Isolated from the eyes of government, these remote outposts were often subject to considerable misrule resulting in exreme psychological and physical punishment.

A government jail gang, Sydney NSW, Augustus Earle, 1830, lithograph, Rex Nan Kivell Collection, National Library of Australia
       
The development of the concept of heritage in Australia has been part of a search for the political and social definition of a nation. In identifying heritage we state what are the most important things about our past – things that have made us what we are today.

The Australian Federal Government’s proposed nomination for World Heritage listing of eight representative convict sites in Australia is an indication of the present day high regard and importance that Australian people put on their convict past and its physical legacy.

It began in 1995 when the World Heritage Unit of the then Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories commissioned heritage consultants Dr Michael Pearson and Duncan Marshall to carry out an assessment of significant convict sites in Australia, with a view to nominating a series of Australian convict sites that best illustrated convict transportation and the convict penal system in Australia for UNESCO World Heritage listing.

The report is a major influence on the new exhibition Convicts: sites of punishment, at Hyde Park Barracks Museum, which explores the Australian convict transportation system through the history and archaeology of the eight nominated sites: First Government House site, Hyde Park Barracks and the Great North Road in New South Wales; Port Arthur historic site, the Coal Mines historic site, Darlington Probation Station and the Ross Female Factory in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania); and the Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Norfolk Island was not included in the original nomination but for reasons of historical accuracy this too is explored in the exhibition.

Used to combat crimes against the State, transportation or banishment overseas was part of the British criminal justice system from the late 1500s. Prior to 1775 most transported convicts were sent to the American colonies where they were sold off to private individuals. Following the American revolutionary war the British government was forced to look at other places for the transportation of criminals.

In 1786 Lord Sydney produced a report² that became the basis under which the First Fleet sailed to Australia with the purpose of establishing a penal settlement.

In January 1788 just over 700 male and female convicts and their guards arrived at Port Jackson to help establish the most isolated European colony in the world. Over the next 80 years more than 160,000 transported convicts came ashore on various parts of the Australian coast to found or work in penal settlements or on government projects that became bywords for crime, pain, punishment and reform.

Upon arrival in the Australian colonies, convicts would either have been assigned to work for a private individual or be kept in government service and housed in places such as Hyde Park Barracks or Fremantle Prison. If the majority of the sentence was served without incident the convict may have been granted a ticket of leave (similar to modern day parole), a pardon or a certificate of freedom.

However, if there were incidents of insolence, drunkenness, refusal to work, violence, or other crimes committed, the convict would receive additional punishment on top of their sentence. These punishments, referred to as secondary punishments, included the transfer to a more isolated penal settlement or workstation.

Coal River in Newcastle NSW was opened in 1804 as the colony’s first secondary punishment settlement. As the colonies developed, additional settlements were established at Macquarie Harbour (Tasmania) in 1821, Moreton Bay (Brisbane, Queensland) in 1824, Darlington (Maria Island) and Norfolk Island in 1825 and Port Arthur in 1832. Isolated from the eyes of government, these remote outposts were often subject to considerable misrule resulting in extreme psychological and physical punishment.

From the 1820s the penal system in Britain had been undergoing major changes in the way government and society viewed and treated convicts. As part of this change the British Government instigated a number of public inquiries and commissions into the penal and convict transportation system. The Select Committee on Transportation, also known as the Molesworth Committee after its chair, William Molesworth, was formed in April 1837 to investigate transportation and secondary punishment in New South Wales and Tasmania.

The Molesworth Committee reported back that the assignment system did not appear to be working and was open to abuse. Some government officials believed that convicts were worse off than slaves and that the convict system, on the whole, encouraged prostitution, the creation of a criminal class in the colony and a breakdown in law and order.

The Molesworth Report, along with widespread colonial protests led by organisations such as the Australasian Anti-Transportation League, saw convict transportation suspended in New South Wales and Victoria from 1840.

After transportation to the Australian colonies stopped, the prevalent Australian community’s desire was to obliterate the memory of the past – records were destroyed and the physical remains neglected or deliberately demolished in an attempt to erase the stain of Australia’s convict past.

In the later part of the 20th century community attitudes changed and we began to embrace and venerate our convict history. The World Heritage listing, along with the conservation of these sites, reflects a change in attitude and highlights the importance of colonial heritage to contemporary Australia. The exhibition, Convicts: sites of punishment, continues the process of remembering and reclaiming our past.   

Kieran Hosty
Curator

First published in Insites, Winter 2005

1. Australian convict sites – nomination by the Government of Australia for inscription on the World Heritage List (Marshall, D & Pearson, M, 1999)
2. Heads of a plan for effectually disposing of convicts by the establishment of a colony in New South Wales in a letter from Lord Sydney, Home Secretary to the Treasury, 15 August 1786. 

Convicts: sites of punishment was on at Hyde Park Barracks Museum 4 June 2005 - 15 July 2007