AustLit

'As the last issue of Australian Historical Studies for 2017, this November volume begins by showcasing new work in legal history with two articles analysing the penal past in New South Wales. In his close focus on transportation within the colony during its foundation years, David Andrew Roberts argues that Judge Advocates such as David Collins, Richard Dore and Richard Atkins chose to go beyond the punishments strictly available to them, regardless of formal English legal restrictions. He demonstrates that while transportation was not intended to be within the sentencing jurisdiction of the New South Wales Court, it was nevertheless adopted and practised. Revealing the pragmatic and pluralist nature of the reception and rejection of English law in the colony, Roberts shows the ways that Judge Advocates took a pragmatic approach to the adoption of English law; performing exile in a land of exiles could be messy and incongruous.' (Introduction)