I am going to introduce this post with a brief account taken from the World Heritage Cruises pamphlet provided aboard the Harbour Master II.
The Sarah Island Settlement.
"If Australia ever had a devil's island this was it: set up as one of the first places in the British Penal System to use behaviour modification techniques to root out the moral depravity of the criminal classes. Hard labour cruel and vicious punishments and the deprivation of all comforts in a harsh and fearful landscape, all these made Sarah Island a place to be dreaded. From1822 to 1833 the Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement served as a warning to anyone attempting to buck the system. They were there to cut timber, the Huon Pine but, to ship it out proved difficult. They began building ships, hulks to be stuffed with timber and sailed to Hobart. There was a shipyard, however, the most productive shipyard in the Australian colonies. Good ships were built by a brilliantly organised master shipwright David Hoy, Boston trained and very ambitious. "Good ships and you don't build good ships with slave labour" and thereby hangs an intriguing tale told by the guides from Sarah Island in the 'Ship That Never Was'. The play for us to enjoy later that evening."
The photos show a rather idyllic setting on this sunny day. The ruins of the settlement remain today as the Sarah Island Historic Site —part of the larger Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area—though they are not as well preserved as those at the better-known Port Arthur that I will be visiting in a week's time on the penultimate day of this Tasmanian Wonders Tour.
I have to admit that I knew very little other than that convicts were transported to Australia in the 1800s so my visit today came as a revelation and therefore deserves more attention.
I am graateful to the following website for much of the account that follows:
The Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, a former British colonial penal settlement, established on Sarah Island in the former Penal colony of Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, operated between 1822 and 1833. The settlement housed male convicts, with a small number of women housed on a nearby island. During its 11 years of operation, the penal colony achieved a reputation as one of the harshest penal settlements in the Australian colonies.
The penal station was established as a place of banishment within the Australian colonies. It took the worst convicts, those who had reoffended and those who had escaped from other settlements. The isolated land was ideally suited for its purpose. It was separated from the mainland by the wide expanse of river, surrounded by a mountainous wilderness and was hundreds of miles away from the colony's other settled areas. The only seaward access was through the treacherous Hells Gates narrow channel described in the previous post. .
Strong tidal currents resulted in the deaths of many convicts before they even reached the settlement owing to ships foundering in the narrow rocky channel - Hells Gate. Neighbouring Grummet Island, a small island to the Northeast, was used for solitary confinement.
Lieutenant-Governor William Sorell wanted the new penal colony to be economically viable. It could then reimburse the British Government for the expense of its establishment.
The island was cleared soon after the arrival of the convicts. This, however, exposed the settlement to the howling gales of the roaring forties, so it was necessary to build a wall from Huon Pine to provide shelter. Convicts spent most of their waking hours, often up to their necks in water, cutting timber and preparing it for rafting down the Gordon River. Lashings were common and were to be administered by another convict. If they were not administered with sufficient severity, the convict who had been given responsibility for administering the lashes was also lashed. The severity of the lashings was sufficient to cause death in some cases. If a convict appeared in danger of death, a doctor could intervene, the lashing would cease (for a time) and be resumed once the convict was deemed to have recovered sufficiently for it to continue.
After a time, a Scottish shipbuilder named David Hoy, who had heard of the remarkable properties of Huon Pine for shipbuilding came, voluntarily, to the island. He negotiated with the convicts, allowing them rations of rum and tobacco, and more weatherproof sleeping quarters in exchange for their cooperation. For a short period, it was the largest shipbuilding operation in the Australian colonies. Chained convicts had the task of cutting down Huon pine trees and rafting the logs down the river.
As Sarah Island could not produce food, malnutrition, dysentery, and scurvy were often rampant among the convict population. The penal colony had to be supplied by sea. Living conditions were particularly bad in the early years of the settlement. The settlement was so crowded, convicts were unable to sleep on their backs in the communal barracks. Punishment involved solitary confinement and regular floggings of up to 100 lashes.
It was finally closed in late 1833 when most of the remaining convicts were relocated to Port Arthur.
Despite its isolated location, a considerable number of convicts attempted to escape from the island. Bushranger Matthew Brady was among a party that successfully escaped to Hobart in 1824 after tying up their overseer and seizing a boat. You can read more about the escapes on this website:
As the station was closing down, ten convicts remained to complete an unfinished brig. The convicts later hijacked the vessel and escaped to Chile. Read the full story in a later post.
So harsh were the conditions, and often so wet, that in the end a three-story prison was built of brick on the sheltered side of the island so that at least the convicts could sleep in dry and windproof cells. If they behaved then they could progress from solitary cells to dormitories on the top floor of this building.
In the bright sunlight and tranquil surroundings of my visit, the unimaginable harsh life of a convict left a lasting impression.
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