Convict passenger data released for data.gov.au

Three new historical Government data sets have been released in the Government's beta site of data.australia.gov.au.

Of particular interest is the British Convict transportation registers dataset. This reveals details for convicts transported to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The dataset provides their names, known aliases, place of trial, term of years, name of ship, date of departure, and place of arrival.

Covering over 123,000 out of the estimated 160,000 convicts transported to Australia, the dataset includes prisoners sent to New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Moreton Bay (Brisbane), Port Phillip. Western Australia and Norfolk Island.

The dataset also record ships which were bound for Gibraltar. The records cover the period of 1787 to 1867.

Also released for public use are two datasets from Western Australia - its Map collection and the State Library of Western Australia's digital photographic collection of 50,000 digital photographs. 

Copyright has expired (pre-1950) with bibliographic data and links to persistent URL of the digital image. 

All three collections have been issued under a Creative Commons licence.