David W. Cameron - Convict Hell: Macquarie Harbour 1822-1833

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Copyright David W. Cameron

First published 2022

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CONVICT HELL

Macquarie Harbour
1822-1833

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CONVICT HELL

Macquarie Harbour
1822-1833

DAVID W. CAMERON

Early Hobart Town

The penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour is arguably the first of Australias true convict hellholes. Around 1200 convicts served time at the settlement from 1822 to 1833, which is located on the rugged west coast of what was then Van Diemens Land isolated from the settled areas along the eastern and northern coastline. Macquarie Harbour, like Port Arthur which opened just a few years before Macquarie Harbour closed was essentially to be self-funded. Both settlements were largely designed as convict industrial sites, to produce timber, coal, lime, shoes and several other commodities. In doing so, a brutal punitive regime was set in place, to ensure that the convicts soul was crushed as they were pushed through the convict meat-grinders of the British Empire. Indeed, it was the worst of the worst the incorrigibles that were sent to Macquarie Harbour, and then later to Port Arthur; these men, and almost all were men (and boys), were sent there for punishment and to act as cheap labour.

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By 1868, when convicts being sent to Australia ceased, 163,021 convict men, women and children had been sent out from England. When transportation ended in Van Diemens Land in 1853 renamed Tasmania in 1856, in an attempt to remove the convict stain the island had received around 72,500 convicts, representing 44 per cent of all those transported to Australia. Most of the convicts sent to Van Diemens Land were male, numbering around 60,000 or 80 per cent of the convict population on the island. Correspondingly, by the 1840s, 6000 or so Indigenous peoples of the island would be pushed towards extinction.

Van Diemens Land was not occupied just to help alleviate pressures from an expanding convict population in Britain. The British observed that the French were mapping parts of southeastern Australia, so Britain set up a colony on the island to thwart any attempt by their long-standing enemy to establish a claim to the island. In addition, another potential enemy was involved in the economic exploitation of the islands of Bass Strait. American whalers, sealers and traders were on a killing spree and there was real concern that they might turn their attention to the islands extensive timber resources.

In August 1803, in Sydney, Governor Philip King promoted 23-year-old naval lieutenant John Bowen to the rank of commander; he was tasked with establishing the first settlement in Van Diemens Land. Within a month, he had established his settlement of 48 people on the eastern shore of the Derwent River at Risdon Cove. Soon after establishing their camp, they contacted the local Indigenous peoples, almost certainly the Moomairremener, whose country included the eastern shores of the Derwent.

Colonial historian John West wrote in 1852 that on arriving at Risdon Cove, they saw nothing of the Aboriginals except for a lone man armed with a spear who afterwards entered the camp and was cordially greeted. He accepted the trinkets which they offered, but he looked on the novelties scattered about without betraying surprise. By his gestures they inferred that he discharged them from their trespass. He then turned towards the woods, and when they attempted to follow, he placed himself in the attitude of menace, and poised his spear. The next encounter would not be so peaceful.

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Further north, Lieutenant Colonel David Collins had arrived at Port Phillip Bay the future location of Melbourne. He had been sent directly from England with two ships, HMS Calcutta and HMS Ocean, tasked with establishing a settlement on the shores of the bay to further secure Bass Strait, arriving with 308 male convicts who had been taken directly from Englands prison hulks. Collins had been a deputy-judge advocate during the first settlement at Sydney Cove, under Governor Arthur Phillip, and it was this experience that helped him gain his position.

On arriving to Port Phillip Bay, Collins was concerned about the poor soil and lack of timber, and even more worrying was the local Indigenous peoples, who were showing increasing resistance to Collins and the convicts presence, and he was concerned for the safety of the small garrison. With Kings approval, it was agreed that he would relocate to Risdon Cove to take command of the settlement and was nominated with the position of lieutenant governor of Van Diemens Land, arriving at Risdon Cove in February 1804.

The day after arriving, Collins was informed there was a better place for the settlement at Sullivans Cove. This bay was large and deep enough to accommodate a fleet with fresh water and large grasslands.

In 1831, George Robinson who was then appointed the conciliator and emissary to the Aboriginals on the island wrote the recollections of Woorady, an elder of the Nuenonne Clan of Bruny Island, who saw Collins arrive in Sullivans Cove: He saw the first ships come to Van Diemens Land when they settled at Hobart Town, called Niberlooner; that the Py.dar natives speared some white men who landed in a boat, one man in the thigh; that white men went after the natives, the natives see them come but did not run away, saw their guns and said white men carry wood; that by and by white men shoot two blacks dead, when they all became frightened and ran away.