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RESEARCHED BY PETER KILLACKEY
Convict Stories:
The Assignment SystemIntroduced by Governor PHILLIP in 1789 to promote agriculture, convicts being assigned to private employers and fed, clothed and housed by government stores. Initially only 2 men were assigned to each employer but the system was later greatly abused and in 1804 Governor KING decreed all employers were to feed and clothe assigned labourers, who worked a 10-hour, 5-day week plus 6 hours on Saturday, and could utilise spare time to earn wages. Punishment were the same as in government service and masters subject to regulations in treatment of assigned servants. Women with husbands in the colony could work for them.
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| This system was intended to aid the reformation of the criminal character as well as relieve government expenditure. In 1821 Commissioner J.T. BIGGE recommended a more useful reformative employment for convicts as shepherds in isolated pastoral areas with correspondingly more freedom, thus overcoming the labour shortage and divorcing convicts from the demoralising influence of town life. Conditions of assigned men and women varied greatly, some were little better than slaves while others were almost free men, prospering and attaining important positions in the colony. The assignment system was abolished in 1841.
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