Status
Available
Publication
Hodder (2001), 248 pages
Description
In July 1789, 237 women convicts left England for Botany Bay in Australia on board a ship called The Lady Julian, destined to provide sexual services and a breeding bank for the men already there. This is the enthralling story of the women and their voyage. Based on painstaking research into contemporary sources such as letters, trial records and the first-hand account of the voyage written by the ship's steward, John Nicol, this is a riveting work of recovered history. The Floating Brothel brilliantly conjures up the sights, sounds and particularly the smells of life on board ship at the time and is populated by a cast of larger-than-life characters you will never forget.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member SmithSJ01
I read about this book not realising it was non-fiction. I genuinely thought it was complete fiction and following reading it I went on to find out some information about the ship, Lady Julian. The beginning of the novel was a little tiresome and some points could be skipped through. It depends
I appreciate Rees is setting the scene and introducing us to the ladies on board and the men who had the power over them. I wasn't always interested in reading about their affairs, life and crime and therefore skipped accordingly. What did catch my eye was the inconsistency in punishment leading to transportation to parts beyond the seas. The debate within the book as to why men were hanged and women burnt at the stake was interesting and one of the women who was due to die at the stake was pardoned following the celebrated recovery of King George.
Her writing style is excellent. It feels like a reading of fiction; she intermingles quotations exceptionally well with her own narrative. The eight pages of photographs/sketches help to paint a picture especially pof John Nichol, whose memoirs I may well search out.
One improvement for me would just be to really know what life was like in the colonies. Rees paints such a detailed picture of the convicts before their arrest and during their year at sea that I would have liked a little more. However I guess the book is about the Lady Julian as well as its passengers. The voyage is unbelievable, I hope you find it as enthralling as I did once I became engaged.
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exactly on what part of the ship's life you are interested in. I appreciate Rees is setting the scene and introducing us to the ladies on board and the men who had the power over them. I wasn't always interested in reading about their affairs, life and crime and therefore skipped accordingly. What did catch my eye was the inconsistency in punishment leading to transportation to parts beyond the seas. The debate within the book as to why men were hanged and women burnt at the stake was interesting and one of the women who was due to die at the stake was pardoned following the celebrated recovery of King George.
Her writing style is excellent. It feels like a reading of fiction; she intermingles quotations exceptionally well with her own narrative. The eight pages of photographs/sketches help to paint a picture especially pof John Nichol, whose memoirs I may well search out.
One improvement for me would just be to really know what life was like in the colonies. Rees paints such a detailed picture of the convicts before their arrest and during their year at sea that I would have liked a little more. However I guess the book is about the Lady Julian as well as its passengers. The voyage is unbelievable, I hope you find it as enthralling as I did once I became engaged.
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LibraryThing member John
A fascinating story of an 18th century ship of women transported from Britain to Australia for various crimes, and with the intention that they would provide partners, and breeding stock, for the settlers struggling to eke out an existence in Australia. The book details the horrors of the trip and
(June/03)
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the incredibly foul conditions in which the women had to live. Of course, over the months that the trip took, a number of shipboard romances developed, or, more often, women attached themselves to seamen and officers for protection and for the slightly increased standard of life that the relationships afforded. Australia was a pretty rough and ready place in the 1700s and arrival there was certainly not the end of hardships. People had to have their wits about them to survive and for the women that pretty well meant hooking up as soon as possible with a man who could protect and provide for them. Some were better at this than others, and went on to lead interesting and more fulfilling lives; some simply perished on the wayside. An interesting and well-written book.(June/03)
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LibraryThing member Niecierpek
I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s female perspective on life of the women on the ship (including laundry, contraception, menstruation and giving birth) interwoven into a wider background of England’s judicial system, French Revolution, life at sea, colonization, American War of Independence,
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slave trade and treatment of women in general. The book is truly fascinating once you get through many confusing “Sarahs” and their stories at the beginning. The housemaids, thieves, prostitutes there all seem to have very similar names. Show Less
LibraryThing member bhowell
This is a great read but its title is a little deceptive. This is a true story of a group of English women being transported to Australia and almost certain death for mostly petty crimes. They decide to live. They overcome the crew and take command of the ship. They then live the lives of pirates
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until they have enough money to retire as genteel wealthy widows in a city in the northeastern states. These women entice travelers aboard the ship with promises of sexual favours but mostly these men receive a roughing up and loss of all of their money and property and are then tossed out, back to their ship or the mainland if they are lucky. The women are more properly described as pirates as their goal is theft and promised sexual services are frequently not forthcoming. Like sensible women, they save their money and give up piracy when they have enough to retire in comfort. They then live the rest of their lives as respectable well off women, wisely choosing to settle in America, where immigrants abound and there is little risk of detection. Show Less
LibraryThing member jshillingford
The premise of this book sounded very good. The saga of female convicts being transported aboard ship. Many formed relationships with crewmen, some were, of course, mistreated/raped. Unfortunately, the prose is not engaging. It is well-written, but more like an essay is well written. I found it
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hard to stay interested. Recommended for big historical fiction fans, but casual readers may want to try something else. Show Less
LibraryThing member edwinbcn
Siân Rees has done an amazing job combining various historical records and sources into a dramatically convincing story. The first part of the book consists of accounts based on legal records about various women and their crimes, ranging from theft to prostitution, and their subsequent deportation
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to the penal colony, then Australia. The hardship of the voyage, the landing and finally settlement with new husbands is decribed in equally engaging chapters, which vividly bring the everyday life experience of the Eighteenth Century to life. However, the literary quality of the book falls somewhat behind the scholarly work, and at times descriptions are a bit too long. The research may not be very spectacular, but the conception of the book into a coherent narrative is quite successful. Show Less
LibraryThing member countrymouse
Not a great book but an interesting piece of history that you don't often read about. The characters weren't really memorable but it was still a good glimpse of what life must have been like for these women.
