New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia, Convict Pardons and Tickets of Leave, 1834-1859

This database contains convict pardons and tickets of leave from New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia from 1834-1859. Pardons were generally given to convicts with life sentences and shortened the sentence by granting freedom. There were two types of pardons – conditional and absolute. Conditional pardons required that freed convicts remain in the colony. Absolute pardons allowed freed convicts to return to the U.K. Tickets of leave allowed convicts to live and work for their own wages wherever they wanted to within a certain Police District. Tickets of leave were generally given to convicts with good behaviour. Convicts became eligible for a ticket after a certain amount of their sentence had been served. Generally, a convict became eligible after 4 years for a seven-year sentence, after 6 years for a fourteen-year sentence, and after 8 years for a life sentence. Once a year the convict had to report in at the ticket of leave muster or else the ticket was revoked.