To understand this we need to look back in time at Britain in the last half of the 1700s.
In these times the law was so very hard on offenders. Not just for serious crimes, but also for many crimes that we would call "petty". People could be hanged for stealing five shillings.
The times were very hard too and so much of the crime was from desperation.
The result of so many people being sentenced was that the English gaols became seriously overcrowded.
To relieve this overcrowding, prisoners were sent away overseas to colonies such as Sydney.
The English gaols were terrible, but prisoners must have dreaded being sentenced "to be transported" far away across the world to unknown places.
Britain had been sending convicts to America. However, after the American War of Independence in 1783, Britain lost these American colonies and could no longer offload the convicts there, out of the way.
By this time, Captain Cook had arrived in Australia. He ignored the original inhabitants and claimed it for Britain.
Sir Joseph Banks had sailed with Cook and he suggested to the British Government that convicts could be sent to Botany Bay.
So it was that the First Fleet of eleven ships set out loaded with a cargo of convicts. They arrived in Botany Bay in 1788.
After a few days there, Captain Arthur Phillip decided to move up to Port Jackson and Sydney began as a little, struggling penal settlement.
From "A Walk with History - Darlinghurst Gaol". A loose collection of documents compiled by some previous teachers.