LibraryThing member nandadevi
A little plodding in parts, but lively enough. Rees makes some observations about the relativity of justice and morality across time, but the bulk of her story is simply carried forward by the facts and the intimate narrative of John Nicol, retrieved decades later by a friendly ghost writer. Anyone
All that said, the book is nowhere near as lively as bhowell's review of it here in LibraryThing. In fact bhowell's description of the book, and the book itself seem to part company in a radical kind of way after about 100 pages. For all of that, if Hollywood ever made a movie of Rees' book bhowells could certainly have written the script. Having checked out some of bhowell's other reviews this seems to be something of an entertaining aberration on her part.
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with an interest in crime and punishment in late Georgian England, or in the colonisation of Australia would do well to stop with this book a while, but I'd recommend reading it alongside Tim Flannery's reissue of John Nicols 'The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner'.All that said, the book is nowhere near as lively as bhowell's review of it here in LibraryThing. In fact bhowell's description of the book, and the book itself seem to part company in a radical kind of way after about 100 pages. For all of that, if Hollywood ever made a movie of Rees' book bhowells could certainly have written the script. Having checked out some of bhowell's other reviews this seems to be something of an entertaining aberration on her part.
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LibraryThing member Helen.Hunter
Great and informative book, educational and shocking, overall I would recommend you read this in your life time before it is forgotten
LibraryThing member NikNak1
This book is amazing, it is brilliantly written and enjoyable to read, at the same it is informative and educational with regards to the Colony that was the beginning of Australia
LibraryThing member HenriMoreaux
The Floating Brothel is a great non fiction history book mainly focused on the lives of female convicts who came to be aboard the Lady Julian for transportation to the new British settlement of New South Wales.
It starts with their background and crimes, the initial trials & journey to the shores.
The book rounds out with the tale of John Nicol who pines for his convict wife whom he was forced to leave in New South Wales at gunpoint and can't find passage back, you can't help but feel sorrow for the turn his life takes.
Very much worth a read for a glimpse into this interesting chapter of Australian & British history.
It starts with their background and crimes, the initial trials & journey to the shores.
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What was involved in the preparation of departure, the journey, romances, port calls and adaptation once landed. There's also the shocking landing of Neptune, Surprise & Scarborough where bodies are tossed overboard as the slavers care not for their human cargo, kept locked below deck, over 250 were dead, over 500 too weak and sickly to care for themselves and get to shore. The book rounds out with the tale of John Nicol who pines for his convict wife whom he was forced to leave in New South Wales at gunpoint and can't find passage back, you can't help but feel sorrow for the turn his life takes.
Very much worth a read for a glimpse into this interesting chapter of Australian & British history.
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LibraryThing member setnahkt
Australia: the final frontier. This is the voyage of the female convict ship Lady Julian. Its two-year mission – to take a boatload of teenage prostitutes, shoplifters, and assorted other miscreants to Sydney Cove. And certainly most of them couldn’t claim no man had gone before.
That’s the
There was already a convict colony at Sydney Cove, but it was almost all male. The governor, Arthur Phillip, was fairly straight-laced about sodomy; he decreed that any convict literally caught with his pants down with another man would be handed over to the natives to be eaten. Thus, he petitioned for a supply of women. Initial proposals were to “recruit” women from New Caledonia or the perhaps appropriately named Friendly Islands (now Tonga) but these were rejected in favor of using female convicts from England.
