More about World Heritage

Another word about that UNESCO World Heritage listing of Woolmers and Brickendon Estates near Longford - and the word, or rather words, I give you are quoted from the actual nomination of the two properties. In other words these are the reasons behind that listing.

"The Estates are representative of the use of penal transportation to expand Britain's geopolitical spheres of influence, and to rehabilitate criminals and integrate them into a distant penal colony." And they (the two properties) are associated with "global developments in the punishment of crime in the 19th century."

That all sounds a long winded way of saying the Brits sent their excess crims to Tas (or Van Diemen's Land as it was then called) because their jails were hopelessly overcrowded. Transportation (which was automatically for life) was also held up as a threat and, supposedly, prevented people in Britain from becoming criminals - though clearly it didn't work that well!

Many so-called 'crimes' were no more than the result of extreme poverty and today would not be considered crimes at all.

There are many fascinating convict stories associated with Woolmers and Brickndon and research is being done to uncover some of their stories. Male convicts lived and worked mainly at Brickendon while the females lived at Woolmers and the two were separated by the Macquarie River (not that the river was a deterrent to them forming 'attachments'!)

Woolmers and Brickendon Estates represent the 'good' or the more positive side of the convict system, because many convicts were able to work toward their eventual freedon. For this reason there are no chains or prison cells to be seen at either estate, though the convict workers were sometimes punished or more frequently simply sent back to the 'factory' if they were disobedient or attempted to escape.

Of course, convicts were a wonderful source of free labour for settlers and thus all the buildings you can see today at both Woolmers and Brickendon (along with many other pastoral properties in Tasmania) were actually built by convict labour.

Port Arthur and other penal settlements are associated with the terrible cruelty that characterised the system - chains and narrow cells giving today's visitors a 'frisson' of horror!

But the fact is only a very small proportion of convicts (less than 10%) were ever sent to Port Arthur, the majority being assigned to work throughout the new colony.

The whole penal system was a complicated one and there were many ideas associated with the system that we find convoluted and often pretty bizarre today.

For example female convicts were considered automatically morally bad as a class and it was regarded as a crime for a female convict to become pregnant. They were then regarded as 'fallen women' and 'useless', though the morals of men were never judged in this way (how, I wonder, did they think women got pregnant in the first place?)

Contradictorily, producing children was seen as a good thing (but preferably only ater marriage) and a way of providing more labour for the new colony.

Amazingly, it was also thought that if payment for work was withheld, this would cause workers to hope for a better life - imagine trying to make that one work today!