Directory of Historical Occupations Classifications and Codes for Convict Australia

Full description

The Directory of Historical Occupational Classifications and Codes for Convict Workers is a standardised occupational classification and coding system for identifying and analysing convict skill, occupation and labour in nineteenth-century New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). It adapts the Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO) to the occupational titles and descriptions recorded for convict men and women in convict indentures and appropriation lists. The Directory provides a consistent framework for coding historical occupations while retaining original occupational terminology and enabling comparison across datasets, regions and periods. The dataset also maps HISCO occupations to HISCLASS 12 and HISCLASS 5, enabling analysis at different levels of social and occupational aggregation. Its HISCO-based structure allows researchers to develop alternative classifications for particular research questions, including industrial and convict-specific schemes, with two examples included in this current dataset. Published as an open-access dataset, the Directory provides research infrastructure for historical and cultural heritage research, supporting consistent occupational coding, data linkage, comparative analysis and reuse across projects.