Destroying Sodom in the South Pacific: How the terror of sodomy was invoked to end convict transportation to New South Wales c.1837.

Abstract

While the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 is a mainstream theme in Australian history, less is known about the end of convict transportation. Even less is known about the slander of endemic sodomy that was contained in the 1837 Select Committee on Transportation that recommended an end to sending convicts to the colonies. This thesis argues that leading anti-transportationist, Sir William Molesworth, focussed on the social disorder caused by sodomy to lobby against the policy of convict transportation to New South Wales. It establishes the idea of sodomy as a tool for slander, illustrates how it was applied to the colony and demonstrates how this shattered the fragile boundaries of colonial respectability.