(John Harland’s post from the QUORA on 17 February 2020.)
The so-called First Fleet of eleven English convict ships brought convicts, marines, and their families from Britain to Australia, arriving in January 1788. The primary purpose was to establish a penal colony to relieve overcrowded prisons in Britain. The fleet carried between 750 and 780 convicts, and their arrival in Sydney Cove marked the beginning of European colonization and the transportation of convicts to Australia, which lasted until 1868.
“Has the gene pool in Australia truly been affected
by the fact that a certain number of convicts were sent there as settlers?” It
had a strongly positive effect. The people who were sent represented a far
broader genetic range than the relatively inbred gentry of Britain. They were
also people whose ancestors had faced more-rigorous selection pressure than
those living in relative luxury.
Their designation as “convicts” resulted from circumstances. Many were refugees in their own country, having been thrown off the land of their ancestors through the Enclosure of Lands, where the local lord decided that broad-acre agriculture earned him more than having smallholders each farming part of the land.

