'With Great Liberality' - Redeeming William Richards

William Richards Jr., the contractor for Australia's First Fleet, has been overlooked, misrepresented and maligned by historians. He started out as a shipbroker, but in the process of preparing the First Fleet, he transformed into a convict contractor, being awarded the responsibility for several subsequent voyages, and tendering, unsuccessfully, to manage the prison hulks.

He was highly respected at the time - for his humanity as much as his efficiency - praised by the Judge Advocate for the settlement, David Collins; Marine Captain Watkin Tench; and the renowned botanist and grand old man of the Pacific, Sir Joseph Banks.

On the evening of Tuesday 13 May 2025, I delivered the annual lecture of the Sydney-Portsmouth Sister City Committee in the Lord Mayor's reception room at Sydney's Town Hall - on William Richards. Many of the audience were descendants of First Fleeters, but few of them knew of Richards or the important role he played in the success of that founding voyage.

He is a fascinating character - his grandfather was the Huguenot preacher of New York; his great grandfather had been a scholar and advocate in the French courts, obliged to flee his homeland because of religious persecution; a great aunt was the Mistress of the King's Household at the Court of St James; a second cousin was Francis Beaufort, inventor of the scale long used to measure wind force.

Richards won the First Fleet tender because his proposal was best, not as some historians have claimed because he was well-connected. But his story is not a happy one. In spite of the huge contribution he made in organising the First Fleet, the Navy Board accepted a low price bid for the Second and Third Fleets, resulting in the contracts being awarded to Camden, Calvert & King, a firm of slave traders (among other things).

The average mortality on the nine convict transports for which Richards was responsible was 2.4%; the comparable figure for the 14 ships for which Camden, Calvert & King were responsible - 14.5%.

Government was slow in compensating Richards for the costs incurred with the First Fleet, and he was forced to borrow £500 from his father - the equivalent today of around £100,000. And when the costs of another contract six years later soared because of the outbreak of war, government refused to compensate. He was bankrupted in 1793 and left for America. Sadly, it has not been possible to trace his final years.

William Richards was not a financial success when it came to the business of convict transportation, but he was a good man. He deserves a good name.