Convicts at Ipswich

Our connection with the convict settlement of the Moreton Bay area and Ipswich which was at the time known as 'Limestone' or 'Limestone Station' is documented in histories of Ipswich. However, very little is actually know of the convicts who were forced to work here during the period of convict penal settlement or of the Ticket of Leave prisoners and the Exiles (former military) who came to Ipswich after the closure of the convict station.

Below you will find three collections:

• Convicts at Ipswich - 1827 to 1842 Penal Colony Era
• Convicts at Ipswich - Post 1842
• Former Convicts (not assigned to Ipswich) - Post 1842

If you are a descendant of a convict who was stationed here in the Penal Colony Era or who arrived in Ipswich after 1842 please contact us to share your family history.

Chase & Catch a Convict

Would you like to 'Chase & Catch a Convict'? Our convicts have escaped - we don't know who they were. Can you help us track them down?

If you would like to research an early convict from 1827-1842 or a Ticket of Leave ex-convict please contact us.

In the Queensland Times on 28 January 1890 Gil Blas wrote:

Convictism in Ipswich

With the 1000 convicts who were sent up to Moreton Bay in 1830, the first settlement was established in Queensland. I have before me a proclamation issued later on by Governor Ralph Darling, giving to the heads of penal settlements and stations "full power and authority to punish, or cause to be punished, all offences committed by convicts while under their charge," and which has, among many other humane commandments, a provision that "a greater number of lashes than one hundred shall not be inflicted upon any offender in one day!" A few years afterwards Captain Logan, who had charge of the convict settlement, established a station in Ipswich. And from this our history begins.

Our birth-day

The peaceful waters of the Bremer had not been broken for ten or eleven years previously - since the time that Oxley and his mates took a row up the stream, and gazed at the wonderland which was opening before them. Now, however, a little craft, occupied by a number of uniformed men, fully armed, glides over the water, and their hoarse conversation disturbs the majestic silence of this almost unexplored region. They are men from the head-quarters, seeking suitable stations for the sheep belonging to the Government. "Limestone" having been selected, for what reason I will not wait to inquire, over 100 convicts were sent here, some to act as shepherds and backwoodsmen, and others to work on the "plough station," or agricultural establishment, formed on what is now the old Ipswich racecourse, near The Grange. Of convict life in Ipswich you will hear more later on.

200th Anniversaries of Convict Settlement in Moreton Bay

• 2024 will mark the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Redcliffe convict settlement which was located at Humpybong.
• May 2025 will mark the 200th anniversary of the landing of Lieutenant Henry Miller who was the First Commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement on the North Bank of the Brisbane River.
• 2027 will mark the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the convict settlement at Limestone (Ipswich).

In the lead up to this significant anniversary for the City of Ipswich we seek assistance from descendants of convicts who were at Ipswich during the convict settlement period or from descendants of convicts who settled here after 1842 having received their Ticket-of-Leave.