Aussie PM descended from underwear thief: researchers

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

SYDNEY (AFP) — One of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's ancestors was a street urchin sentenced to death for stealing a dress and underwear, researchers said Thursday.

And his paternal fourth great-grandfather, Thomas Rudd, was transported to Australia in 1801 to serve a seven-year sentence for "unlawfully acquiring a bag of sugar", according to a new family history.

Far from being the embarrassment it might have been just a couple of decades ago, the discovery is likely to give Rudd's image a boost as convict ancestry is something of a badge of honour in modern Australia.

About 160,000 convicts were deported from Britain to Australia between 1788 and 1868, often for relatively minor offences, and their role in the development of the country is now...