The largest numbers of men in England during the formative years of Australia were labourers with limited skills and education. The largest number of women were either unpaid wives and daughters or domestic servants, who were even less likely to be literate than the men. Those coming to Australia before 1850 fully reflected this pattern. Labourers and agricultural workers made up about 40 per cent of the male convicts. The English were more likely to be industrial workers than the Irish, especially those sent to Western Australia between 1850 and 1868. Women were harder to classify, but of those who had employment a large proportion were servants. Labourers and servants were even more strongly represented among assisted emigrants after 1831. Public policy deliberately encouraged the immigration of a manual working class for at least a century after settlement. This distinguished the Australian colonies from the West Indies – which depended on slaves – or from Africa or India, which relied on the local population.

Social conditions in the large cities and the new industrial towns created massive social problems, which were tackled by deterrence and severe sanctions but with limited efficiency. Unlike Europe, England did not have organised police forces until the 1830s, following the creation of the London Metropolitan Police in 1829.