As our Port Arthur Guide described in graphic detail, until the opening of the Separate Prison corporal punishment, for the repeated or worst offenders, took the form of 'lashings' using a cat of nine tails - strips of leather with knotted ends, inset with pieces of lead and then dried to cause maximum pain and wounds to the back flesh of the convict. Such punishment would often be for 100 lashes. A Guard Officer would officiate and if he decided that the recipient had passed out would raise his arm to call a halt for a medical officer to make an assessment. The convict might then be released and his wounds dressed with lard and salt and he would be sent back to work in the ship yard where he would spend most of his day up to his shoulders in sea water. After some weeks, and once the wounds had healed, the poor wretch would be dragged back to receive the remaining lashes of the punishment.
Once the Penitentiary had been built there were early attempts to move away from physical punishment by providing cells of differing size. The Penitentiary was built over 4 levels. The lowest level had the smallest and windowless cells with just enough room to sling a hammock. Good behaviour was rewarded by moving to cells at a higher level with the top cells offering light and more space. None of the higher-level cells remain inside the shell of the Penitentiary (See previous post for photo of 'The lowest Level Cell')
The Separate Prison system also signalled a more concerted shift from physical punishment to psychological punishment aimed at reform. For example, food was used to reward well-behaved prisoners and as punishment for troublemakers. As a reward, a prisoner could receive larger amounts of food or even luxury items such as tea, sugar and tobacco but as a punishment
prisoners would receive the bare minimum of bread and water.
The move away from physical to psychological punishment, however, had disastrous outcomes for the worst offending convicts and remember that the Separate Prison was meant for the worst offenders. Under this system of punishment a "Silent System" was implemented for all convicts in the building. Prisoners were hooded and made to stay silent; this was supposed to allow time for prisoners to reflect upon the actions that had brought them there. Even in the exercise yards or the chapel prisoners were hooded and were placed in separate compartments in the chapel so that they could not see or communicate with each other (See photo).
The ultimate psychological punishment was to be placed in a cell with no windows surrounded by foot thick sandstone walls with two entry doors at right angles. Once inside a prisoner could hear nothing and would be made to suffer total darkness for some days, a wicked form of sensory deprivation. I had a look inside this cell but recoiled at the intense blackness and that was without shutting the doors.
Unsurprisingly many of the prisoners in the Separate Prison developed mental illness from the lack of light and sound. Although this was an unintended consequence (Mental health science had not yet progressed sufficiently) it necessitated the building of an Asylum next door.
Port Arthur was also the destination for juvenile convicts, receiving many boys, some as young as nine. They were separated from the main convict population at Point Puer and used for hard labour, such as stone cutting and construction.
You can read much more about the Port Arthur Penal Colony at:
So, what were my final thoughts as I took one last look back (See photo).
Despite the attempts to take a more enlightened view of imprisonment, the reality was that Port Arthur was still as harsh and brutal as other penal settlements. From my university studies of psychology, I already knew that the use of psychological punishment, especially sensory deprivation, compounded with no hope of escape, made it one of the worst forms of reform. There is evidence from the above website to suggest that some prisoners committed murder (an offence punishable by death) just to escape the desolation of life at the camp.
The Isle of the Dead was the destination for all who died inside the prison camps. Of the 1,646 graves recorded to exist there, only 180, those of prison staff and military personnel, are marked. The prison closed in 1877.
The question remains do our modern prisons do any better?