There was an abundant supply of the same. Author Siân Rees blames America; the end of the Revolutionary War not only eliminated a convict destination (apparently Canada was considered unsuitable) but also released large numbers of soldiers and sailors who needed employment. Laws were passed requiring jobs for veterans – or at least men – in many occupations previously the domain of women – millinery store clerks, for example. The formerly employed women were turned loose to become loose women. It wasn’t illegal to be a prostitute in England (it still isn’t, in fact) but the girls tended to supplement their income by extracting various valuables from their clients or other thievery, English laws specified the death penalty for a variety of offenses, including “private theft of £1” (“private theft” meant picking pockets; you had to shoplift or burgle somewhat more to get capital punishment for that); thus making off with a client’s watch or purse while he was distracted could end with a ride on the three-legged horse at Tyburn. “Coining” was a hanging offence for men but a burning one for women, and Catherine Murphy became the last woman burned at the stake in England in 1788 after being caught making counterfeit shillings (Mrs. Murphy was tied to the stake by the neck, the prop beneath her feet was removed, and she was left hanging there for half an hour before the faggots were ignited, so she probably strangled slowly instead of being burned alive). Perhaps in response to this, and in celebration of the apparent recovery of George III from one of his bouts of madness, a general amnesty commuted the capital sentences of many to “Transportation Across The Seas”. Interestingly, a number of women unsuccessfully petitioned to have their death sentences reinstated rather than being shipped to Australia; I understand Down Under is a more popular tourist destination now.
The original intent was to have a whole convoy of vessels set out together but organization was lacking; eventually the Guardian set out loaded with supplies and cattle, followed shortly thereafter by the Lady Julian, loaded with girls. I use “girls” deliberately; very few of the convicts Rees can trace were out of their teens – and some weren’t even into them. Unfortunately Rees’ account of the voyage is highly speculative. The log of the Lady Julian has been lost, and only one of the passengers and crew left any sort of record – the ship’s steward and cooper John Nichol – and Nichol’s narrative was not a diary but his recollections from thirty-three years after the event, when he was an elderly man living off charity. Thus Rees has to presume that the convicts with farming experience – some were on board for sheep rustling – helped with the cattle, and the convicts who could sew repaired sailors clothing, and others did laundry. Reasonable but undocumented. What Nichol did document was a passionate shipboard romance (she bore him a son halfway through the voyage) with 17-year-old thief (she claimed she was innocent) Sarah Whitelam. Years later, Nichol was still carrying a torch for Whitelam; before the Lady Julian left Sydney to continue to Canton he signed an oath promising to return and marry her; he visited her family in England, and for the rest of his maritime career he attempted to somehow find passage to Australia and reunite with Sarah. Sarah seems to have felt differently; the day after Lady Julian and Nichol weighed anchor for Canton she married a convict; when her husband’s sentence expired (a convict’s wife automatically acquired the same sentence termination date he had – thus short timers were in high demand as spouses) the couple and their children made their way to Bombay and Rees lost track of them.
There were several other births during the voyage or shortly thereafter, although perhaps fewer than you might expect on a shipload of teenage girls and sailors. Rees comments on the contraceptive methods of the age, which involved a sponge soaked in rum or vinegar and tied to a string or a cervical cap molded from beeswax (sheep-gut condoms existed but were out of the price range for a sailor). The arrival in Sydney was less tumultuous than expected; the Sydney convicts may have been starved for female companionship but they were even more starved for food. English crops grew poorly in the New South Wales climate, and rations had already been reduced to four pounds of flour per man per week. Thus it was disappointing when the Lady Julian arrived laden with ladies instead of bread, cattle and salt meat. The Guardian (which was supposed to precede the Lady Julian with a load of foodstuffs and livestock) had had an unfortunate encounter with an iceberg and lost her rudder and nearly foundered before limping into Capetown with a jury rig (fans of Patrick O’Brian may recognize the adventures of the Guardian as the inspiration for the Aubrey-Maturin novel Desolation Island). Rees notes that later female convict ships arriving after the food situation had stabilized met with more enthusiastic receptions; convicts and guards swarmed aboard even before the anchors had been dropped to literally tackle their choice of ladies before someone else got to them.
A quick read. I found Rees’ writing a little pedestrian given the subject matter, but perhaps she was resisting the temptation to go sensational (I note from the Internet that someone has picked up a movie option on The Floating Brothel). Illustrated with period engravings and pictures; end matter includes a cast of characters and a bibliography.
