THE CONVICT SHIP c. 1910. This is a photograph of 'The Success' which was built in 1840, apparently as a convict ship. For some time before, old dismantled men-of -war were anchored in the Thames and off Portsmouth and used, 'as a temporary expedient', as convict ships. The convict in Great Ezpectations came off a hulk and eventually was transported to Australia. These 'Hulks' remained for 80 years until 1857. However, ships were also built for transporting convicts to the colonies, firstly to the Americas as Daniel Defoe described in Moll Flanders and then after the war of Independence, to Australia. This ship eventually sank in Sydney Harbour, but it was raised from the bottom and became a sailing museum of prison life. Here she is being towed along the Dee (John Summers' steel works in the background) having been up to Chester. She is said to have been the last big ship (621 tons) to visit the city - just before the first world war. Life in a ship like this was appalling, with some hundreds of men, women and children crammed together below decks. At the time the 'Success' was built, boys of 10 and 12 who were convicted of stealing - like Fagin's boys - could escape the death penalty by being transported to Australia for 7-14 years, or even life.

A SCHOONER, 1848. The Dispatch was first registered in the Port of Chester in 1843 and her captain was a Capt. R. L. Foulkes, a Connah's Quay man. Presumably he plied between Connah's Quay and Ireland, taking bricks from Buckley brick works and also round the coast, being chartered for anything that was available.
The Port of Chester still exists although it is no longer in Chester itself. In fact the port has from earliest times been very extensive. In the 13th century, its jurisdiction extended right round North Wales to Barmouth on the West Coast and the other way, to Morecambe. 'In this tract,' says Pennant, 'are several other ports, subordinate to the comptroller of Chester, and even Liverpool is styled "a creek of the port of Chester" '.Imports to the town were skins, hides, wool, Irish linens and wine. Exports were cheese, the most important, together with coal, lead ore and lead shot from the leadworks.
The shallowness caused by the sands of the estuary put paid to the city itself as a port, and gradually the embarkation point for Ireland went nearer to the estuary mouth at Parkgate and then eventually round the corner to Liverpool. Nevertheless, the title Port of Chester remains, and hints of its former prosperity are found in the Customs House in Watergate Street and the Linen Halls (now the stables for the race course).