Port Arthur - South East, Tasmania.
Port Arthur is one of Tasmania’s and Australia’s iconic tourist attractions. Steeped in cruel history it is impossible to visit this place and not feel the presence of those poor incarcerated souls, with approximately one thousand still there today, interred on the Isle Of The Dead.
Port Arthur was established initially in 1830 as a timber cutting base. Its location on the Tasman Peninsula proved an ideal prison site, surrounded by rough and inhospitable seas and with its very narrow isthmus, Eaglehawk Neck, guarded by a chained line of dogs. In 1833, it became a punishment station for repeat offenders from throughout the penal system.
In the harshest of conditions convict labour extracted logs from the surrounding forest to be used on construction sites throughout the colony. Based on the success of the logging the settlement grew, more industries sprang up including shipbuilding, brick-making, boot-making, furniture manufacture, clothing, milling and several outstations were established and managed from Port Arthur for the production of food.
The influx of convicts from New South Wales continued with the greatest period of growth taking place throughout the 1840’s when, at its peak, the prison population is thought to have been around the two thousand mark.
Transportation to Port Arthur ended in 1853 though the site continued to operate as a penitentiary until 1877, by which time more than twelve thousand hapless souls had “done time” there and Port Arthur had gained the reputation of being the harshest of any penal settlement in the whole of the British Empire.
When it finally closed in 1877 many of the buildings were demolished and many others destroyed by bushfire over the years so that what remains today at the Port Arthur Historic Site is only a fraction of what once stood there.
Port Arthur’s convict era is a defining period in Australian history and, like Gallipoli, it’s a place that every Australian should visit at least once.
Sadly, in April 1996, a crazed, lone gunman went on a shooting spree within the grounds of the Historic Site, killing 35 people and adding a second chilling chapter to the history of Port Arthur.
This Tassie Local snapshot was produced by Footloose Photographic & Media Solutions
Things to see around - Port Arthur
Port Arthur - South East, Tasmania
