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Name
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Port Arthur Penal Settlement
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Type of carceral site
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Penal Settlement
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Dates of use
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1833 – 1877
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Quote
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The Separate Prison embodied Bentham's panopticon, with radiating wings from a central hall, each cell designed to isolate the prisoner.
Government Report.
Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority (PAHSMA). Changes & Continuations: Managing Cultural Heritage at Port Arthur. PAHSMA, 2018, p. 33.
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Emotions aside, I was shocked to see how the architecture and the atmosphere resembled the Manus camp. Like Manus, it was designed as a panopticon, which made the prisoners feel as if they were always under surveillance, no matter whether they were inside their cells or out in the yard, whether they saw the guards or not. Manus followed the same logic, except here the presence of the guards was mostly redundant, and the cameras, which were installed all over the camp, recorded all of us. The technology had advanced, but the idea was the same [...] The convict mentality was not merely a 19th-century phenomenon. It has persisted through Australian history, morphed into many forms of imprisoning, each incarnation more sophisticated, more technologically advanced than the previous one. The convict era is not a thing of the past. It is the essence of Australian history and brushing it aside will leave a big void in our understanding of that history. It is important to confront it, to acknowledge it. Grab the rope it offers and follow its lead into the deepest corners of that history.
Opinion article.
Boochani, Behrouz. "The many incarnations of Australia's convict mentality." The Saturday Paper, 1 Mar. 2024, www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2024/03/01/the-australia-prison. Accessed 20 May 2026.
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The settlement was deliberately constructed on a narrow isthmus (Eaglehawk Neck) so it was geographically carceral, 'a natural prison.' Guard dogs chained across the isthmus created what was known as the 'Dog Line'.
Government Report.
Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority (PAHSMA). Changes & Continuations: Managing Cultural Heritage at Port Arthur. PAHSMA, 2018, p. 22.
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Arthur had fixed upon Tasman's Peninsula - the earring of which we have spoken - as a future convict depot, and naming it Port Arthur, in honour of himself, had sent down Lieutenant Maurice Frere with instructions for Vickers to convey the prisoners of Macquarie Harbour thither.
Novel, Historical Fiction.
Clarke, Marcus. For the Term of His Natural Life. Floating Press, 2014 [1874], p. 100.
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Authority
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British Colonial Authority
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Archives and sources
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Boochani, Behrouz. "The many incarnations of Australia's convict mentality." The Saturday Paper, 1 Mar. 2024, www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2024/03/01/the-australia-prison.
Cameron, P. "Tyereelore and Straitsmen : the true story of Tasmanian Aboriginal survival." Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, vol. 155, no. 1, 2021, pp. 9-18, https://doi.org/10.26749/rstpp.155.1.9. Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority (PAHSMA).
Clarke, Marcus. For the Term of His Natural Life. 1874. Floating Press, 2014.
Cleland, J. Burton. "Morbidity and Mortality in the Convict Settlement at Port Arthur, Tasmania, from 1830 to 1835." Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 2, no. 12, Sept. 1932, pp. 347-350.
Frederkick, Ursula K. "The Bad and the Beautiful: An artist's encounter with the image of Port Arthur, Tasmania." Landscape Research, vol. 46, no. 3, 2018, pp. 341-361, https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2020.1837090.
Gibbs, Martin, and Richard Tuffin. "Carceral Time at Port Arthur and the Tasman Peninsula: An Archaeological View of the Mechanisms of Convict Time Management in a Nineteenth Century Penal Landscape." International Journal of Historical Archaeology, vol. 28, no. 3, 2024, pp. 856-881, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-024-00734-w.
Marshall, Louis. "A Benign Institution?: Convict Health, Living Conditions, and Labour Management at Port Arthur Penal Station, 1868-1870." Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 18, Jan. 2016, pp. 65-94.
National Library of Australia (NLA).
Petrow, Stefan. "Policing in a Penal Colony: Governor Arthur's Police System in Van Diemen's Land, 1826–1836." Law and History Review, vol. 18, no. 2, Summer 2000, pp. 351-396, https://doi.org/10.2307/744299.
Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority. Port Arthur Historic Site Fact Sheet. Port Arthur Historic Sites, 2015.
Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office (TAHO).
University of Tasmania Special Collections.
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Contact
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Kieren
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identifier
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SITE-PA