That’s the
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basics behind The Floating Brothel, from the Ladies of Negotiable Virtue reading program. With the end of the American Revolutionary War, it was no longer possible to ship convicts to America, so they were sent to various other places instead. A convict colony was established in Gambia, but the climate proved so lethal that it was abandoned; a proposal to send white convicts to the free black colony in Sierra Leone was also abandoned, since people who were perfectly willing to hang a twelve-year-old pickpocket couldn’t stomach making her a slave to a black master instead. Russia was suggested but Catherine the Great proved uncooperative. Thus, Australia.There was already a convict colony at Sydney Cove, but it was almost all male. The governor, Arthur Phillip, was fairly straight-laced about sodomy; he decreed that any convict literally caught with his pants down with another man would be handed over to the natives to be eaten. Thus, he petitioned for a supply of women. Initial proposals were to “recruit” women from New Caledonia or the perhaps appropriately named Friendly Islands (now Tonga) but these were rejected in favor of using female convicts from England.
There was an abundant supply of the same. Author Siân Rees blames America; the end of the Revolutionary War not only eliminated a convict destination (apparently Canada was considered unsuitable) but also released large numbers of soldiers and sailors who needed employment. Laws were passed requiring jobs for veterans – or at least men – in many occupations previously the domain of women – millinery store clerks, for example. The formerly employed women were turned loose to become loose women. It wasn’t illegal to be a prostitute in England (it still isn’t, in fact) but the girls tended to supplement their income by extracting various valuables from their clients or other thievery, English laws specified the death penalty for a variety of offenses, including “private theft of £1” (“private theft” meant picking pockets; you had to shoplift or burgle somewhat more to get capital punishment for that); thus making off with a client’s watch or purse while he was distracted could end with a ride on the three-legged horse at Tyburn. “Coining” was a hanging offence for men but a burning one for women, and Catherine Murphy became the last woman burned at the stake in England in 1788 after being caught making counterfeit shillings (Mrs. Murphy was tied to the stake by the neck, the prop beneath her feet was removed, and she was left hanging there for half an hour before the faggots were ignited, so she probably strangled slowly instead of being burned alive). Perhaps in response to this, and in celebration of the apparent recovery of George III from one of his bouts of madness, a general amnesty commuted the capital sentences of many to “Transportation Across The Seas”. Interestingly, a number of women unsuccessfully petitioned to have their death sentences reinstated rather than being shipped to Australia; I understand Down Under is a more popular tourist destination now.
The original intent was to have a whole convoy of vessels set out together but organization was lacking; eventually the Guardian set out loaded with supplies and cattle, followed shortly thereafter by the Lady Julian, loaded with girls. I use “girls” deliberately; very few of the convicts Rees can trace were out of their teens – and some weren’t even into them. Unfortunately Rees’ account of the voyage is highly speculative. The log of the Lady Julian has been lost, and only one of the passengers and crew left any sort of record – the ship’s steward and cooper John Nichol – and Nichol’s narrative was not a diary but his recollections from thirty-three years after the event, when he was an elderly man living off charity. Thus Rees has to presume that the convicts with farming experience – some were on board for sheep rustling – helped with the cattle, and the convicts who could sew repaired sailors clothing, and others did laundry. Reasonable but undocumented. What Nichol did document was a passionate shipboard romance (she bore him a son halfway through the voyage) with 17-year-old thief (she claimed she was innocent) Sarah Whitelam. Years later, Nichol was still carrying a torch for Whitelam; before the Lady Julian left Sydney to continue to Canton he signed an oath promising to return and marry her; he visited her family in England, and for the rest of his maritime career he attempted to somehow find passage to Australia and reunite with Sarah. Sarah seems to have felt differently; the day after Lady Julian and Nichol weighed anchor for Canton she married a convict; when her husband’s sentence expired (a convict’s wife automatically acquired the same sentence termination date he had – thus short timers were in high demand as spouses) the couple and their children made their way to Bombay and Rees lost track of them.
