The roads, bridges, buildings, and civil works which helped to make life easier in a new colony were mainly the work of convicts and had cost the free settlers nothing; the British Government clothed, fed, housed and controlled this large section of the labour force.[2]
How and why did the stigmatization of
convictism in Tasmania manifest itself over the last two centuries?
The system of transportation was one of several repressive responses to the economic and social problems that afflicted British society in the early Nineteenth Century. A combination of industrialisation, increasing population, spiraling food prices and demobilisation at the end of the Napoleonic Wars had led to over-crowded prisons and transportation was the logical solution.[4] The traditional ‘dumping ground theory’ has been challenged by ‘human capital theory’ which informs us that the system was in fact a large-scale forced labour migration scheme, the participants largely being selected on their skills or labour potential to develop the Australasian colonies. Regardless of the exact impetus (or likely combination of them) for colonization of the Australasian continent by the British Empire, between 1803 and 1853 approximately 67, 000 convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland to Tasmania or as it was then known, Van Diemen’s Land. In fact, those transported to Tasmania between 1803 and 1853 represent 45% of all convicts transported to Australia.[5]
The stigma associated with convictism appears based on a reluctance for Australians to accept their convict forbears as moral and productive human beings. But were the convicts concerted members of a criminal class or simply victims of circumstance? L. L. Robson first investigated the demographic character of the convict population sent to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land in his PhD thesis which was later published as a book: The Convict Settlers of Australia. Robson claimed that Van Diemen’s Land was a depository for the worst convicts. He found the average age of the men to be approximately twenty-five years, half of them to be single and two thirds of them transported for some kind of larceny. The nature of the offences differed of course between nationalities as well as urban and rural origins.[6] In his 1972 MA thesis entitled ‘Irish Convicts and Tasmania’, John Williams drew attention to the fact that there's evidence to suggest that during the Irish famine many men were chosen on the basis of their orderliness and were almost entirely, first time offenders.[7] Robson’s own findings concurred with this analysis in that he found Irish male convicts to be older, first time offenders with more lenient sentences.[8]
In contrast, women constituted only
15% of the total number of convicts and the vast majority were domestic
servants mostly convicted for larceny. Female convicts were generally a little older than their male counterparts and at least 20% of them were known prostitutes with long criminal records. Robson observed that if they married, most male emancipated convicts clearly preferred native-born girls to transported women. He probably unfairly described female convicts as ‘indifferent
settlers’ with the Irish component – a full third of their number - being
graded as the ‘best of a bad lot’. Robson’s research and analysis appears to
suggest then that it was female convicts, rather than male convicts, who were
more accurately classified as members of a separate criminal class.[9]
An arguably more balanced assessment by Diane Snowden insists that the majority
of convict women defied the ‘damned whore’ stereotype, despite their
challenges. Punishments were based more on humiliation rather than physical
ordeal. Once emancipated they enjoyed few economic opportunities particularly
after the depression of the 1840s. Many women were also deserted by their
partners during the gold rushes leading to further destitution. One of their
only collective advantages was their scarcity which created demand for their
services as both servants and wives.[10]
John Reynolds once wrote that free
settlers were ‘…never allowed to forget they lived in a penal colony…’.[11]
From 1818, free immigration to the colony began to markedly increase.[12]
Boyce argues it was from this time that the distinctions between free and
convict became more defined in the settler society of the island. Free
immigrants were known to despise and shun their convict counterparts in the
1820s, although they relied heavily on their labour for their economic welfare.
