These love tokens were created by convicted Britons before they were transported to Australia.

At least thirty-seven per cent of male convicts and fifteen per cent of female convicts were tattooed by the time they arrived in the penal colonies, making Australians quite possibly the world's most heavily tattooed English-speaking people of the nineteenth century. Each convict’s details, including their tattoos, were recorded when they disembarked, providing an extensive physical account of Australia's convict men and women. Simon Barnard has meticulously combed through those records to reveal a rich pictorial history. Convict Tattoos explores various aspects of tattooing—from the symbolism of tattoo motifs to inking methods, from their use as means of identification and control to expressions of individualism and defiance—providing a fascinating glimpse of the lives of the people behind the records. Simon Barnard was born and grew up in Launceston. He spent a lot of time in the bush as a boy, which led to an interest in Tasmanian history. He is a writer, illustrator and collector of colonial artifacts. He now lives in Melbourne. He won the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books in the 2015 Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year awards for his first book, A-Z of Convicts in Van Diemen’s Land. Convict Tattoos is his second book. ‘The early years of penal settlement have been recounted many times, yet Convict Tattoos genuinely breaks new ground by examining a common if neglected feature of convict culture found among both male and female prisoners.’ Australian ‘This niche subject has proved fertile ground for Barnard—who is ink-free—by providing a glimpse into the lives of the people behind the historical records, revealing something of their thoughts, feelings and experiences.’ Mercury 'The best thing to happen in Australian tattoo history since Cook landed. A must-have for any tattoo historian.’ Brett Stewart, Australian Tattoo Museum

When George is sentenced to seven years of hard labor in Van Diemen's Land, his only thoughts are of his sister Hannah. What can he give her to remember him when he is so far away?

This is the first book to apply new academic understandings of the convict transportation system to explore the lives of individual convicts. In searching for the convict voice, each chapter is a detective story in miniature, either an exercise in discovering the identity behind a particular account or a piecing together of a convict life from the scattered fragments of a tale. Many issues of great contemporary interest arise from these stories, including the multicultural nature of Australian colonial society and, above all, the importance of love and hope.

There are a considerable number of books on the art of the convicts, so Convicts & Art has been covered reasonably well but art is only once facet of the arts that has been examined to any extent. This book concerns itself with Convicts & the Arts. This book, then, endeavors to look at the convicts’ contribution to the arts, and demonstrates without doubt that the convicts made a significantly broader contribution to the culture of Australia than previously thought. There is a common misconception that all convicts were immediately institutionalised in a cell, and convict culture was solely a prison culture. It needs reinforcing that when the First Fleet arrived there were no prisons in Australia, no cells where they could put the convicts. The early governors and principal authorities quite logically endeavoured to use whatever skills the convicts had. So artists, generally forgers, were placed with those who were interested in recording a visual history of this new land. Among the convicts were bricklayers, house painters, jewelers, silversmiths, goldsmiths and so on, and some of them made significant contributions to the emerging society. Some of these contributions will be developed herein. This work endeavors to examine the convicts’ contribution to the arts in Australia, in areas like the writing of novels, poetry, autobiographies, sculpture, theatre, music, architecture, jewelry, the press, decorative arts and pottery.

When it is recollected how much has been written to describe the Settlement of New South Wales, it seems necessary if not to offer an apology, yet to assign a reason, for an additional publication. The embarked in the fleet which sailed to found the establishment at Botany Bay. He shortly after published a Narrative of the Proceedings and State of the Colony, brought up to the beginning of July, 1788, which was well received, and passed through three editions. This could not but inspire both confidence and gratitude; but gratitude, would be badly manifested were he on the presumption of former favour to lay claim to present indulgence. He resumes the subject in the humble hope of communicating information, and increasing knowledge, of the country, which he describes. He resided at Port Jackson nearly four years: from the 20th of January, 1788, until the 18th of December, 1791. To an active and contemplative mind, a new country is an inexhaustible source of curiosity and speculation. It was the author's custom not only to note daily occurrences, and to inspect and record the progression of improvement; but also, when not prevented by military duties, to penetrate the surrounding country in different directions, in order to examine its nature, and ascertain its relative geographical situations. The greatest part of the work is inevitably composed of those materials which a journal supplies; but wherever reflections could be introduced without fastidiousness and parade, he has not scrupled to indulge them, in common with every other deviation which the strictness of narrative would allow. When this publication was nearly ready for the press; and when many of the opinions which it records had been declared, fresh accounts from Port Jackson were received. To the state of a country, where so many anxious trying hours of his life have passed, the author cannot feel indifferent. If by any sudden revolution of the laws of nature; or by any fortunate discovery of those on the spot, it has really become that fertile and prosperous land, which some represent it to be, he begs permission to add his voice to the general congratulation. He rejoices at its success: but it is only justice to himself and those with whom he acted to declare, that they feel no cause of reproach that so complete and happy an alteration did not take place at an earlier period.

A collection of eleven chapters which explore the question of forgery from different disciplinary angles and in varied national contexts, using the concept of performance to gain greater insight.