There were several other births during the voyage or shortly thereafter, although perhaps fewer than you might expect on a shipload of teenage girls and sailors. Rees comments on the contraceptive methods of the age, which involved a sponge soaked in rum or vinegar and tied to a string or a cervical cap molded from beeswax (sheep-gut condoms existed but were out of the price range for a sailor). The arrival in Sydney was less tumultuous than expected; the Sydney convicts may have been starved for female companionship but they were even more starved for food. English crops grew poorly in the New South Wales climate, and rations had already been reduced to four pounds of flour per man per week. Thus it was disappointing when the Lady Julian arrived laden with ladies instead of bread, cattle and salt meat. The Guardian (which was supposed to precede the Lady Julian with a load of foodstuffs and livestock) had had an unfortunate encounter with an iceberg and lost her rudder and nearly foundered before limping into Capetown with a jury rig (fans of Patrick O’Brian may recognize the adventures of the Guardian as the inspiration for the Aubrey-Maturin novel Desolation Island). Rees notes that later female convict ships arriving after the food situation had stabilized met with more enthusiastic receptions; convicts and guards swarmed aboard even before the anchors had been dropped to literally tackle their choice of ladies before someone else got to them.
A quick read. I found Rees’ writing a little pedestrian given the subject matter, but perhaps she was resisting the temptation to go sensational (I note from the Internet that someone has picked up a movie option on The Floating Brothel). Illustrated with period engravings and pictures; end matter includes a cast of characters and a bibliography.
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LibraryThing member NKillham
Rees's detailing of the events that brought female convicts that would help settle Australia is very well researched. Not only does Rees give a thorough examination of the travel of the Lady Julian convict transport ship on its voyage, there is also examination of the convicts themselves, the
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circumstances that led to their exile from England, the preparations of the voyage, the political and legal policies that created the penal colonies, and of course the state of the colonies themselves. While this large amount of information may seem overbearing, Rees's writing style organizes it into a fluid and overall entertaining story. While perhaps a better suited for a slower read, it should be recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member labfs39
One consequence of the American Revolution was that Britain could no longer transport its convicts to American plantations. As 130,000 returning soldiers and British loyalists pushed women out of the legal trades, women were forced to resort to petty thievery and prostitution to survive. British
In 1787 the first shipment of male convicts and their military minders arrived in Sidney Cove. After two years, they were in dire straits. Governor Phillip wrote desperately for more food, more skilled labor, and more women. The more eligible women would serve as wives to the officers and colonists, and the rest as comfort women to the soldiers. Britain's answer was to pack 220 female convicts aboard the Lady Julian and send them off to join the First Fleet. Some were as young as 12 and all but a few were of childbearing age. This book is a narrative history of who these women were, their crimes, and their trip across the world to join the men at Sidney Cove.
Although the author did a tremendous amount of research, there simply are not a lot of surviving records and very little at all from the women themselves. The first part of the book was the best documented, because of court records, and I found that part the most interesting. Once the women were aboard the Lady Julian, the author was forced to rely heavily on one of the sailor's accounts, written decades after the voyage. John Nichol had fallen in love and cohabitated with one of the women on the ship. She even bore his son. But he was unable to remain with her in Australia. Life on the ships was harrowing, and this is where the author had to cobble together Nichol's memoir and experiences with other women on other ships, to make reasonable suppositions. Despite the lack of records, I think Rees does a commendable job of bringing to life the women who would become the "founding mothers" of the colonists in Australia.
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jail populations swelled, and as even stealing a pair of shoes or some laundry could earn you seven years Transportation to Parts Beyond the Seas, there was a scramble to find someplace else to ship all these "disorderly women". The solution was New South Wales.In 1787 the first shipment of male convicts and their military minders arrived in Sidney Cove. After two years, they were in dire straits. Governor Phillip wrote desperately for more food, more skilled labor, and more women. The more eligible women would serve as wives to the officers and colonists, and the rest as comfort women to the soldiers. Britain's answer was to pack 220 female convicts aboard the Lady Julian and send them off to join the First Fleet. Some were as young as 12 and all but a few were of childbearing age. This book is a narrative history of who these women were, their crimes, and their trip across the world to join the men at Sidney Cove.
Although the author did a tremendous amount of research, there simply are not a lot of surviving records and very little at all from the women themselves. The first part of the book was the best documented, because of court records, and I found that part the most interesting. Once the women were aboard the Lady Julian, the author was forced to rely heavily on one of the sailor's accounts, written decades after the voyage. John Nichol had fallen in love and cohabitated with one of the women on the ship. She even bore his son. But he was unable to remain with her in Australia. Life on the ships was harrowing, and this is where the author had to cobble together Nichol's memoir and experiences with other women on other ships, to make reasonable suppositions. Despite the lack of records, I think Rees does a commendable job of bringing to life the women who would become the "founding mothers" of the colonists in Australia.
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Subjects
Language
Original publication date
2001
Physical description
248 p.; 6.1 inches
ISBN
0733615120 / 9780733615122