hundred and seventy-eight convicts embarked in the transports of the expedition that set our from England in May 1787 to establish a penal colony in New South Wales. Who were these unwilling Australian settlers, and what had they done to warrant banishment to the other side of the world? Were they being transported for political crimes, or had they merely stolen a loaf of bread to feed their starving children? How old were they? What did they do for a living? To find the answers to those questions, John Cobley went to the available source documents - the convict lists kepy by Governor Phillip and some of the officers and the contractor of the Girst Fleet, the Old Bailey Sessions Papers, the records of the Clerks of Assize, and the newspapers of the day. From these he compiled a comprehensive register of the First Fleet convicts and their crimes and sentences. Each entry contains the convict's name and any variant spelling or alias, his or her age and occupation where available, the name of the transport, the data and place of the trial, a description of the crime and sentence in the words of the original source documents, and page references to the documents from which the information was obtained and to any in which the convict's name appears. Decription of the source material and a list of aliases are given in the appendixes. The result of this remarkable piece of research is a valuable historical record which is also a fascinating account of the times. (Inside cover)