Boyce has argued that this was the beginning of the formation of essentially
two societies: the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land and the free settler
society of Tasmania. In an extension of attitudes to slavery, penal societies
were increasingly seen by the middle class as morally contaminated. This became
a prime motivating factor not only for stigmatization of convicts and the penal
system by the 1840s but also for the organization of the anti-transportation
movement.[13]
The segregation between free and convict burials appears to have intensified
during this period as well. There are in fact eight headstones to be found on
the Isle of the Dead cemetery marking the graves of convicts on both high and
low ground.[14]
However, it was as late as 1845 that the prisoner’s cemetery was established at
the outskirts of the Launceston settlement on Peel Street; this facility went
on to be used for thirty years and was the exclusive site of internment for
about 300 convicts.[15]
There was an evident tension from
the 1840s between the economic reliance on, as opposed to the moral outrage over,
the convict system in Tasmania. Many free settlers had clearly seen the supply
of convict labour as an attractive aspect of migration; following the end of
the assignment system there was a drop in free migration to the point that only
one solitary free migrant is known to have arrived in the colony in 1846![16]
Dan Huon in 1997 argued that it was systematic changes to the transportation
system that alarmed the free middle classes. The Molesworth Report which had criticized
the ‘lottery’ of the assignment system led to the introduction of the probation
station system in the 1840s, which made it mandatory for all (male convicts) to
spend time in hard labour on the roads relative to their sentences. The nature
of the probation stations led to accusations of depravity and Huon argues that
it was this fear of widespread homosexuality more than any other factor that
would ‘stigmatise convictism’.[17]
It seems that moral panic overrode economic concerns: the convict system was
viewed as a being too high a price to pay for the free settlers of Tasmania who
saw the spectre of “Van Diemen’s Land” a threat to the creation of their own
little England. All convicts were now regarded as being a part of a distinct
criminal class, their skills and contribution to the colony now under-valued and
they were commonly disenfranchised in every available sense.[18]
The convict population was a major
demographic factor in Tasmania during the Nineteenth Century. In 1820 of a
total population of 5, 468 people, there were 2, 588 or 47.3% serving convicts
(which discounts the 368 holding tickets of leave, 208 with conditional pardons
and 1, 020 children).[19]
In 1835 the convict population remained 43.6% of the total.[20]
There were still 30, 000 convicts on the island in 1846 including 12, 000
passholders and 10, 000 in work gangs.[21]
The partial emptying of convicts from Van Diemen’s Land to the mainland during
the gold rush period was subsequently welcomed and to some extent even
encouraged by authorities in the colony. This is consistent with their newly
attained collective status as an unwanted criminal class. This exodus was, in turn,
not as well received by the mainland colonies. A report in the Argus in
January 1853 lamented that several hundred serving convicts had escaped from
the island which the editor labelled an ‘execrable felon-dispenser.’ Ironically
the effects of the purge were likely more dire for the island colony: L. S.
Bethell argues that because of this population drain, in subsequent decades the
colony was subsequently ‘dying of inertia.’[22]
The colony of Victoria sought to exclude convicts from emigrating from Van
Diemen’s Land through an 1852 Act. New South Wales also developed a Vagrant Act
which was designed to curb the influx of convicts to that colony but it was
overturned by London. The Victorian law though which placed the onus on
emigrants from Van Diemen’s Land to prove they were free was applied until
1856.[23]
The demographic distortion to the working population necessitated the
introduction of new Bounty regulations which saw 16, 613 arrive between 1851
and 1860.[24] Despite
the increasing influx of free settlers, the residual aging convict population
were seen by the colonial government as a large and unhappy burden. In 1895 it
was estimated by the government that costs would possibly continue until 1916.
The last time the term ‘free by servitude’ appears in the official goal returns
was in 1913.[25]
Following the slow dismantling of
the convict system in Van Diemen’s Land, convicts and emancipists were often
discriminated against by the authorities. There was an increasing level of regulation
evident during this period regarding many freedoms including the issuing of hunting
licenses, taxation on dogs and vagrancy laws; the fact that the wealthy were
rarely prosecuted indicates that this was aimed largely at the convict and
emancipist population. Many convict pastoralists were displaced by free settlers
often with Government support. To keep wages low and the employable pool large
during the 1820s, access to resources for the working class had to be curbed
and this led to the effective end for a time of small land grants. There was an
attempt by the Legislative Council to have emancipists provide proof of their
free status before being allowed to vote. Other various forms of discrimination
that continued to stigmatise convicts either officially or unofficially included
frustrating applications for hotel licenses, placing restrictions on
recruitment to positions in the public service and many more.[26]
When the Board of Education was established in Tasmania in 1838 many members of
the ‘respectable classes’ refused to send their children to institutions
dominated by the children of convicts and elected instead for private options.
The Board of Education’s system was largely directed to benefit the children of
convicts although many struggled to afford the fees even after it was made
compulsory for children between the ages of seven and twelve in 1868.[27]
In 1888-9, approximately 82% of the residents in Launceston Invalid Depot and
its Hobart counterparts were listed as ‘free by servitude’. This is a testimony
to the fact that many found it difficult to secure employment in their
declining years and without a wider support network had to resort to welfare.[28]
The ’free’ society of Tasmania found
it difficult to reconcile itself with the penal past in the century after 1856.
