Donald, Terence

Inwood, Kris

Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish

2023-04-03

<p>This paper explores growth patterns for British and Irish adolescents transported to Australia in the 19th century. During incarceration in Australia, the young convicts did not catch up with contemporary standards of potential stature—contrary to what we are led to expect by the existing literature and the high calorie convict diet. Rather, the experience of transportation stunted the adolescent male convicts. Variation between height on arrival and in later life confirms that teen convicts remained shorter than their shipmates transported after reaching maturity. We consider, but reject, agedependent selection as a potential explanation. We speculate that the origin of this unfortunate experience lies in the low economic value of young and unskilled males. While fewer data are available for female convicts, their colonial experiences appear to have differed, again consistent with their relative economic value in the colony.</p>

The History of the Family, 28(2), p. 256-277

1873-5398

1081-602X

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/56276

en

Taylor & Francis

Adolescent growth and convict transportation to nineteenth-century Australia

Journal Article

Publication