 8.8 metres (29 feet); weight: 356 tonnes (350 tons)

Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.
First Fleet Ships

Scarborough

33.9 metres (111 feet, 6 inches); width: 9.1 metres (30 feet, 2 inches); weight: 417.5 tonnes (411 tons)

First Fleet people

Portrait of man in uniform with black hat, standing on beach with ship and small boat in background.
First Fleet Ships

Ambition and adventure: the early life of Arthur Phillip

We looked back at the early life of Phillip, who had enjoyed an extraordinary career before he even set foot on a boat bound for Botany Bay

First Fleet Ships

David Collins

As secretary to the governor and judge advocate for all legal affairs, he was witness to some of the most important events of the new settlement

First Fleet Ships

Jacob Nagle

Twenty-five-year-old Able Seaman Jacob Nagle travelled to Australia on board HMS Sirius as a member of the ship’s crew

Adult convict, cropped from larger painted artwork.
First Fleet Ships

James Ruse

Ex-convict James Ruse became the first person in NSW to receive a land grant when Governor Phillip gave him 30 acres at Parramatta in April 1791