In the protracted search for respectability there was a combination of
officially sanctioned neglect and mutilation of heritage.[29]
The fabric of the past was to also suffer and in 1889 when the government moved
to sell the prison buildings at Port Arthur there was a delegation of largely
local residents and landowners who protested. While those with a vested
interest could see the monetary benefits of maintaining the historical site,
the Minister for Lands, Alfred Thomas Pillinger, refused to be dissuaded
arguing that he saw the decaying site as being full of ‘monuments of disgrace
to the British Empire’.[30]
Indeed, Henry Reynolds related in his famous article on the stigmatization of
convictism that the subsequent fires that devastated the fabric of the Port
Arthur penal station in the 1890s were greeted with widespread positivity.[31]
It is likely that there was more interest and appreciation for the significance
and contribution of the transportation system in the England during this
period. In 1902 the Thames Conservancy was preparing to remove the last prison
barge from the river before the coronation of the new King. Several dignitaries
had reportedly visited to inspect the surviving cells and records in what was described
as ‘a unique museum’.[32]
Regardless of the stigma, in 1927 the Launceston City Council exercised an option to purchase the J. W. Beattie[33] collection: this was made up of hundreds of historical artifacts that had been amassed over several decades.[34] When preparing to integrate the artifacts into a display at the Victoria Museum, curator H. H. Scott[35] had the intention of keeping the sections representing the penal system and that of the free settlers ‘entirely apart.’ Elaborating on his philosophy Scott added:
Many people have the idea, particularly on the mainland, that Tasmania had no history but that which concerned the convict system… We are endeavoring to show them that that is not so. The history of Tasmanian is one thing, and the story of the convicts is another.
When interviewed further about his
plans for the exhibit, Scott betrayed his own narrow attitude to convictism
when he indicated that he had ‘no intention of turning this particular room
into a house of horrors.’[36]
This negative and dismissive attitude towards the convict experience was echoed
by the editor of the Examiner in its appraisal of the exhibition,
emphasizing the only room out of eight which contained no convict relics presented
‘a rather fine glimpse into the lives of the early colonial settlers.’[37]
The apparent inference was that convicts were not settlers, despite a number of
prominent early settlers either being emancipated convicts or their immediate
descendants.[38] This
squeamishness was also reflected in the release of For the Term of his
Natural Life in cinemas that same year: the film included a preceding
statement that the depicted events were all long in the past—despite the fact
that many practices and events involving the transportation system were still
well within living memory.[39]
Attitudes towards convicts and the
convict system appear to have begun to change midway through the Twentieth
Century. This was a gradual process hallmarked by the formation of the Scenery
Preservation Board in 1915, the Tasmanian Society in 1935 and the Tasmanian
Historical Research Association in 1951. The National Trust of Tasmania was
formed in Launceston in 1960 and they introduced a classification system that
was designed to protect and preserve the ‘built environment’.[40]
When announcing a sesquicentenary exhibition at the Queen Victoria Museum in 1954,
Mayor Pitts noted that it would cover all phases of the history of Northern
Tasmanian and Launceston from discovery, through the penal settlements to the
modern day.[41]
Among the items proudly on display were convict uniforms and shackles.[42]
This upsurge of interest and appreciation of the significance of the
transportation system to the development of the state was also increasingly
reflected in the historical literature of the time by writers including G. B.
Lancaster (Edith Joan Lyttleton), Roy Bridges and Bernard Cronin.[43]
Even so, Dan Huon has noted though that many in Tasmania did not learn that
they had convicts in their ancestry until as late as the 1980s![44]
Approximately 67, 000 convicts were transported to Tasmania between 1803 and 1853. The traditional thesis that the convict population were representative of a criminal class seems simplistic and exaggerated. While Robson's classic statistical analysis of the convict population builds a comprehensive demographic portrait, it reveals little about their motivations for crime or fundamental character. While it is clear there was a component of a hardened criminal population amongst both the male and certainly the female prisoners, they were clearly not in the majority. The evidence of their conduct, productivity and subsequent family life following emancipation is at odds with that assessment. Regardless, there is clear evidence that the stigmatization of the convict system began even before the end of transportation and the achievement of self-government in Tasmania. Class distinctions began to take hold with the influx of free settlers into the colony from the 1820s. The restructuring of the convict system in the 1840s led to concerns of ‘vice’ in the probation system and the accompanying moral panic was a driving factor for both the anti-transportation movement and the long-term stigmatization of convictism in Tasmania. Despite significant free immigration, convicts and emancipists remained a significant portion of the colony throughout the Nineteenth Century, naturally declining after the end of transportation in 1853 until the last vestiges passed away in the very early Twentieth Century. Across this period, convicts and emancipists were discriminated against in a plethora of ways both official and unofficial. Their contribution to Tasmania as a result went long unrecognized and heritage associated with them was neglected and often deliberately ignored and even actively erased. Eventually, the stigmatization of convictism in Tasmania began to wane midway through the Twentieth Century because of both an upsurge of interest and appreciation of the past as well as a growing awareness of the economic potential of the physical heritage. When asked if he was descended from convicts one of my ancestors would smile, lift a trouser leg (where one might have had a ball and chain attached) and quip: 'yes, but the marks are worn off now.' Ironically, even in the Nineteenth Century, some people already understood that denying the reality of your own history was ultimately self-defeating...
