Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania
Encyclopedia
West Coast, Tasmania
The West Coast of Tasmania is the part of the state that is strongly associated with wilderness, mining and tourism, rough country and isolation...
as an outpost to house convicts in isolated penal settlements occurred in the era 1822-1833, and 1846-1847.
The main locations were Sarah Island (known by many in the late twentieth century as Settlement Island) and Grummet Island in Macquarie Harbour
Macquarie Harbour
Macquarie Harbour is a large, shallow, but navigable by shallow draft vessels inlet on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.-History:James Kelly wrote in his narrative "First Discovery of Port Davey and Macquarie Harbour" how he sailed from Hobart in a small open five-oared whaleboat to discover...
. The entrance to Macquarie Harbour was known as Hells Gates
Hell's Gates (Tasmania)
Hells Gates is the name of the mouth of Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast of Tasmania. It is a notoriously shallow and dangerous channel entrance to the harbour. The actual channel is between Cape Sorell, Tasmania on the west and Entrance Island on the east...
and the play on this name has travelled from its naming in the 1830s to Paul Collin's book published in 2002.
Convict parties used the land around the harbour as a work area as far as Gordon River
Gordon River
The Gordon River is one of the major rivers of Tasmania, Australia. It rises in the centre of the island at Lake Richmond and flows westward for about 193km where it empties into Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast of Tasmania. Major tributaries include the Serpentine River and the Franklin...
. The prison's existence was for only 15 years, but its hold on the imagination have spawned a significant literature.
Physical heritage
Most physical traces of the convict era were abandoned or lost. Sarah Island was allegedly vandalised for building materials in the 1890s mining communities. However enough remains that guided tours of the island can still give a feeling of the prison. pinersWest Coast Piners
West Coast Piners were groups of men who worked on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia, logging Huon pine. In most cases they used Strahan as their base, as it was the port from which the timber was shipped. The main eras of the Piners were the Sarah Island convict era and the period from the...
also have periodically discovered convict era items during their work along the rivers.
The Frederick
The Frederick was a merchant ship stolen in 1834 by escaping convicts from Sarah Island. It has inspired several books and a play.The Ship that Never Was, by the Round Earth Theatre Company
Round Earth Theatre Company
The Round Earth Theatre Company, founded by Richard Davey, performs in Strahan, West Coast, Tasmania. Each night the company performs Australia's longest-running play, The Ship That Never Was...
, at the Strahan Visitor Centre, in Strahan
Strahan, Tasmania
-See also:* Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania* Macquarie Harbour* Railways on the West Coast of Tasmania* West Coast Piners-Further reading:* *...
, is a long running play about a successful escape. It was written by Richard Davey
Richard Davey
Richard Innes Davey is an actor, director and writer. He is the founder of the Round Earth Company and advocate for the understanding of the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station on Sarah Island on the West Coast of Tasmania....
, a descendant of Governor Davey who worked on Sarah Island as a guide and researcher. He has also written The Sarah Island Conspiracies - an account of twelve voyages to Macquarie Harbour and Sarah Island (Hobart, 2002) and two pamphlets - a narrative of the event the play was based on and Sarah Island - The People, Ships and shipwrights - a guided tour. Collins refers to Davey in his Hells Gates book.
The Ship Thieves by Sian Rees focuses upon James Porter one of the group of convicts on The Frederick, and manuscripts found in the Dixson Library in Sydney. Rees had previously written about a very different ship of convicts - the Lady Juliana (ship)
Lady Juliana (ship)
Lady Juliana was a convict ship dispatched in 1789 from Britain to Australia. She was the first convict ship to arrive at Port Jackson in New South Wales after the First Fleet. She is therefore sometimes considered as part of the Second Fleet and sometimes not...
.
Curiously no mention of Davey or his work on the Sarah Island convicts is noted at all in Rees' book about James Porter, yet dealing with the same subject.
Fiction
- For the Term of his Natural LifeFor the Term of his Natural LifeFor the Term of His Natural Life, written by Marcus Clarke, was published in the Australian Journal between 1870 and 1872 , appearing as a novel in 1874. It is the best known novelisation of life as a convict in early Australian history...
, Marcus ClarkeMarcus ClarkeMarcus Andrew Hislop Clarke was an Australian novelist and poet, best known for his novel For the Term of his Natural Life.- Biography :... - Gould's Book of FishGould's Book of FishGould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish is a 2001 novel by Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan. Gould's Book of Fish was Flanagan's third novel.-Plot summary:...
, Richard FlanaganRichard FlanaganRichard Flanagan is a novelist from Tasmania, Australia.-Early life:Flanagan was born in Longford, Tasmania, in 1961, the fifth of six children. He is descended from Irish convicts transported to Van Diemen's Land in the 1840s. His father is a survivor of the Burma Death Railway. One of his three...
See also
- Convictism in AustraliaConvictism in AustraliaDuring the late 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government. One of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a penal colony to alleviate pressure on their...
- Convict era of Western Australia
- Port Arthur, TasmaniaPort Arthur, TasmaniaPort Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, in Tasmania, Australia. Port Arthur is one of Australia's most significant heritage areas and the open air museum is officially Tasmania's top tourist attraction. It is located approximately 60 km south east of...
- William Buelow GouldWilliam Buelow GouldWilliam Buelow Gould was an English and Van Diemonian painter. He was transported to Australia as a convict in 1827, after which he would become one of the most important early artists in the colony, despite never really separating himself from his life of crime.Gould's life in Van Diemen's Land...
Further reading
- Robson, L. L. (1983). A History of Tasmania. Volume I. Van Diemen's Land From the Earliest Times to 1855. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-554364-5.
- Robson, L. L. (1991). A History of Tasmania. Volume II. Colony and State From 1856 to the 1980s. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-553031-4.