Convict Guide - published 2006 - Manual / Resource - Page 159
Guide to New South Wales State archives relating to convicts and convict administration
Chapter 13: Penal Settlements
13.1
Background to the records
Places of
punishment for
secondary offences
Penal settlements were intended as places of incarceration and
punishment for convicts who committed serious offences after reaching
New South Wales. They provided the 'most severe "secondary"
punishment (short of execution) to be inflicted on convicts'. (Australian
Encyclopaedia, 4th ed., vol. 3, p.49). Governor Brisbane also viewed
their establishment as 'the best means of paving the way for the
introduction of free population ....'. (HRA vol. 11, p.604).
During the 1820s penal settlements were used as a means of making
transportation more of a deterrent. They came under the control of
'military detachments which had no interest in penal discipline and
firmly wished themselves elsewhere'. (Hirst, Convict Society, p.92).
Governor Darling introduced detailed regulations for their management
and tightened up conditions considerably. (Fletcher, Ralph Darling,
pp.103-7). This was particularly the case on Norfolk Island, which,
under his administration and even more so under Governor Bourke,
acquired a reputation for extreme harshness and severity. Women were
forbidden to go there and stories of brutality abounded.
Secondary offenders
also placed in the
iron’d gangs
'Considerably fewer than 10 per cent of prisoners transported ever saw
the inside of a penal settlement and many who did so were there only
for short periods'. (Australian Encyclopaedia, 4th ed., vol. 3, p.49).
Darling believed that many of those sent to these settlements would be
more productively employed elsewhere. He placed large numbers of
secondary offenders in the iron'd gangs which he used to construct
roads leading from Sydney. A.G.L. Shaw estimated that in 1836, '8 per
cent of male convicts in New South Wales were in a chain gang or on
Norfolk Island'. (Shaw, Convicts and the Colonies, p.216). The gangs
were used to prevent convicts from escaping. Despite their use a
number did escape, some becoming bushrangers.
Newcastle penal
settlement opened
in 1804
In 1801 Governor King established a small settlement of soldiers and
convicts to mine coal at Coal River. It was abandoned in 1802, but in
March 1804 Newcastle was opened as a place of punishment for 34 Irish
convicts who had taken part in the Castle Hill rebellion and was placed
under the command of Lieutenant Menzies. (HRA vol. 4, p.597).
Newcastle became the principal place of secondary punishment from
1804 to 1824 and the convicts sent there were employed in coal mining,
cedar getting and lime burning.
Newcastle
proclaimed a free
settlement in 1823
In 1820, after the discovery of land routes from the Hawkesbury
increased the likelihood of convicts escaping and free settlers arriving,
Macquarie proposed to remove the penal settlement and open the
district to private settlement. (HRA vol. 10, p.43). It was not until 1823,
after Governor Brisbane had arrived, that the convicts were sent to Port
Macquarie and Newcastle was proclaimed a free settlement. (Australian
Encyclopaedia, 4th ed., vol. 3, p.122). Convicts continued to be
employed in the mines for some time.
Isolation of Port
Macquarie was ideal
for penal settlement
In 1820 Governor Macquarie had written to London explaining that if
many more convicts were transported he would find it difficult to employ
them. He explained that the government gangs 'cannot with due regard
to their care and superintendence be much more increased'. Under
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State Records Authority of New South Wales