The Convict Trail

This is the history that we came to Tasmania to investigate. A sad and gruesome tale it is.

A lot of the early settlement here involved convicts transported mainly from England and Ireland from the late 1700's until the mid-1800's. These convicts needed housing in various jails and they were put to work. Some were taught trades such as bricklaying, carpentry, baking, shoemaking and shipbuilding. Others were simple unskilled labourers. For men who didn't cooperate, and even for some of those who did, there were special sanctions. You could be flogged: up to 100 lashes with the cat o'nine tails You could be made to work in leg irons. You could be given a stretch of hard labour. Perhaps worst of all, you could be placed in solitary confinement. This meant 23 hours a day in a dark, quiet cell on bread and water with one hour out for exercise, all alone of course. Talking was not allowed at any time. Men who had more than a few days of solitary found it very hard to take. Some cracked completely. A man who was flogged was put back to work the next day and may be flogged again if his work performance was substandard. No mercy was given in this system. As can be expected, there were a number of breakout attempts from the various prison sites. A few men made it, but most were either caught and punished or died in their attempt to get away

We are stayed in the restored Cascades convict station. These brick buildings are where the officers were housed. The convicts barracks are long gone as they were made of rough logs. This is where the convicts were brought to work in the bush getting the timber needed for building. After transportation from the UK was abolished in 1853, the number of convicts at this station dwindled until it was no longer used as a prison. The land was sold for private use in 1882 and the area was farmed. Eventually the family developed the ruins into an accommodation and have also made a little museum on the property.

 

The station was located on Norfolk Bay where the logs could be transported by boat. A nice view nowadays. I don't think the first inhabitants liked it so much.

 

 

We enjoyed a cozy fire every evening. The weather here was cooler and we had quite a few rain showers.

 

 

 

 

 

Not far from where we were staying, we toured the Coal Miners Historic Site. The convicts were put to work underground.

 

 

Ruins of the convict barracks.

 

 

 

Solitary confinement cells were underground. The miners were terrified the cells would collapse on them and they would die in the place they hated most - underground.

 

 

 

Mal checking out one of the solitary confinement cells.

 

 

No blankets here boys - only a bucket for your business bread and water once a day. And total darkness.

 

At Port Arthur they built the main penitentiary and a town to go around it.

 

 

If you did wrong, you may be put in leg irons. No telling what mischief Cindy got up to for this to happen.

 

 

 

Mal joined the timber gang hauling logs out of the forest. Convict labour was cheaper than machines.

 

 

There is a very narrow neck of land 100 metres wide joining the Tasman Peninsula to the rest of the island. Here they made a "dog line" to stop convicts who might try to escape from Port Arthur on the peninsula. There was one dog every 5 metres chained next to a lamp on a wide line of white shells cross Eaglehawk Neck. One armed sentry was always on duty at each end of the line. It was shoot to kill if any unauthorized person tried to get across.

 

There was also a women's prison at Hobart, now the capital city of Tasmania. Conditions there were quite horrible, as was portrayed in a 2-hour drama presentation at the site. The woman in this reenactment was given a 7 year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread to feed her three children aged 14, 12 and 10. When she was transported to Tasmania, the judge ruled that the children would not accompany her because the 14 year-old was old enough to look after himself and the other two.

 

 

 

Convict labour was used to build a lot of different buildings and other structures. This is the Richmond Bridge, Australia's oldest bridge still in use. It was started in 1823 and completed in 1825.

 

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