Part I. Ruined Lives: 1. 'Men of honest principle': the convicts of the Eleanor; 2. 'We don't want to do any mischief': the voice of protest; 3. 'The worst used labouring people on the face of the earth': paupers and proletarians; 4. 'Money or blood': protest and customary behaviour; 5. 'The machine-burning was like a civil war in the country': reaction and repression -- Part II. Reconstructed Lives: 6. 'Farewell! I shall never see you more': from English village to Australian Bush; 7. A 'just and equal distribution of the prisoners of the Crown': the process and pattern of assignment; 8. 'I had to cook my own victuals': coping with assignment; 9. 'It seems so hard never to see you but you have never been forgotten': colonial marriage; 10. 'All now considered themselves free': living, working and dying in colonial New South Wales -- Appendices
Summary
Focuses on the men of the convict transport Eleanor, which arrived in NSW in 1831. They were all from the counties of Berkshire, Dorset Hampshire and Wiltshire and were transported for their part in the Swing riots
