Middle Years Inquiry Unit

Discipline: History
Level: Year 9
Unit Title: The Convict Experience
Curriculum References: Years 9/10 Victorian History Curriculum, Industrial
Revolution:

Causes of population movements and settlement patterns during this

period and the significant changes to the way of life of groups of
people(VCHHK130)
Australia and Asia: Students investigate the history of either Australia
and/or an Asian society in the period 1750 1918
Key social, cultural, economic, and political features of one society at the
start of the period (VCHHK133)
Causes that led to the Industrial Revolution, and other conditions and
ideas that influenced the industrialisation of Britain and of
Australia(VCHHK129)

Inquiry Question
The decision to send the First Fleet to Australia is usually explained as a response
to overflowing gaols. Why were the gaols overflowing? What social conditions led
convicts to commit the crimes they were transported to Australia for and what
happened to them when they got here?
Overall aim and methodology:
The core activity of the unit will involves the students researching actual convict
records to obtain information about convicts transported to Van Diemens Land in
the 1840s. These are available in digitised form via the Tasmanian Archives here:
http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON33-193,303,1,F,56
The link brings you to a pdf file, the first page of which is simply a photo of a
large bound volume of obvious age. As you open the second page, it simulates
the opening of the volume and the PDF file has over 300 pages, each containing
the conduct record of convicts with details about the convict, physical
description, religion, whether they can read or write, where and for what they
were convicted etc., all written in copperplate handwriting.
The aim will be to develop key skills outlined in the curriculum for Years 9 and 10
history: to analyse historical sources as evidence and to Analyse the different
perspectives of people in the past and evaluate how these perspectives are
influenced by significant events, ideas, location, beliefs and values (VCHHC124).
Lessons

Lessons 1 & 2
The first two lessons are designed to engage the students and to introduce them
to the archival records they will be researching. They will involve introducing the
students to two documents. The first is one of the convict records in the link
above (page number 117 on the PDF file), the record of Patrick Fitzpatrick. The
class will be given the link to view on their IPads and will be asked, firstly, to
guess what the record is. (I have actually done this lesson at both university level
and at Point Cook Secondary College, and it has always been a success in
engaging students). The records are difficult to read due to the copperplate
handwriting, but it is possible to discern a number of interesting things.
Fitzpatrick was charged in Cork in January 1848 for stealing potatoes. He was an
18 year old, illiterate blacksmith and was only 5 foot 1 inches. The image of a
potato-stealing leprechaun usually has the class in stitches, especially when they
notice (or its pointed out) that he confirmed another stereotype by being
arrested, after he served his convict term, for assault at a pub.
Two connections bring in more serious implications of the record. One is to ask if
any of the students know what was happening in Ireland in the 1840s that may
have explained the theft of potatoes. This has almost always resulted in at least
one student volunteering potato famine and, to my amazement, a Year 7
student at Point Cook knew more details about the famine than any of the
university students has in my experience. The second connection involves a
second document introduced to the students simply as another example of a
primary source, a short newspaper report of a wedding in Tasmania in 1903
(accessed via the Trove Digitised Newspaper
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/35573071?searchTerm=wedding%20at
%20westbury%20propsting&searchLimits=
The students will be asked what is most interesting about the article, and to
describe the people getting married. The most striking thing about the
description of the wedding is the wealth of the groom, as the maids of honour
are described as wearing diamond and ruby brooches gifted by him for the
ceremony.
After, what appears a fairly mundane exercise, the teacher can reveal that the
bride was the grand-daughter of Patrick Fitzpatrick. (Note: that when Im
delivering this class, I can add that the reason Im aware of the connection is that
the married couple were my great grandparents and that Fitzpatrick is, therefore,
my ancestor).
This provides an opportunity for the class to discuss, first in small groups and
then as a whole, what the implication of this dramatic improvement in social
status signifies. Was Patrick Fitzpatrick right to steal those potatoes? What might
have happened to him if he had stayed in Ireland? What does it say about the
nature of colonial Australia? How do you think the young married couple in 1903
might have acquired their wealth (the article provides no clues)? The small group
discussion will provide the best opportunity for formative assessment. The

teacher will walk around the room, joining in each discussion as appropriate and
noticing how students contribute.
The teacher will then bring the class together to conclude the discussion. They
will attempt to guide the discussion towards current law and order debates:
punishment versus rehabilitation. At some point the teacher may want to
mention the point made by Robert Hughes in The Fatal Shore that the children of
convicts were less likely to commit crime than free settlers and that, for all its
terrors and violence, the convict system was also the most successful example of
rehabilitation in history. This adds some real world relevance to the historical
question.
Lessons 3 & 4. Adopt a Convict.
The class will be divided into groups of four. The groups will each be assigned a
different section of the PDF file (ie pages 2-30) and will be asked to look through
the records in that section. They will then have to negotiate with each other as to
which four of the convicts they will adopt as a group, one for each student. Each
student will then produce a wanted poster and will be asked to draw to the
best of their ability an imaginative representation of their convict. Some
contemporary images of convicts will help them:

