CosBeauty Magazine #81

Feature
PORT
ARTHUR
Earth’s End For
some
Now set in 40 hectares of
landscaped grounds, Port Arthur
was named after George Arthur,
the Lieutenant Governor of Van
Diemen’s Land.
The settlement started as a
timber station in 1830, but from
1833 it became the punishment
destination for the hardest of
convicted British criminals – those
who had re-offended after their
arrival in Australia.
In addition Port Arthur had some
of the strictest security measures of
the British penal system, including
the infamous ‘Separate Prison’ –
based on a shift from traditional
physical punishment (usually
severe whippings involving several
dozen lashes of the cat-o’-nine-tails
while a prisoner was strapped to a
wooden structure) to psychological
punishment (including wearing
woollen hoods over their
faces whenever outside their solo
cells and being forced to remain
silent at all times).
After several years of total
non-communication, many of the
prisoners psychologically punished
by relocation from the general
prison to isolation in the ‘Separate
Prison’ developed mental illness
due to lack of light and sound as a
result, an asylum
was duly built next door to the
‘Separate Prison’.
The peninsula on which Port
Arthur is located is a naturally
secure site, being surrounded
by water (rumoured by the
administration to be sharkinfested).
The 30m wide isthmus
of Eaglehawk Neck (the only
connection to the mainland) was
fenced and guarded by soldiers, man
traps and half-starved dogs.
Occasionally prisoners did try
to escape. In one famous attempt,
George ‘Billy’ Hunt disguised
himself using a kangaroo hide and
endeavoured to flee across the Neck,
but the half-starved guards on duty
tried to shoot him to supplement
their meagre rations. As the bullets
flew, Hunt threw off his disguise and
surrendered, receiving 150 lashes.
Port Arthur Prison is also the
location of one of Australia’s
earliest novels, 1874’s For The Term
Of His Natural Life by Marcus
Clarke (also made into a film in
1927). It tells the horrendous
story of Rufus Dawes, wrongfully
convicted of a crime and transported
from England to the prison where,
despite numerous attempts, he never
successfully escapes.
98 www.cosbeauty.com.au