World Heritage Convict Sites

In July 2010 eleven Australian convict sites were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Five of these sites are found in Tasmania. The sites are:

• Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula
• Coal Mines Historic Site on the Tasman Peninsula
• Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart
• Darlington Probation Station on Maria Island
• Woolmers and Brickendon Estates near Longford.

Each of these bring to life Tasmania’s early colonial (circa 1810-1850) relationship with England and represent the global phenomenon of convictism — the forced migration of convicts to penal colonies in the 18th and 19th centuries — and global developments in the punishment of crime. The Australian Convict Sites are the pre-eminent examples of Tasmania’s rich convict history. These World Heritage Sites are unique in the world.

Brickendon-Woolmers Estates Tasmania

At Brickendon and Woolmers, neighbouring estates on the Macquarie River in northern Tasmania, convicts were assigned to ‘private masters’ to undertake agricultural work. The estates, which were owned by the Archer brothers, operated as large farming properties with convict labour from the early 1820s. Brickendon is still owned by the Archer family.

The assignment system provided labour to settlers in exchange for food and clothing for assigned convicts. Masters were also responsible for the physical and moral wellbeing of assigned convicts who were skilled and also quite young (the average age was 23). Male convicts at the estates worked as blacksmiths, tanners, bricklayers, agricultural hands, gardeners and shepherds, while female convicts worked in domestic service.

Convicts provided the labour and the skill necessary to establish prosperous agricultural estates. The assignment system also aimed to rehabilitate criminals through work and moral guidance and integrate them into the penal colony.

Brickendon and Woolmers estates are open to the public.

www.brickendon.com.au

www.woolmers.com.au

Darlington Probation Station Tasmania (1825-32 and 1842-50)

Darlington Probation Station, within the Maria Island National Park off Tasmania’s east coast, initially functioned as a convict station and later as a probation station for male convicts. The convict station operated at Darlington between 1825 and 1832. It was set up to relieve pressures — due to the increasing number of convicts — on other penal settlements.

The first station was closed in 1832 but a probation station reoccupied the site from 1842. Maria Island was ideal for a probation station: it had an abundance of natural resources that could be exploited through convict labour, and as an island it was a difficult place to escape from.

Darlington is the most representative and intact example of a probation station in Australia with 14 convict buildings and substantial ruins in a layout that reflects the key features of the probation system in Van Diemen’s Land.

Darlington is open to public access.

www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=3495

Cascades Female Factory Tasmania (1828-56)

The Cascades Female Factory was built in a cold valley at the base of Mount Wellington in Hobart. It was separated and hidden from the main colony, yet played a pivotal role in the penal transportation system. Approximately 25,000 female convicts were transported to Australia, comprising 15 to 17 per cent of the convict population.

While convict women made an important contribution to the development of the colonies through their labour and their vital role in family formation, concerns about the (perceived) corrupting influence of women (on the dominant male population of Hobart and Van Diemen’s Land) led to the establishment of female factories to house, employ, manage, control and reform female convicts.

The Cascades Female Factory became notorious for lack of industry, overcrowding, disease and high birth and mortality rates. By 1842 there were more than 500 women in the factory though it was originally designed for some 250 women. The treatment of women and their infants was the subject of numerous inquiries.

The Cascades Female Factory is open to the public.

See the Cascades Female Factory website

Port Arthur Historic Site Tasmanian (1830-77)

The Port Arthur Historic Site, on the south side of the Tasman Peninsula, was established as a timber-getting station in 1830. The site operated as a penal station for secondary offenders between 1833 and 1877.

Lieutenant-Governor Arthur envisaged that Port Arthur would be ‘a place of terror’ that combined hard labour and unremitting surveillance. His aim was to produce both useful goods — such as timber and shoes — and citizens capable of contributing to the colony as reformed men rejected their previous lives of crime and embraced a law-abiding future.

Convicts were employed in dangerous and arduous labour including timber felling and quarrying sandstone. This was part of the punishment regime imposed on convicts at Port Arthur but also part of the drive to economic self-sufficiency. As an incentive to reform, convicts were taught a trade, and to read and write and were regularly exposed to moral and religious teaching.

Until 1848 convicts would be punished with flogging but a shift in ideas about punishment of convicts occurred thereafter. Psychological coercion replaced corporal punishment. From 1849 to 1877 all new arrivals were confined for varying periods in the Separate Prison. Men who re-offended on the settlement would also be punished by incarceration there. Each man spent 23 hours each day alone in his cell and silence was enforced at all times; one hour’s exercise and Sunday religious service at the prison’s chapel were the only respite.

Port Arthur today comprises more than 30 convict-built structures and substantial ruins in a picturesque setting beside Mason Cove and Carnarvon Bay. The extensive suite of structures and their layout reflect the importance of the penal station, its efforts towards self-sufficiency and the evolution of global and local penal practices over several decades.

The Port Arthur Historic Site is open from 8.30am until dusk. Museum houses and buildings are open between 9.30am and 5pm.

See Port Arthur website 

Coal Mines Historic Site Tasmania (1833-48)

The Coal Mines Historic Site, on the Tasman Peninsula, operated as a penal colliery between 1833 and 1848. The coal mines played an important role in the development of the colony of Van Diemen’s Land.

At its peak the coal mines held up to 500 convicts plus another 100 people including officers, guards and their families. In 1840, when the assignment system was abandoned, it was re-organised as one of several probation stations established on the Tasman Peninsula; it was designed to exploit natural resources and provide for the reform of convicts through hard labour in a secure and isolated environment. The site was considered to be a place of severe punishment and the records of floggings and additional punishments demonstrate the British government’s objective of punishing criminals as well as deterring crime in Britain.

During its operation the mines produced over 60,000 tonnes of coal, but the Coal Mines were officially closed as a probation station in 1848 on moral and economic grounds. The poor reputation of the Coal Mines contributed to the demise of the probation system, and was also used as an argument to sway British public opinion against the further transportation of convicts to Van Diemen’s Land.

The site comprises over 25 substantial buildings as well as the remains of coal mining activities in a 214 hectare bush setting and is open to the public.

See Port Arthur website