Along with the picture, they will list basic details about the convict from the
record such as where they were from, what they were convicted of and their
physical appearance.
The completed posters will be hung up around the class and students will also
use their IPads to take a photo of the poster and upload it to a Padlet file titled
Rogues Gallery. This will provide an opportunity for formative assessment as
well as forming part of the overall summative assessment (see rubric below).
Lesson 5: The Letter Home (Literacy Component)
The students will be asked to imagine they were their adopted convict. They are
then asked to write in class a letter home to their family members. (In the case
of convicts who are illiterate, it will be imagined that they are getting a friend to
write it.) Letters will be uploaded to the Adopt a Convict Padlet. This will provide
an opportunity for formative assessment, it will also form part of the summative
assessment for the unit (see Rubric below).
Lessons 6 & 7: Where were they from?
Each group of 4 will be assigned 48 convicts from the list (12 for each student).
Each student will identify from the records the name of the town where the
convict was tried. Once the location of all 48 convicts has been recorded, the
group will then collectively create a large poster on which they will outline a map
of Britain and Ireland. Using google maps to identify the location of each town
they will then draw a flag for each town mentioned with the number of convicts
written in it. They will then take a photo of the poster and upload it to a Padlet
titled Where were they from? The teacher will have created a poster and, once
all have been uploaded, the class will together go through each poster and the
teacher will add the totals for each town mentioned. The combined poster will
also be photographed and uploaded.

The group posters will provide an opportunity for formative assessment, they will
also form part of the summative assessment for the unit (see Rubric below).
The class will then have a brainstorming session about the various locations.
What do they know about them? What might have been happening there in the
1840s?
Lesson 8: The Industrial Revolution & Chartism
Following on from the brainstorm at the end of the last class, the teacher will
conduct another brainstorm, focussing specifically on what the students know
about the Industrial revolution.
The following are quotes made by government inspectors, cited by Friedrich
Engels in his book, The Condition of Working Class in Englan, written in the 1840s
(available as a PDF here):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/condition-workingclass-england.pdf
"I have seen human degradation in some of its worst phases, both in
England and abroad, but I did not believe until I visited the wynds of
Glasgow, that so large an amount of filth, crime, misery, and disease
existed in any civilised country. In the lower lodging-houses ten, twelve,
and sometimes twenty persons of both sexes and all ages sleep
promiscuously on the floor in different degrees of nakedness. These places
are, generally, as regards dirt, damp and decay, such as no person would
stable his horse in."
"In Leeds, brothers and sisters, and lodgers of both sexes, are found
occupying the same sleeping-room with the parents, and consequences
occur which humanity shudders to contemplate."
These extracts will be given to the students to read and discuss the following
questions in groups. Why were the people so poor? What were the consequences
of such overcrowding? In particular, what did you think was the consequence in
the second quote which humanity shudders to contemplate?
The small group discussion will provide an opportunity for formative assessment.
The teacher will walk around the room, joining in each discussion as appropriate
and noticing how students contribute.
Students will watch the following videos. Questions will be imbedded using
Playposit to provide formative assessment of their comprehension:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfZv-ePv36I (Basic summary of the
industrial revolution)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkHWBFhIn9c (excellent introduction
to the Chartist Movement which swept Britain in the 1840s)

Lesson 9: Power Works Excursion

The students will attend an excursion to the Power Works Museum in
Williamstown, specifically focussing on the Pumpworks. This will include a class
discussion of how sewage was dealt with before the sewage system was
introduced to Melbourne in 1890. This exercise has the advantage of any
excursion of providing an alternative learning session to the class room. Its
relevance at this juncture of the unit is that it illustrates both the positive and
negative sides of the Industrial Revolution. The Pumpworks is a classic example
of 19th century engineering and of how the developments of steam power and
metallurgy inherent in the Industrial Revolution changes millions of lives for the
better. On the other hand, as the first modern sewage system in the world
(Londons) wasnt built until the 1860s, the world our convicts came from was
unsewered. The large crowded cities that many came from were worse in this
regard than the rural villages their ancestors had lived in. 12 to a room is bad
enough but without water or sewage.
Students will be asked to write a short reflection on the visit and submit it to a
Padlet titled: Power Works Visit. This will provide an opportunity for formative
assessment.
Lessons 10, 11, 12 & 13: looking behind the crimes
This is the core inquiry task for the unit.
Students will use the offences committed and the locations of the convicts they
have adopted as keys to the past. They will research the general history of
Britain during the 1840s but also the specific history of the towns and regions
from which their convicts came and try, where possible, to make connections
between the crimes committed and what was happening at the time.
To give an example of what they might find, with Irish convicts from this period,
the Potato Famine will loom large. They may also be lucky enough to find a
convict with an explicitly political offence (such as Whiteboy Activity referring
to an Irish secret society that organised retaliation against landlords). For
convicts from England, Scotland or Wales, the context of the Industrial Revolution
will be relevant, especially for convicts from London and the major industrial
centres. The students will be asked to try and find references to the actual towns
and cities where the convicts were tried to get some idea what was happening
there at the time. This is a challenging task, which is why its better to do it in
groups to pool their efforts. The task needs to be completed in class and the
teacher will assist where required. Obviously, the delivering of such assistance
will also be an opportunity for formative assessment.
How they research the question and what they produce as a consequence is up
to the students and can be negotiated with the teacher. They may want to do a
video or produce a website or a poster. The creativity inherent in the
presentation will be assessed along with the quality of the research (see the
rubric below note that this task is worth half the marks for the unit). They will
also be asked to submit a bibliography which includes all the sources of the

