Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The West Coast of Tasmania has a significant convict heritage. The use of the West Coast 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. The entrance to Macquarie Harbour was known as Hells Gates and the play on this name has travelled from naming in the 1830s through to Paul Collin's book published in 2002.
Convict parties utilised the landscape surrounding the harbour as a work area, this also extended into the Gordon River. The physical reality was no more than 15 years, but the long term effects on the imagination have spawned a significant literature.
Contents |
[edit] Physical Heritage
Most physical relics of the convict era were either abandoned or lost on the west coast. Sarah Island was, according to some stories, vandalised for building materials to use in the early days of the mining communities in the 1890s. But there are sufficient materials left to give the guided tours of the island adequate evidence of the past
Along the banks of the rivers or the harbour at different times in the twentieth century piners discovered convict era items in their activities.
[edit] The Frederick
The ship The Frederick was a ship that was stolen by a group of convicts in 1834 from Sarah Island has inspired a number of books and a play.
The Ship that Never Was, by the Round Earth Theatre Company, at the Strahan Visitor Centre, in Strahan - has been a long running play to do with a successful escape, conducted since 1984. The author is Richard Davey who as a descendant of Governor Davey has worked on Sarah Island as a guide and researcher. Offshoots of his research include his book The Sarah Island Conspiracies - Being an account of twelve voyages to Macquarie Harbour and Sarah Island (Hobart, 2002) as well as two pamphlets - a programme - narrative of the story that the play was based, and a guided tour booklet - Sarah Island - The People, Ships and shipwrights - a guided tour. Reference to Davey is made in Collins' 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).
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.
[edit] Fiction
- Marcus Clarke For the Term of his Natural Life
- Richard Flanagan Gould's Book of Fish
[edit] Bibliography
- Butler, Richard. The Men That God Forgot. London,1977 ISBN 0-552-10469-8
- Brand, Ian. Sarah Island Penal Settlements 1822-1833 and 1846-1847. Launceston,1984. ISBN 0-949457-31-0
- Collins, Paul. Hell's Gates/ The terrible journey of Alexander Pearce, Van Dieman's Land cannibal. South Yarra, 2002. ISBN 1-74064-083-7
- Davey, Richard Innes. The Sarah Island Conspiracies. Hobart, 2002. ISBN 0-9750051-0-3
- Flanagan, Richard. Gould's Book of Fish Sydney, 2001. ISBN 0-330-36378-6
- Julen, Hans. The Penal Settlement of Macquarie Harbour Launceston, 1976. ISBN 0-9599207-3-0
- Lees, Sian. The Ship Thieves Sydney, 2006. 2nd edition. ISBN 13-978-0-733620-81-2
- Pearn, John. Sarah Island/The infamous prison island in Macquarie Harbour, Van Dieman's Land. Chapter 1 of:
- Pearn, John and Carter, Peggy. Editors. Islands of Incarceration/ Convict and Quarantine Islands of the Australian Coast by Seven Authors. Brisbane, 1995. ISBN 0-86776-599-2
- Pink, Kerry.G. Through Hells Gates/ A History of Strahan and Macquarie Harbour. Strahan, 1984. ISBN 0-646-36665-3 Chapter 3: Macquarie Harbour: Convicts' Hell
- Whitham, Charles. Western Tasmania - A land of riches and beauty, Reprint 2003, Queenstown: Municipality of Queenstown. ISBN 09591281.
- notably the 'Account of Macquarie Harbour' by T.G. Lempriere from the Tasmanian Journal of natural Science of 1842-6 on pages 39-46
