Mutiny at Deloraine: Ganging and Convict Resistance
in 1840s Van Diemen’s Land.

Tom Dunning and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart

An incident of alleged animal maiming occurred in October 1845. In this article we attempt firstly to explain why and how it happened. Secondly, we try to discover the conflicting meanings that various contemporaries gave to this occurrence. We believe that the explanation of the event lies in the nature of ganged labour employed at Deloraine and the complex relationships that existed in 1845 between this ganged labour and the convict administration. Equally important to this complex social interaction are the various meanings given to this episode. The most available representations are of those of middle-class moralists. More difficult to reveal is the oppositional significance attributed to this event by the convicts themselves as they attempted to resist both the practices of the convict administration and the moral justifications for these practices.

ABSCONDERS - On Friday twenty-one men were sentenced by the visiting magistrate at Deloraine, for mutiny, to various terms of imprisonment, in the whole amounting to twenty-two years addition to their original sentences. This being deemed by these gentleman as derogatory to their happiness, they immediately knocked down a cow that was grazing quietly near the station, with their stone hammers, and being rather in a hurry, they cut some beef-steaks off one side, leaving the unfortunate beast to be relieved of the flesh on the opposite side when she was dead, as after that barbarous treatment she remained alive for some hours.1
This is how a gang strike and subsequent bushranging out-break at Deloraine probation station in October 1845 was reported in the Launceston Examiner. In the same issue the editor published a letter from 'A Voice from the Bush' entitled PROBATIONERS which provided a second account of the outbreak.	1
that twenty-four probationers have absconded from Deloraine, who have armed themselves by robbing several houses, and are at this moment holding the neighbourhood in perfect terror. If a prompt alteration does not take place, property will be valueless. It is reported on good authority, that these men have cut steaks out of a live bullock, following the Abyssinian method I suppose Bruce's travels being one of the diverting story books supplied to stations under this farcical system2
Three days later another account appeared in the Cornwall Chronicle under the banner BUSHRANGERS.
they met with a bullock that belonged to a drove which was coming to town, but being lamed, had laid down near the road: the fiends literally cut off one of the thighs of the poor beast while alive, and then made off, it was afterwards shot by the District Constable. It was generally reported on Sunday that Deloraine was to be taken by storm the same night, and the inhabitants were obliged to arm, and watch for the attack, but the timely interference of the military and constables, which is beyond all praise, prevented the intended outrage.3
All three reports of the Deloraine uprising picture a barbaric and wanton attack on a defenceless animal to portray the mutineers as savages and 'fiends'. The collective nature of the protest is undermined by irony. The Launceston Examiner referred to the absconders as a 'gang of pets.' A complex metaphor that was employed on the one hand as a dig at the Government, the irresponsible pet owner, while reducing the actions of the convicts to the level of bestial passion. This is an image which was made even more explicit by a reference in the next line to an attack by the probationers on a settler's house where 'they stripped everything that could be removed, taking liberties with the man's wife' [emphasis added].4
There are also, however, a number of differences between the three accounts. According to the Chronicle the District Constable put the wounded beast out of its misery and the community was saved by the quick thinking and diligence of the police and military. In the Examiner's version the cow was left to bleed to death by the same official who scurried into Deloraine to hide while the military were ordered to protect the magistrate and police office at Westbury. The 'Voice from the Bush' implied that it was the liberal regime of the Convict Department that was ultimately to blame for the fate of the bullock. In all three accounts the maiming of the cow assumes symbolic status heralding either praise or condemnation for the system. It should come as little surprise, therefore, that in the only surviving convict account of the event that the details should again differ.	2
Writing of his experiences in a probationary gang at Brown's River, the American convict, Daniel Heustis, recalled a run in with the visiting magistrate Captain J.B. Jones. One Saturday afternoon, a time when prisoners were exempt from Government labour, he and his fellow convicts had built a kitchen for one of the assistant-superintendents. As a reward each man was given a sheep's head which they duly boiled for their Sunday dinner. When Captain Jones got wind of what had happened, he dismissed the assistant superintendent and warned the prisoners that he had a good mind to sentence them to an additional year's probation on the road for receiving the present. As Heustis recollected, 'Jones was a hard-hearted and tyrannical man' who he and his fellow prisoners had every reason to believe would implement his threats for 'we witnessed a specimen of his conduct, on one occasion, which assured us that he would not hesitate in the commission of any act of barbarity'. In his words:	3
A working ox, which had broken its leg, was knocked in the head by the teamster, its hide taken off, and the carcass left near the place where the prisoners were at work. About forty of the English convicts cut off pieces of meat from this ox, which they roasted over a fire where their dinner was cooking. For this offence, all of them were sentenced to an additional term of probation, varying from one to two years, and some were sent to Port Arthur to work out this sentence.5
