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Port Arthur
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The most unceasing labour is to be extracted from the convicts … and the most harassing vigilance over them is to be observed
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- Governor Arthur PORT ARTHUR was chosen as the site for a prison settlement in September 1830, as a place of secondary punishment for convicts who had committed serious crimes in New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land itself, men who were seen to have no redeeming features and were treated accordingly. The first 150 convicts worked like slaves to establish a timber industry in the wooded surroundings of the "natural penitentiary" of the Tasman Peninsula, with narrow Eaglehawk Neck guarded by dogs. The regime was never a subtle one: Governor George Arthur , responsible for all the convicts in Van Diemen's Land, believed that a convict's "whole fate should be … the very last degree of misery consistent with humanity". Gradually, Port Arthur became a self-supporting industrial centre: the timber industry grew into shipbuilding, there was brickmaking and shoemaking, wheat-growing, and even a flour mill. There was also a separate prison for boys - "the thiefs prison" - at Point Puer, where the inmates were taught trades. From the 1840s until transport of convicts ceased in 1853, the penal settlement grew steadily, the early timber constructions being replaced by brick and stone buildings. The lives of the labouring convicts contrasted sharply with those of the prison officers and their families, who had their ornamental gardens, drama club, library and cricket fields. The years after transport ended were in many ways more horrific than those that preceded them, as physical beatings were replaced by psychological punishment. In 1852 the Model Prison , based on the spoked-wheel design of Pentonville Prison in London, opened. Here, prisoners could be kept in tiny cells in complete isolation and absolute silence; they were referred to by numbers rather than names, and wore hoods whenever they left their cells. The prison continued to operate until 1877, by now incorporating its own mental asylum full of ex-convicts, as well as a geriatric home for ex-convict paupers. The excellent interpretive centre , housed in the new visitors centre (daily 9am-5pm), provides much more detail on the prison's sad history through artefacts and texts. In 1870 Port Arthur was popularized by Marcus Clarke's romantic tragedy, For the Term of his Natural Life . The public became fascinated by its buildings and the tragedy behind them, and soon after the prison closed, guided tours were offered by the same crumbling men who had been wrecked by the regime. In the 1890s the town around the prison was devastated by bushfires that left most buildings in ruins. A major conservation and restoration project began in the 1970s and today the Port Arthur Historic Site covers a huge area (office and most buildings daily 8.30am-dusk; $19.80 for a 24hr pass, including 40min guided tour and 20min harbour cruise in summer; $9.90 for a pass after 4pm; information office tel 03/6251 2310 or free call 1800 659 191); you're allowed to wander around the grounds until about 11pm. For an extra $8.80 you can also take a trip on the MV Bundeena across the bay to the Isle of the Dead , Port Arthur's cemetery from 1833 to 1877, where you can view the resting places of 1100 convicts, asylum inmates, paupers and free men. The Port Arthur Historic Site houses more than sixty buildings, some of which - like the poignant prison chapel - are furnished and restored. Others, like the ivy-covered church , are picturesque ruins set in a landscape of green lawns, shady trees and paths sloping down to the cove. The beautiful setting makes it look more like a serene, old-world university campus than a prison, and indeed, the benign feeling of the place seems to have a capacity to absorb tragedy: another horrific chapter in Port Arthur's history occurred in April 1996, when the massacre of 35 tourists and local people by a lone gunman made international headlines. The cafe where most of the people were killed has been partially dismantled and a memorial has been built - a garden and reflecting pool laid out around the remaining walls. The simple wooden cross on the waterfront which stands in remembrance will now remain permanently. Visitors are requested to act sensitively and not ask the staff about the tragedy.
If you're staying overnight in Port Arthur, join the nightly lantern-lit
Historic Ghost Tour
(1hr 30min; $14.30; bookings on 03/6251 2310), which features lovingly researched and hauntingly retold tales of the settlement's past as you wander through the ruins. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Australia,
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