- Dr. Colin Woollcott Mallett, 21 January 2022 (revised 15 October 2022).
Bibliography
Primary
Sources
Examiner
Mercury
Secondary
Sources
Bethell, L. S. The
Story of Port Dalrymple: Life and Work in Northern Tasmania (Hobart, 1957).
Boyce, J. Van Diemen’s Land (Melbourne, 2009).
Huon, D. ‘By Moral
Means Only: The Origins of the Launceston Anti-Transportation Leagues
1847-1849’ in Tasmanian
Historical Research Association P&P,
44, 2 (June, 1997), p. 118
Lord, R. The
Isle of the Dead, Port Arthur: inscriptions on the headstones and historical
background of the cemetery at the Port Arthur penal establishment, 1830-1877
(Taroona, 1985), p. 2.
Mead, I.
‘Launceston’s Convict Burial Ground’, October 1958, typescript, Convict
Cemetery File, Launceston Local Studies Library.
Reynolds, J. Launceston History of an Australian City
(South Melbourne, 1969).
Reynolds, H. ‘That Hated Stain’ in Tasmanian Historical Studies, Vol. 14 No. 53, pp. 19-31.
Robson, L. L. A
History of Tasmania, Volume II, Colony and State from 1856 to the 1980s
(Melbourne, 1991).
Tasmanian
Family History Society, Tombstones and Memorial Inscriptions of Tasmania,
2nd Edition, (Hobart, 1999).
Townsley,
W. A. Tasmania from Colony to Statehood 1803-1945 (Hobart, 1991).
Online Resources
Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘Census History in
Tasmania’ in The Tasmanian Yearbook 1998. URL: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/7ece045bc4080344ca256c320024164d!OpenDocument
accessed 12 January 2022.
Cassidy, J. ‘Migration’ in The Companion to
Tasmanian History (UTAS, 2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/M/Migration.htm
accessed 17 November 2021.
Female
Convict Research Centre, Convict Institutions, ‘Punishments’. URL: https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-institutions/punishments#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20all%20Crime%20(or%203rd,have%20medical%20or%20hygiene%20objectives accessed 19 January 2022.
Maxwell-Stewart, H. ‘Convicts’ in The Companion to
Tasmanian History (UTAS, 2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/C/Convicts.htm accessed 17 November 2021.
Peterson, S. ‘Prison Hulks’ in Royal Arsenal
History, 2021. URL: https://www.royal-arsenal-history.com/prison-hulks.html
accessed 17 November 2021.
Roe, M. ‘Beattie, John Watt (1859-1930)’
in Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU, 2006-21). URL: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/beattie-john-watt-5171
accessed 17 November 2021.
Scripps, L. & McConnell, A. ‘Heritage
Conservation’ in The Companion to Tasmanian History (UTAS, 2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/H/Heritage%20Conservation.htm
accessed 17 November 2021.
Snowden, D. ‘Female Convicts’ in The
Companion to Tasmanian History (2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/F/Female%20convicts.htm
accessed 19 January 2022.
Sprod, M. ‘Education’ in The Companion to
Tasmanian History (UTAS, 2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/E/Education.htm
accessed 12 January 2022.
Valentine, B. ‘Herbert Hedley Scott’ in The
Companion to Tasmanian History (UTAS, 2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/S/Scott%20HH.htm
accessed 17 November 2021.
Williams, J. ‘Irish Convicts
and Van Diemen’s Land’, unpublished Master’s Thesis (UTAS, 1972). URL: https://eprints.utas.edu.au/21799/1/whole_WilliamsJohn1972_thesis.pdf
[1] James Boyce, Van Diemen’s Land (Melbourne, 2009), pp.
253-358.
[2] John Reynolds, Launceston History of an Australian City
(South Melbourne, 1969), p. 69.
