Port Arthur Tasmania - HistoryPort Arthur Tasmania History
Last Updated on Monday, 28 June 2010 23:37 Written by PA Admin Saturday, 07 July 2007 19:54
Port Arthur History
100 km from Hobart and isolated from the rest of the island by that narrow sliver of land known as Eaglehawk Neck, the hardened criminals, the recidivists, were sent. Port Arthur was established in 1830 by Lieutenant-Governor Arthur (after whom it was named) to deal with secondary criminals. And, just to compound the misery in the area, from 1834 - 1849, a special prison for juveniles was established across the bay at Port Puer.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Port Arthur is that it reflects the changing attitudes to prisons and transportation. In the 47 years that it operated British notions of justice and equality went through radical changes. Port Arthur reflects those changes. In 1830 it was accepted that prisoners could be thrown together in mass cells. By the 1840s there was a movement towards separate cells and by the 1850s there was even a sense of dividing the prisoners according to a number of criteria - trustworthiness, health, sanity, and age. The exciting thing about Port Arthur is that the astute and careful observer can see the way treatment of prisoners improved and evolved in the mid nineteenth century. Here is a lonely and isolated penal colony with a hospital for the sick, with single cells, with dormitory accommodation, and with an asylum for the insane.
The convicts built simple wooden huts to protect themselves and their guards against the harsh, wet weather on the Peninsula. There are no remains of this early settlement. During these early years the convicts worked under appalling conditions. Their main tasks were to cut timber and to establish brick making and stone quarrying facilities.
By 1833 the convicts had completed a barracks on the hill behind where the Guard Tower and Tower Cottage now stand. This site has been excavated in recent times and large numbers of clay pipes, fragments of slate pencils and old slates (presumably from some kind of convict school) have been uncovered.
This ruin is the oldest of the buildings at Port Arthur. The major prison, known as the Penitentiary, which is located on the waterfront directly across from the car park, was reputedly the largest building in Australia when it was completed in 1844. It was originally built as a huge granary and flour mill but, after a decade, was converted to house prisoners transferred from Norfolk Island. The original construction of the building was completed by tradesmen convicts who were supervised by the Royal Engineers and directed by the millwright Alexander Clark. The mill was originally powered by a huge 24 man treadmill - surely one of the most demeaning and arduous forms of punishment ever invented.
The Model Prison a huge building, which is 75 m long and 4 storeys high, had the two lower storeys converted into 136 single cells. There were also dormitories which housed 513 prisoners.
When the penal colony was closed down in 1877 the Penitentiary became one of Port Arthur's major tourist attractions however it became neglected and a bushfire in 1897 destroyed all the timber in the building. Today the walkways in the building offer a fascinating insight into the lifestyle of the convicts. It is still possible to see the iron hooks in the walls where the hammocks were slung each night and the narrow ventilation ducts which were the only source of air. It is hard not to marvel at the inhumanity which would incarcerate a man in a cell which is only 135 cm across. It is interesting that official visitors in the 1850s and 1860s were shown the Penitentiary as a model of the colony's modernity.