The primary purpose of these volumes was to record the behaviour of the convict while he underwent his sentence in the colony. Volumes contain information that relates to the convict's history before arrival (including offence, date and place of trial, sentence British gaol report, hulk report, whether married, statement of relatives, religion and convict's own statement of his crime) and the details of his career in the colony. The information of conduct after arrival chiefly consists of offences which are recorded on a standard pattern (date of trial, place of convict's employment or name of his master, charge, sentence and magistrate, Instances of good behaviour are sometimes recorded, as are the grant of emancipations, If death occurred while the convict was on strength it was noted. If there is insufficient space on the conduct records the continuation volumes are on CON32.

Not all convicts who arrived here are included here.

Digital images of this record series are available to view online by clicking on the item links below to get to the Item Details pages. Copies may be made for private research/study but any other use requires permission from the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.

There are 115 volumes in this series.

The entries are arranged by number, wich during this period was assigned as follows: all convicts whose surname began with the same letter were numbered from 1, chronologically by date of arrival up to the end of the assignment period; thus there is a series of numbers for each letter of the alphabet. Then names are in alphabetical order only by the initial and those arriving by a given ship are normally found together.

Guide to the Public Records of Tasmania: Convict Department.