[3] At some point, Blindell’s headstone
was relocated from section E row 31 in Longford Christ Church Anglican to LO05/F0020.
See: Tasmanian Family History Society, Tombstones and Memorial Inscriptions
of Tasmania, 2nd Edition, (Hobart, 1999), p. 673.
[4] Wilfred Asquith Townsley, Tasmania from Colony to Statehood
1803-1945 (Hobart, 1991), p. 7.
[5] Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, ‘Convicts’ in The Companion to Tasmanian
History (2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/C/Convicts.htm accessed 17 November 2021. It is not clear if
this includes those convicts transferred from NSW to Van Diemen’s Land after
arrival.
[6] Leslie Lloyd Robson, The Convict Settlers (Mebourne, 1976),
pp. 134. 143-158.
[7] John Williams, ‘Irish Convicts and Van Diemen’s Land’, unpublished
Master’s Thesis (UTAS, 1972), pp. 69-70. URL: https://eprints.utas.edu.au/21799/1/whole_WilliamsJohn1972_thesis.pdf
[8] Leslie Lloyd Robson, The Convict Settlers, op.cit.,
p. 144.
[9] Leslie Lloyd Robson, The Convict Settlers, op.cit.,
pp. 142-158. This work of course does not cover all convicts as transportation
continued to Western Australia until 1878. While his statistical research was
cutting edge for the time and remains an important source, his meanderings on
the motivations of the convicts for offending are less authoritative as he
comes down as grading them as somewhere between ‘village hampdens’ and
‘ne’er-do-wells from the city slums’, leaning strongly towards the latter in
true dumping ground tradition. In truth within his data set there were no doubt
150, 000 scenarios of offending – although many were likely variations on
several core themes, the primary one being poverty. Perhaps the most
significant element in determining the quality of the convict population were
the shifting grounds for selection?
[10] Diane Snowden, ‘Female Convicts’ in The Companion to Tasmanian
History (2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/F/Female%20convicts.htm
accessed 19 January 2022. Snowden explains that their experience was related but different to
that of male convicts in Van Diemen’s Land, enduring three separate phases:
‘open prison’ (1803-13), ‘assignment’ (1814-1842) and ‘probation’ (1843-53).
Female factories acted as hiring depots and places of incarceration for those
who fell pregnant. The overall demographic ratio of men to women in the colony
in 1820 was 10:3 and remained 7:3 in 1835. Although she does not elaborate,
humiliation included such punishments as head shaving, restricted diets and
iron collars. See also: Female Convict Research Centre, Convict Institutions,
‘Punishments’. URL: https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-institutions/punishments#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20all%20Crime%20(or%203rd,have%20medical%20or%20hygiene%20objectives accessed 19 January 2022. Although
hardly providing a ‘gendered’ analysis, Robson is almost as harsh in his
collective assessment of male convicts.
[11] John Reynolds, op.cit., p. 86.
[12] Wilfred Asquith Townsley, op.cit., p. 7.
[13] James Boyce, op.cit., pp.133, 157-8, 236.
[14] Richard Lord, The Isle of the Dead, Port Arthur: inscriptions on
the headstones and historical background of the cemetery at the Port Arthur
penal establishment, 1830-1877 (Taroona, 1985), p. 2.
[15] Isabella Mead, ‘Launceston’s Convict Burial Ground’, October 1958,
typescript, Convict Cemetery File, Launceston Local Studies Library.
[16] John Reynolds, op.cit., p. 87.
[17] Dan Huon, ‘By Moral Means Only: The Origins of the Launceston
Anti-Transportation Leagues 1847-1849’, THRA P&P, 44, 2 (June,
1997), p. 118 & Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, ‘Convicts’ in The Companion to
Tasmanian History (2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/C/Convicts.htm accessed 17 November 2021.
[18] Henry Reynolds, ‘That Hated Stain’ in Tasmanian Historical Studies, Vol. 14 No. 53, passim.
[19] Wilfred Asquith Townsley, op.cit., p. 8.
[20] Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘Census History in Tasmania’ in The
Tasmanian Yearbook 1998. URL: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/7ece045bc4080344ca256c320024164d!OpenDocument
accessed 12 January 2022.
[21] Wilfred Asquith Townsley, op.cit., p. 61.
[22] Llewelyn Slingsby Bethell, The Story of
Port Dalrymple: Life and Work in Northern Tasmania (Hobart, 1957), p. 54,
137.
[23] James Boyce, op.cit., p.249.
