Dateline: Thursday 27th March 2025 Day 9 Tasmanian Wonders Tour - Port Arthur Penal Colony Paradise or Hell?

Van Diemen's Land and Port Arthur

Well, here we are at the last full day of this Tasmanian Wonders Tour and what wonderful weather greeted us this morning as we entered the Historic Port Arthur Penal Colony Site.  In the bright, warm sunshine the first impression is that you are in paradise until you realise that the building you are viewing is the ruins of the Penitentiary block of this Colonial Penal Colony!

Port Arthur is a town, named after George Arthur, the Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land, and former convict settlement located some 97 kilometres (60 mi) southeast of Hobart.

Collectively, this site, along with 10 others, are described by UNESCO as "the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers through the presence and labour of convicts.'

Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania during the European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The Aborigine-inhabited island was first visited by a Dutch ship captained by Abel Tasman in 1642, working under the sponsorship of Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.The British retained the name when they established a settlement in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. 

The name was changed to Tasmania on 1st January 1856 to disassociate the island from its convict past and to honour its discoverer, Abel Tasman. The old name had become a byword for horror in England because of the severity of its convict settlements such as Macquarie Harbour. (Sarah Island) and Port Arthur. 

Penal colony
The Port Arthur convict settlement was established in September 1830 as a timber-getting camp, producing sawn logs for government projects. From 1833 until 1877, it was the destination for those deemed the most hardened of transported convicts, so-called "secondary offenders", who had persistently re-offended during their time in Australia. They were sent to Port Arthur because it had some of the strictest security measures in the British penal system and a reputation for being escape-proof but also based on the premise that prisoners could be reformed while still being punished, more about this later.

You may recall from my posts on Sarah Island that when it closed the inmates were transported to Port Arthur. It was to be the destination of the 'Ship That Never Was" before being captured by some of the last convicts to leave Sarah Island. Just to note here too that this vessel was the last to be built at Sarah Island. Shipbuilding also formed one of the major activities at Port Arthur (See Photo and Site Map).

The Separate Prison was completed in 1853 and extended in 1855. The layout was symmetrical, a cross shape with exercise yards at each corner. The prisoner wings were connected to the central surveillance hall of the prison, that also included a chapel. From the central hall, each wing could be seen, but not individual cells. 

The design of the "Separate Prison", was based on Jeremy Bentham's philosophy of prison and social reform known as the Panopticon in the 18th century, a design of institutional building with an inbuilt system of control. The concept was to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single corrections officer, without the inmates knowing whether or not they are being watched.

In my next post I will say more about the attempts to reform the most recalcitrant prisoners whilst still being punished.