I'm not sure about the prison ships, but once in Australia they got an allowance of shoes and other clothes per year: http://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/index.php/administration/convict-clothing
Here is a great range of first hand accounts of the transportation of female convicts:
http://www.jenwilletts.com/conditions_on_convict_ships.htm#Female Convicts
Many differ, some just say the clothes they were wearing, others prison check, others like this:
The women were clean and they were permitted to bring their own clean clothing with them. Any articles that were dirty were destroyed. Later that afternoon another twenty eight women were brought on board from the prison at Cork. Intriguingly, these women cheered as they came along side the Elizabeth.
http://www.jenwilletts.com/convict_ship_elizabeth_1818.htm
In terms of who the women were, most were early 20s, unmarried, and sentenced to 7 years for theft of varying kinds, and it was their first offence.