On this day, the crew of the convict ship Kolkata were paid an advance of wages before leaving England for Australia. The voyage of the ship named after the city is well-documented. It took on board 306 male convicts and 50-odd women, the wives of some of the convicts.
Among them were 200 soldiers who had mutinied at Gibraltar and been condemned to death, but received a reprieve.
The East Indiaman Warley had been purchased by the Royal Navy in 1795 and named Kolkata. It left Spithead in England on April 28 for Port Philip in Australia, where a settlement would be established. By the time it reached Teneriffe in Spain on May 13, five convicts had died. Kolkata stopped at Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope.
On October 12, it reached Port Philip. Three more convicts had died by this time. The ship sailed from Sydney carrying a cargo of lumber in March 1804 and reached Rio on May 22. It had circumnavigated the world in 11 months.
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