Port Arthur

Today we travelled to Port Arthur, the site of one of Australia’s harshest penal
settlements- Van Diemens land has a worse one in Macquarie Harbour before.
The settlement operated between 1830 and 1877, the same time period that my Great great great grandmother was also a convict in the Cascade Women’s Factory.
Her son-in-law, Matt Higgins was a guard in Hobart gaol in 1877. In 1916 he wrote “The majority of those prisoners were quite harmless, and if one only gave them a kind word they were pleased. Most of them were transported from England, Ireland, and Scotland for very tritling offences, such as shooting a hare or a rabbit on some rich man's land, or a row at a fair, or a brawl in a public house, for which at the present day a light penalty is inflicted. For these offences they were sent out to one of the penal settlements in Australia. It is a mistake to be too severe on prisoners, as it only makes men more hardened and more difficult to reform afterwards. I don’t believe any man could be reformed by cruelty, and very often an act of leniency has a good effect upon them. The prisoners who were removed from Port Arthur did not like the change, as they had more freedom there, and those of industrious habits often saved money that was allowed them for growing vegetables.”
Knowing that family walked the same streets 150 years ago makes Tasmania just a little more interesting.Read more