In the 21st century we tend to think of fortressed prisons as one of the more obvious forms of punishment for convicted criminals, yet this was not so in the past.

British Governments used a range of solutions to punish crimes. These included fines, public humiliation in the form of branding, hair cutting, the stocks or the pillory, or locally managed prisons for vagrants and minor offenders, as well as transportation overseas and the death penalty. By the 18th century the death penalty began to be regarded as too severe a punishment for certain offences, such as theft and larceny, and transportation to North America became a more usual form of sentence.

The American War of Independence (1775–1783) put an end to this traffic. Convicts sentenced to transportation were sent instead to ‘hulks’, old or unseaworthy ships, generally ex-naval vessels. These floating prisons, operated by private contractors, were used to house prisoners and convicts awaiting transportation. Although originally introduced as a temporary measure the hulks quickly became a cost efficient and integral part of the British government’s response to an apparent increase in crime during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. From 1784, the British government passed legislation authorising the transportation overseas of convicts from the hulks and the notion of using hulks as floating prisons was exported along with the convicts. Eventually convict hulks were established in several British colonies.

In 1826 as part of this expansion, the British government sent the Dromedary, an ex-naval store ship, to Bermuda to act as an accommodation hulk for convicts working on the construction of the Bermuda dockyards and naval fortifications. For the next 40 years the Dromedary remained moored in the harbour acting as hulk, store ship and kitchen for the thousands of male convict workers and their guards.

In 1982 divers received permission from the Bermudan government to archaeologically excavate the Dromedary hulk’s anchorage area. Using a water dredge the divers peeled away metres of sand, shell, coal and limestone deposits to uncover what is arguably the largest collection of 19th-century convict material directly associated with convict life on the hulks.

During the course of the excavations thousands of artefacts relating to the hulk and its convicts, including whale oil lamps, pewter mugs, engraved spoons, clay pipes, bottles, buttons, seals, coins, trinkets, charms, rings, beads, gaming pieces, religious items, knife handles and gaming boards, were recovered. Careful plotting of the artefacts not only revealed what items were associated with the guard and what items were related to the convicts but also uncovered evidence of a large scale shipboard economy based on the production of mementoes. Beautifully made objects carved out of bone, shell, metal and stone were made by the convicts and sold to the guards, visiting sailors and free settlers for tobacco, alcohol, food and money.

Besides England, Ireland, Bermuda and Gibraltar, hulks were also used in Australia. Although New South Wales was established as a convict settlement with the prisoners assigned within the community, the need for more secure accommodation quickly became apparent. Hulks in Australia had two main uses. They provided prison accommodation when existing colonial goals were unsuitable or already full. They also served as floating holding pens for prisoners charged with further offences who awaited ships for re-transportation to places of secondary punishment like Norfolk Island, Moreton Bay or Van Diemen’s Land. Hulks at mainland sites were mainly used to imprison colonially sentenced offenders, while Tasmanian hulks were used to house transported convicts.

Between 1825 and 1837 the prison hulk Phoenix was used to house an overflow of felons from Sydney Gaol. It was moored in Sydney Harbour at Lavender Bay – known then as Hulk or Phoenix Bay – as a sobering symbol of the ‘strength and terror’ of the colony’s police, according to Governor Brisbane. It housed up to 260 prisoners at a time, including those awaiting trial, convict witnesses giving evidence, ailing convicts waiting for a ship to Port Macquarie Invalid Station, and those under colonial sentence of re-transportation.

With the discovery of gold in 1851, Victoria’s population grew rapidly. The prison system was soon over-stretched, and the newly constituted government established floating prisons on the President, Success, Deborah and Sacramento in Hobson’s Bay at Williamstown. By the end of 1853, 455 prisoners were held on these hulks. A fifth hulk, the Lysander, was added in 1854. In 1857, a group of Success prisoners was hanged for the murder of John Price, Inspector General of Penal Establishments in Victoria. This assassination triggered an inquiry into the use of the hulk system leading to its ultimate demise.

In 1890 the former Victorian hulk Success was bought by entrepreneurs and fitted out as a floating museum with life-like wax figures wearing prison clothes and manacles to depict the sensationalised stories of the convicts who had filled its cells while a prison hulk. In 1895 the Success sailed to England and toured British coastal cities until 1912 when American interests bought it. It then toured both the east and west coasts of the United States for many years. While official Australian government attempts were made during the 1920s and 1930s to close down the floating museum, it continued to tour the US and was visited by millions. In 1946, after near continual exhibition for over 50 years, the Success was burnt and sunk in Lake Erie, near Detroit.

Between 1776 and 1884 the British government converted more than 150 ships into convict, guard, receiving, hospital and school hulks. Over time these hulks and the thousands of male and female convicts they housed played an essential role in British military and colonial expansion.

The exhibition Convict hulks: life on the prison ships features, for the first time in Australia, artefacts uncovered in the excavation of the Dromedary, alongside items and artworks from Australian and international collections to reveal the history of the hulks and the individual stories of their wretched human cargo.

Kieran Hosty & Bridget Berry
Curators

First published in Insites, Spring 2007

Convict hulks: life on the prison ships is on at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum until 26 July 2009