However, since Port Arthur was one of the few secondary punishment stations operating in the colonies, it still received a large proportion of colonially sentenced men, as well as the old transportees still within the system. The s and s were years of remarkable activity, that aimed to make the station economically sustainable. Expansive tracts of bush were harvested to feed a burgeoning timber industry and large plots of ground were turned over to cultivation.
In the last great project at the site, the Asylum, was also begun. This pulse of energy, however, could not be sustained. The s shuffled into the s and the settlement began to enter its twilight. Numbers of convicts dwindled, those remaining behind were too aged, infirm or insane to be of any use.
The settlement that had hummed with life slowly ground to a standstill. The last convict was shipped out in Throughout its operational life, Port Arthur struggled to reach an economically sustainable level of operation. In an ideal world the product of convict labour would provide the raw and manufactured materials necessary for the ongoing maintenance of the station and its occupants. In some regards Port Arthur managed this, with its flourishing timber industry fuelling building works throughout the Peninsula.
The meat, flour and vegetables necessary for rations would also be sourced from the farms of Port Arthur and the other Peninsula stations. All outstations and probation stations had tracts of land under the plough and hoe, Saltwater River and Safety Cove Farm being some of the biggest agricultural stations opened on the Peninsula. A sheep station and slaughtering establishment in the s greatly furthered output. Yet, despite these clear aims, the main weight of rations during the s and especially the s, had to be shipped down from Hobart.
The introduction of Probation saw the authorities face almost insurmountable problems rationing the convict population, as the population rose from close to , to over by A convict population of this size required over 2. The Port Arthur water-powered flour mill and granary had first been suggested in , with the authorities facing the imminent introduction of probation.
An engineer, Alexander Clark, was brought in to oversee the mill and granary construction, as well as engineer the supply of water to the wheel. It was hoped that a mill and granary sited on the peninsula would supply the wants of the Convict Department, as well as produce surplus for export. The whole undertaking was completed by Comprising a series of dams, millrace, underground aqueduct and overhead water race, getting the water to the 30ft 10m water wheel was a much more complicated undertaking than anybody had envisaged.
The mill and granary building itself was completed in just a year, housing not only a storehouse, wheel and machinery, but also a treadmill capable of taking up to 56 convicts at once. The infrastructure bringing the water to the wheel proved to be too complicated, losing water to seepage and evaporation. The supply of water itself was completely inadequate to feed the wheel.
In the end, the mill only operated in intermittent bursts, quickly using up any store of water accumulated in the dam. Another result of the ageing prisoners was that the profitable convict-driven industries like timber-getting and agriculture took a downturn. Built to a classic cruciform shape, the wings were occupied by dormitories around a central mess hall. The front of the Asylum was trimmed with an open verandah, which fronted onto a large fenced garden replete with paths and ornamental plantings.
In keeping with the era, treatment for the patients, many suffering from depression or mental disability, was rudimentary at best.
Work, though limited, was mainly tending the gardens, or chopping firewood. After closure, the Asylum was severely damaged in the bushfires, after which it has gone through various incarnations as a schoolhouse, town hall and museum. Almost immediately the site was renamed Carnarvon and, during the s, land was parcelled up and put to auction, people taking up residence in and around the old site. Despite devastating fires in and , which destroyed many old buildings and gutted the Penitentiary, Separate Prison and Hospital, the new residents were determined to create for themselves a township.
This led to the creation of new infrastructure, the community gaining such amenities as a post office, cricket club and lawn tennis club. Guiding, the sale of souvenirs and the provision of accommodation provided the experience that the crowds wanted, whilst creating a financial base for the fledgling community, as the tourists opened an outlet for local produce. The original jetty was extended to accommodate the rapidly increasing numbers of tourists.
By the s and s the Port Arthur area had three hotels and two museums, not to mention guides, catering to tourism. Unrelated occupations such as timber-getting and agriculture continued, but were overshadowed in importance by tourism, which, though fluctuating throughout the decades with the cycles of economic boom and bust, and the effects of the world wars, never saw Port Arthur lose its place as a key tourism attraction.
This took the management of Port Arthur out of local hands. Convicts were housed in the Prisoner Barracks archaeological site , the Separate Prison and the Penitentiary. Within the Separate Prison is the Chapel where individual standing berths ensured convicts could only see the Chaplain. The Separate Prison was the place where refractory convicts were subjected to new forms of psychological control.
The four-storey Penitentiary accommodated convicts, in separate cells and in two tiers of sleeping berths in dormitories. Many other elements of the site reflect the operation of the penal station as a major industrial complex.
There are also archaeological remains of workshops, sawpits, a quarry and stone yards, and of Government Farm, where convicts undertook agriculture to sustain the station. The Isle of the Dead contains the convict-era cemetery where around convicts and military and civil staff and their families are buried. All our family history guides might be useful, but some places to start looking include:. All how to pages. All help. Convict records.
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