[24] Jill Cassidy, ‘Migration’ in The Companion to Tasmanian History
(2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/M/Migration.htm
accessed 17 November 2021.
[25] Leslie Lloyd Robson, A History of Tasmania, Volume II, Colony
and State from 1856 to the 1980s (Melbourne, 1991), pp. 40 & 307.
[26] James Boyce, op.cit., pp. 152-3, 180-2, 217-8, 242.
[27] Michael Sprod, ‘Education’ in The Companion to Tasmanian History
(2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/E/Education.htm
accessed 12 January 2022.
[28] Leslie Lloyd Robson, A History of Tasmania, op.cit., p. 40.
[29] Leslie Lloyd Robson, A History of Tasmania, op.cit,, p. 72.
Convict records were often a primary target.
[30] Mercury, 7 March 1889, p. 3.
[31] Henry Reynolds, op.cit., passim. Reynolds
notes that the destruction of the penitentiary in Port Arthur in 1897 was in
part seen as being symbolic of a release from the “spell of convictism”.
[32] This ship could have been the Thalia a Juno class corvette
which appears to have been the last of the Woolwich convict hulks that were
moored at the end of Warren Lane. Between 1776 and 1857 these hulks were used
as floating prisons. The Thalia appears to have had several lives and at
the time was a powder hulk used for storing explosives. Examiner 9 May
1902, p. 4. URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/35485670?searchTerm=Victoria%20Museum%20celebrate%20artifacts%20convict%20centenary%20appeal%20penal%20convict
& Steven Peterson, ‘Prison Hulks’ in Royal Arsenal History, 2021.
URL: https://www.royal-arsenal-history.com/prison-hulks.html
both accessed 17 November 2021.
[33] Beattie was a Scottish emigrant who had arrived in Tasmania in 1878
and became a successful photographer and antiquarian. See: Michael Roe,
‘Beattie, John Watt (1859-1930)’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography
(2006-21). URL: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/beattie-john-watt-5171
accessed 17 November 2021.
[34] Examiner, 24 September 1927, p. 9. URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/51441273?searchTerm=Exhibition%20penal%20convict%20Victoria%20Museum
accessed 17 November 2021.
[35] Barbara Valentine, ‘Herbert Henry Scott’ in The Companion to
Tasmanian History (2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/S/Scott%20HH.htm
accessed 17 November 2021.
[36] Examiner, 8 February 1928, p. 8 URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/51461747?searchTerm=Exhibition%20penal%20convict%20Victoria%20Museum
accessed 21 November 2021. This belief concerning the ‘horrors’ of the system ignores
both the reality of the highly regulated system of punishments and the fact
that pre-reformation of the system assignment was the norm: in 1836
there were 53% of male convicts in assignment as opposed to 18% caught at the
harsher end of the system (road gangs, penal colonies etc.). See: Hamish
Maxwell-Stewart, op.cit. URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/C/Convicts.htm accessed 17 November 2021.
[37] Examiner, 12 May 1928, p. 8. URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/51477275?searchTerm=Exhibition%20penal%20convict%20Victoria%20Museum
accessed 21 November 2021.
[38] The descendants of William Field, Thomas Reibey, Richard Dry and
John Fawkner can attest to the truth.
[39] Leslie Lloyd Robson, A History of Tasmania, op.cit., p. 382.
[40] Lindy Scripps & Anne McConnell, ‘Heritage Conservation’ in The
Companion to Tasmanian History (2006). URL: https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/H/Heritage%20Conservation.htm
accessed 17 November 2021.
[41] Examiner, 11 November 1954, p. 26. URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/96382392?searchTerm=Exhibition%20penal%20convict%20Victoria%20Museum
accessed 21 November 2021.
[42] Mercury, 12 November 1954, p. 7. URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27257583?searchTerm=Exhibition%20penal%20convict%20Victoria%20Museum
accessed 21 November 2021.
[43] Leslie Lloyd Robson, A History of Tasmania, op.cit., p. 381.
[44] Dan Huon, op.cit., p. 118. Or perhaps they did not want to
know? I’ve subsequently discovered that I am descended from at least 14
convicts and therefore my children from >24 of them!
Our convict ancestors and their families certainly had it tough, looking at their life from all sides.
ReplyDeleteVery proud to be a descendant!
As am I! They were the true founders of our nation. I think I may have up to 20 convict ancestors in my own tree without counting distant Aunts, Uncles and cousins. I think that's pretty typical for a sixth generation Tasmanian!
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