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There were 1040 she which carried convicts, agricultural land rights activists, capital offenders, criminals, exiles, Luddite machine breakers, military deserters and mutineers, political detainees, pirates, patriots rebels, prisoners of war, slaves, summary offenders, swing rebels and trade union pioneers from 80 places throughout the world to Australia. Many of those ships did not come from Great Britain and Ireland.

The total number which arrived was at least 162,000 persons. Over 3,000 transports died before their ships arrived.The total number embarked was about 165,000 people.

The initial compilation of ships came from the New South Wales Archives Authority's Guide to Convict Records (Published Sydney 1981). This was compared with the Indexes to the Tasmania Papers held by the Mitchell Library State Library New South Wales. The ships listed were then compared further with references in Charles Bateson's The Convict Ships. The latter work identified a number of ships not mentioned in the State Archive's Guide and the Mitchell Library Library Index. There were though some ships omitted from Bateson's work which were mentioned in the Guide and the indexes.