Port Arthur’s convict past preserved for posterity

Press, 14 June 1983, Page 24

Port Arthur’s convict past preserved for posterity

Perhaps nothing else in Tasmania captures the imagination as irresistibly as the famous Port Arthur convict settlement. The full oppressive impact of the place strikes and weighs one down. It’s a fascinating place to visit, but one’s spirits soar as one leaves it behind to stroll under the trees in the sea-fresh air.

In all, about 12,500 convicts served sentences at Port Arthur during its 47-year-history as a penal settlement (1830-77). Most prisoners at Port Arthur were being punished for crimes committed since being transported to Australia. But the settlement had a dual function: its other role was to provide timber for Government projects.

The most serious offence was to abscond. An habitual absconder would gradually

lose all freedom, progressing from 50 lashes to confinement on bread and water, the chain-gang in irons, and the final degradation of being chained to a wall on a public road and forced to break stones.

However, convicts who were prepared to reform were not harshly treated. A picture of everyday life at Port Arthur in 1846 shows that a total of 1220 Erisoners were employed in rickmaking, blacksmithing, carpentering, broom-mak-ing, charcoal burning, dockyarding, felling, sawing, splitting, quarrying, shoemaking, tailoring and washing. Gangs worked in the ship yards, and others included wood gangs, chain gangs, carrying gangs, garden gangs, and water gangs. Some worked on ration boats and gigs; others planted hops, made bridle roads, and also transported stores and passengers on Australia’s first passenger railway. The settlement was selfsufficient, except for meat. Animals were not allowed on the site because they might have been used to aid escape attempts. Vegetables were grown near by. Indeed, by comparison with conditions in other Australian penal institutions, the prisoners’ rations could be considered “good grub.” Today Port Arthur is regarded as the most important historical site in Australia. More than $9 million is being poured into a seven-year project to conserve and enhance the qualities of the site, making it the largest conservation project in Australasia. Work began in 1979. The convict settlement is a major tourist attraction. More than half the total number of visitors to

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Tasmania visit Port Arthur. “Heritage is of interest to a large number of people," said the project manager Brian Egloff. “Our visitors include people who are interested in heritage roses, musical heritage, military heritage, engineering and crafts. It’s a powerful drawcard.” The sense of oppression is most overwhelming in the “model prison,” a building where silence replaced the lash as the form of punishment. Completed in 1852, the building contained 50 cells, a chapel, and two “dark and dumb” cells. After the closure of Port Arthur, the prison was sold to a clergyman who in-

ANNE BLOXHAM

tended to convert it to a hotel until it was damaged by fite in 1895 — a blessing in disguise surely for future travellers. The atmosphere of the restored building is so “creepy” that visitors gasp in shock when they wander past a gloomy cell with a model prisoner standing in the shadows. Port Arthur is 102 km south-east of Hobart, a comfortable 90-minute drive on the Arthur Highway through pleasant rolling countryside. Long regarded as an ideal day trip from the capital, "Convict Country” also offers a wide range of accommodation, including motels, cottages, a country club and a caravan and camping ground.