Dear List First, thanks to Denis for putting up the assizes list of great interest to Australian researchers. I have been following this subject with interest, as you probably know Australia started life as a penal colony & many of us are descended from the transported convicts. A life sentence was in a sense a commuted from death sentence & when convicts came to Oz they were usually assigned to work for a master, so formed a very cheap labour force. Sometimes their skills were matched to needs sometimes not. A life sentence meant that you could never return to Ireland(or England Scotland etc), but you could gain freedom by conditional pardon, if you stayed out of trouble, after quite a number of years. You could even leave the colony but could never go home. In spite of the sadness involved in this many prospered, were reunited with their families ( government schemes) and lived long & happy lives. Robyn Hardie Sydney