Talk:Convict era of Western Australia/GA1

GA Reassessment

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GA Sweeps: Delisted

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I believe the article currently has multiple issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, due to the amount of uncited statements (many tagged since February 2007), I have delisted this article. However, the article can be return to GA status by addressing the following points below. Once sources are added and cleanup is done, I recommend renominating the article at WP:GAN. If you need assistance with any of these issues, please contact me on my talk page and I'll do my best to help you out. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

• Needs citations:

All of these have been tagged since February 2007:

1. "That Swan River Colony would not be a penal colony was highly attractive to many of the potential settlers, and the condition was mentioned often by promoters during the period of Swan River mania."
2. "Three years later a similar motion was considered but defeated by the Western Australian Agricultural Society."
3. "With nowhere to send its convicts, the numbers in British jails had increased until the situation had become urgent."
4. "This was readily agreed to by the original petitioners, and also attracted some wider public support."
5. "Settlers deprecate receiving only exiles or ticket-of-leave men because labour without capital can do them no good and their conclusion therefore is to request that the colony may be created into a regular Penal Settlement in the hope of a large consequent expenditure."
6. "Eventually the British Government agreed to the colonists' demands for funding, but since the expenditure was not warranted for only 100 convicts, it was decided to greatly increase the number of convicts sent."
7. "The first of these was honoured throughout the convict era; and the second until 1868, when the last convict ship to Western Australia, the Hougoumont, was sent out with 62 Fenian prisoners on board."
8. "Notable exceptions include Moondyne Joe, who remained at large in the colony for two years, and John Boyle O'Reilly, a Fenian prisoner who escaped to the United States."
9. "After serving a period of time as a ticket of leave man, the convict might obtain a conditional pardon, which meant complete freedom except that they could not return to England."
10. "In accordance with this, the last convict ship to Western Australia, the Hougoumont, departed Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868."
11. "I do trust, my Lord, that you will bear in mind that this unfortunate colony has lost much in one sense by the introduction of convicts, lost again in another by the cessation of transportation, has not received the equivalent she had reason to expect when she sold her honour and is now struggling for existence under the pressure of the hand of Providence weighing on her in continued bad seasons, floods and tempests, whilst she has out of her poverty to support criminals, lunatics and paupers — the dregs of the cup she has drained."
12. "Much of the penal system's infrastructure was handed over to the colony, including the Convict Establishment, which became Fremantle Prison."
13. "In 1874, Western Australia's Legislative Council lobbied the British government for responsible government but were refused, the grounds for refusal including that the proportion of ex-convicts in the colony was too high."
14. "There has been a surge in interest in convict history and genealogy throughout Australia."
15. "At the request of the colony, convicts were initially selected for transportation in accordance with three conditions"

• Other issues:

1. The lead would benefit with further expansion, attempt to summarize all of the various headings in the article. For further instructions, see WP:LEAD.
2. "Nonetheless, the idea was under discussion later that year, with the Fremantle Observer editorialising on the need for convict labour,,[5] and..." Remove the extra comma.
3. "Towards the end of that year, a meeting of settlers at King George Sound passed a motion, signed by sixteen persons, that convict labour was needed for land clearing and road works, but this was met with little support in other parts of the colony..[2]" Extra period.
4. "The York Agricultural Society, which consisted mostly of pastoralists, argued that the colony's economy was on the brink of collapse due to an extreme shortage of labour." Has a broken footnote for the source.
5. Some of the references have formatting issues.
6. Catalpa: Escape of the Fenians from Western Australia in the external links section is a dead link.