A 1915 San Francisco newspaper advertisement for the Success
Success: the convict ship that wasn’t
Falsely touted as a former convict transport, the Success was a giant marketing fraud. But as a fake it was a commercial success in Britain and the USA, earning good money for its owners. Fakery aside, the career of the Success was certainly remarkable. Recently I saw an article posted on-line that discussed the convict ships that brought the first unwilling European residents to what became Australia. A photograph that accompanied the article confused me, since it showed a row of prison-cell-style doors below decks on the ship which somehow didn't match my understanding of how…