information they have obtained during their research. This can be either
submitted as part of the overall presentation or as a separate document.
Lessons 13 & 14: How tall were they? (Numeracy Component)
Given the revelation about Patrick Fitzpatricks height, an obvious question is
raised about whether his extremely short stature was less unusual back then
than it is today. In short: is it true that people were shorter in the past than they
are today. A short brainstorming session at the beginning of the class can discuss
how historians can know about the height of people from the past: measuring
skeletons, looking at the height of doorways etc. It is to be hoped, that at some
point, a student points out that this PDF file contains the records of over 300
working class individuals from the 1840s, with their heights recorded.
This provides an opportunity for a research project that the whole class can
conduct in one lesson. Each student will be assigned 12 of the records in the PDF
file and be asked to record the height of each individual. The teacher will provide
the information that one inch = approximately 2.5 centimetres and ask each
group of four to collectively try and work out an algebraic formula to convert feet
and inches to centimetres ie. 2.5(12f + i) = c.
Each student will be asked to list the heights in both feet/inches and centimetres
in a short document and to work out the average height for the list. They will
detail the average in the document. They will also highlight the shortest and
largest convict and detail the range this indicates. The students will submit their
individual documents to the teacher electronically for assessment with the
following rubric.
12 Convict
heights listed
2 Marks

Correct
conversion to
cm
2 Marks

Mean average
calculated
2 Marks

Shortest and
tallest
identified
2 Marks

Range
calculated
2 Marks

The mark they achieve will be incorporated in the final assessment rubric for the
unit. See below.
Each group will be asked to then work out the overall average for their group and
identify the shortest and tallest individual. The teacher will then list each groups
average on the board and the class will be asked to work out the overall average.
The teacher will ask one group for their shortest individual, then carry out a sort
of auction, asking if any group has a shorter one, until the shortest convict is
identified. The same method will be used to establish the tallest. Then the class
will, together, work out the overall range.
Rubric for Unit Assessment
Adopt a
Convict

Drawing
included

Description
s of

Occupation
included

Offense
Included

Location
where they

Poster

physical
appearance
included
(2 Marks)

Letter
Home

Very basic
letter,
limited
length &
imaginative
detail.

(2 Marks)
Letter
shows
some
evidence of
historical
imagination
.

(2 Marks)

(2 Marks)

Letter
shows
some
evidence of
understand
ing of the
nature of
convict life

Letter
reveals a
significant
engagemen
t with the
historical
evidence

(2 Marks)
Where
were they
from?
Poster
(Group
assessme
nt)
Looking
behind
the crimes
research
project

How tall
were they

0-10
locations
identified

(8 Marks)
(4 Marks)
11-20
locations
identified

(6 Marks)
21-30
locations
identified

31-40
locations
identified

(4 Marks)

(6 Marks)

(8 Marks)

(2 Marks)
Relevant
background
historical
material
researched
for
specific
locations.

(12 Marks)

(12 marks

(2 Marks)

Letter
reveals
profound
insights
into the
nature of
convict life
the
possibilities
both good
and bad.
(10 Marks)
48
locations
identified

(10 Marks)

Relevant
background
historical
material
researched
for the
whole of
the UK.

12 Convict
heights
listed

lived and/or
were
convicted
(2 Marks)

Correct
conversion
to cm
(2 Marks)

Explained
the
significance
of the
historical
material
(ie. how it
might
relate to
the
convicts)
(12 marks)
Mean
average
calculated
(2 Marks)

Creative
presentatio
n of
research
material

Bibliograph
y with
sources of
information
provided.

(12 marks)

(12 marks)

Shortest
and tallest
identified
(2 Marks)

Range
calculated
(2 Marks)