Tasmania and the final solution down under….
“Our forbears,” a Tasmanian lady named Mrs. Charles Meredith wrote in 1852, “were British farmers and country gentlemen, not usually considered a desperately ferocious and blood-thirsty class.” The myth has since been assiduously propagated that all the early settlers were either cultivated gentlefolk ( ” a natural son, I have always been told, of the Duke of Bigglewade”) or unfortunates transported for trifling social offenses, such as riding the squire’s horse or poaching hares. It is not true. Most of the convicts were genuine criminals, the toughest products of England’s slums and injustices; and the free settlers learned to live with a matter of course with the horrible symptoms of imprisonment.
As the years went by the tone of Tasmanian society grew determinedly respectable, but even in the most idyllic parts of the island they are always conscious of the heritage. The country houses of Tasmania are among the best the British built anywhere in their overseas possessions- stone houses, mostly, in a heavy bud handsome kind of Georgian style, beautifully set in gardens and lawns and often luxuriously shaded by English oaks and chestnuts transplanted from the shires.
Yet, there is always a shadow that passes, a cloud from the past, a reminder that men in chains built these amiable English homes, that prisoners milked the cows in those fresh, white-washed dairies, or plowed those John Constable style fields beside the river, and that small girls and boys from a position of privilege, grew up in the intimate knowledge of whip and manacle. ( to be continued)…
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…On arrival in the Derwent convicts were brought before a board headed by the Superintendent of the Prison Barracks, so that information about previous work experience could be elicited. The administration put a great deal of faith in the quality of this occupational data. Lt-Governor Arthur argued that, ‘The man perceives at once that the officer who is examining him does know something of his history; and not being quite conscious how much of it is known, he reveals, I should think, generally a very fair statement of his past life, apprehensive of being detected in stating what is untrue’. As Arthur implied, the board cross-checked the statement of each convict with the information forwarded from the British Isles. This process was used to identify skilled workers and separate workers into trades. Thus shoemakers and tailors were categorised according to skill (can cut out or can’t) and by area of specialisation, for example: coat; boot; children’s. Special care was paid to the recording of agricultural skills – ability to plough, harrow, sow, mow, milk, thatch, shear, tend various types of livestock, break horses, cultivate hops, castrate lambs, treat scab, navigate ditches and even poach were all regularly listed. Each convict was then stripped to the waist and any distinguishing features were put on file. In an era before fingerprinting and photography, this information was required for identification purposes. The process also had a psychological impact on convicts and was clearly designed to be demeaning. As the American political prisoner William Gates recalled, ‘such a minute description is obtained, that it is utterly hopeless for a prisoner to think of escaping from the infernal clutches of those petty tyrants, that hold such detestable sway in that prison land’.
Once disembarked, male convicts were marched to the Prison Barracks and females to the Cascade Female Factory. There they were kept for a short period while it was determined where they would be deployed. Before 1840 the majority of prisoners were assigned to private individuals. Small numbers were retained to work at public sector tasks including working as clerks, flagellators, overseers, seamen, blacksmiths, masons, bricklayers and carpenters. Contrary to popular perception, convict Van Diemen’s Land was anything but a vast gaol….Read More:http://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/C/Convicts.htm