This revisionist history of convict transportation from Britain and Ireland will challenge much that you thought you knew about religion and penal colonies. Based on original archival sources, it examines arguments by elites in favour and against the practice of transportation and considers why they thought it could be reformed, and, later, why it should be abolished. In this, the first religious history of the anti-transportation campaign, Hilary M. Carey addresses all the colonies and denominations engaged in the debate. Without minimising the individual horror of transportation, she demonstrates the wide variety of reformist experiments conducted in the Australian penal colonies, as well as the hulks, Bermuda and Gibraltar. She showcases the idealists who fought for more humane conditions for prisoners, as well as the 'political parsons', who lobbied to bring transportation to an end. The complex arguments about convict transportation, which were engaged in by bishops, judges, priests, politicians and intellectuals, crossed continents and divided an empire.

Winner of the 2020 Kay Daniels prize, from the Australian Historical Association.

‘This brilliantly original and insightful book offers an entirely new interpretation of penal transportation in Britain's imperial world that will fundamentally alter the perspective of historians of punishment and the British Empire. Empire of Hell is an outstanding contribution to the field of religious, criminal justice and colonial history, and will be a key point of reference for many years to come.'

Clare Anderson - University of Leicester

‘Empire of Hell is a laboriously researched, comprehensive, authoritative study. It ranges geographically from Van Diemen's Land to Gibraltar and denominationally from Evangelical Anglicans to Secular Utilitarians, from Catholics to Quakers, and much more. Hilary M. Carey is unquestionably one of the greatest scholars of religion under British rule working today.'

Timothy Larsen - Wheaton College, Illinois

‘By insisting on the centrality of religion to convict colonialism, Hilary M. Carey has broken down a long-standing and restrictive divide in imperial historiography. The result is an outstanding and highly-readable book that provides a radical new interpretation of both the anti-transportation moment and of imperial reform itself.'

Kirsten McKenzie - University of Sydney

‘This book restores a pulse to British nineteenth-century penal policy. As Hilary M. Carey demonstrates, religious arguments empowered the development of overseas convict colonies while simultaneously fuelling the forces that tore them down. Empire of Hell transforms our understanding of the decline of transportation and the rise of the prison.'

Hamish Maxwell-Stewart - University of Tasmania

‘… Empire of Hell mounts the most comprehensive examination to date of religious responses to convict transportation. It is a rich, detailed, and nuanced work covering transportation from Britain and Ireland to the Australian penal colonies, Bermuda and Gibraltar between 1788 and 1875.’

Zoë Laidlaw Source: Journal of British Studies

‘This is a welcome addition to a rich and growing body of scholarship dissecting and grappling with the historical relationship between religion and empire, especially for the British imperial context … Carey’s book provides profound and sobering food for thought.’

Hugh Morrison Source: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

‘... a fresh, detailed perspective on British and colonial debates over convict transportation ... makes a major contribution to the religious history of empire and convict transportation.'

Ann Curthoys Source: Victorian Studies

‘… Carey's book makes for indispensable reading. It is an outstanding examination of the subject of convict transportation and comes highly recommended.’

C. Brad Faught Source: Anglican and Episcopal History