Australia's First Fleet - 1788

Between 1788 and 1850 the English sent over 162,000 convicts to Australia in 806 ships. The first eleven of these ships are today known as the First Fleet and contained the convicts and marines that are now acknowledged as the Founders of Australia.

By today's standards they had a fairly limited range of first names.  The 750 convicts included only 190 women, and there were few females among the other 550 people.  Most of them were marines, the ships' crews, and civil and military officers.  The First Fleeter's were overwhelmingly English, but the ships also brought people of Irish, Welsh, Scottish and French origins.