a drift of 'DERWENT DUCKS'
Lives of the 200 female Irish convicts transported on the Australasia from
Dublin to Hobart in 1849

 Trudy Mae Cowley

“Like the most assiduous of detectives, Trudy Cowley has tracked the women of the Australasia through a multiplicity of sources.  She brings their lives together in a panorama of suffering and success, of families often split asunder and sometimes re-configured under the difficult conditions of colonial Van Diemen’s Land”   Prof Lucy Frost, UTAS

 Approximately 12,500 women and girls arrived in Van Diemen’s Land as convicts in the first half of the 19^th century.  A Drift of ‘Derwent Ducks’ tells the stories of 200 of these women—those transported on the Australasia in 1849.  These women committed crimes in Ireland at the height of the Great Famine and were transported to the other side of the world to serve sentences of seven years to life; never returning to their homeland.

 What were their crimes?  How did they endure the voyage from Dublin to Hobart Town?  How were they treated by their masters and mistresses?  What were their lives in the female factories, hiring depots, hospitals and nurseries?  What support networks did they establish?  How did they survive?

 A Drift of ‘Derwent Ducks’ answers these questions, revealing stories of the women’s hardships, their heartaches, families friendships, crimes and deaths so far from home.

 A Drift of ‘Derwent Ducks’ comes with a bonus CD containing a biography of each of the 200 Australasia convicts listing sentence and life events—an invaluable resource for historians and genealogists.