Although there are many discrepancies between the story as retold by Heustis and the accounts published in the Launceston Examiner and the Cornwall Chronicle there can be little doubt that they refer to the same event. Heustis account accurately identifies the visiting magistrate, J.B. Jones. Other details of his version of the story also tally with the account reported in the Chronicle . Both agree that the bullock or ox was lame and had been left on the side of the road—although, in the newspaper report, the animal was still alive when it had its unfortunate encounter with the rampaging gang of escapees. What is startlingly different, is not the discrepancy in the sequence of events, but that the point of Heustis' account is to highlight the barbarity of the British convict regime.	4
Newspaper accounts of the Supreme Court trial only serve to complicate the issue. Although the 21 absconders were put on trial for raiding the homes of several local settlers, no mention at all was made of the assault on the cow. Recaptured, the absconders now represented little threat, and the earlier hostile reporting of the press was replaced by a more sympathetic hearing. The mutineers were described, not as fiends, but as mere boys.6 The summing up of the judge was quoted at length revealing that, contrary to earlier reporting of the case, the mutineers 'had resorted to no great personal violence'. Indeed, there now appeared to be 'some ground of excuse' for their actions and the judge recommended that the operation of Deloraine Probation Station 'should be made the subject of future enquiry'.	5
Details of the events which led to the mass outbreak also emerged in court. The trouble started when three members of the gang absconded taking with them a sizeable proportion of the third-class ration. Accusing the remaining prisoners of having connived at 'abstraction' of the rations, the station superintendent refused to make good the shortfall. The ganged convicts protested that, far from aiding the escape attempt, they had been prevented from apprehending the runaways by their overseer who had shouted 'let them go, they ll soon be taken again'.7 Deprived of their full allowance the third-class gang lay down their tools and refused to work. Faced with a gang strike, the superintendent called in the visiting magistrate and the two proceeded to punish every man with an extension of their period of probation of between three and six months. The prisoners were also put on half rations, although this additional punishment was never entered on their conduct sheets.8 After receiving their sentences the gang again withdrew its labour, this time through a mass absconding.	6
After their assault on the cow, the prisoners raided the properties of several neighbouring settlers, taking money, tobacco, clothing, firearms, powder and shot. The mutiny had now transformed into Tasmania's largest bushranging outbreak and the absconders were clearly in no mood for a compromise. When intercepted by the settler, Thomas Limeburner, they threatened to 'blow the roof of his b[lood]y head off'. As the troops and armed constables were called out, the absconders split into two groups. Eventually they appear to have lost their resolve for an outright confrontation and abandoned their firearms shortly before being apprehended.9	7
The principal witness at their subsequent trial was Mrs Limeburner who, after identifying the men who had been armed at the time of the robbery, admitted in court that she was severely short-sighted. When asked to approach the dock and repeat her evidence, she identified a different set of prisoners, the accused having in the meantime swapped places.10 In the event the jury convicted 12 men who were wearing clothing seized in the raid on the Limeburners at the time they were apprehended. Isaac Comer was subsequently convicted on a separate charge together with Joseph Bishop, Michael Collins and Patrick Riley, who were identified as ringleaders.11 Thus, while eight of the original 21 were acquitted and returned to hard labour on the roads, the remainder were sentenced to death, commuted to life transportation with a recommendation that at least four years should be served at Norfolk Island, although some were sent to Port Arthur. The incident thus ended, much as it had started, with a certain degree of farce.	8
Sandwiched between the hyperbole and conflicting reports, the newspaper accounts of the incident provide a tantalising glimpse of the political economy of ganged life in probationary Van Diemen's Land. While there is a growing body of work on convict resistance in Eastern Australia comparatively little attention has been paid to the forces which shaped relations between ganged convicts and their administrators.12 This is particularly true when it comes to discussions of collective action. In his seminal article on convict resistance, Alan Atkinson argued that, as convict lives were so heavily regulated, there was little opportunity for what he termed that 'type of mutual adjustment and joint action which marks for group consciousness'. Arguing against the emphasis placed by Russell Ward on 'outback manners and mores', Atkinson suggested that collective action was more likely to occur, not on the frontiers of settlement, but in those areas which had been settled for a number of years where a notion of rights had evolved as a result of protracted negotiations over a number of years.13 Others have argued that convict collective protests were organised around a principle of moral economy, part of the cultural baggage imported into Australia by the process of transportation.14 One purpose of this article is to employ an analysis of the political economy of ganging on the Westbury Deloraine road in the mid-1840s to explore these arguments.	9
The probation system was introduced by a reluctant Governor Franklin in 1839 in an attempt to nullify persistent criticism of convict assignment, which was condemned because its partnership with the private sector smacked of slavery. From mid-1839 onwards all convicts who arrived in Van Diemen's Land had to perform a period of probationary labour. Although the rhetoric behind the new system was that it represented a break with past practices, most of the rules and regulations governing the organisation of the new probationary gangs were cobbled together from existing instructions which had governed the operation of ganged punishment labour during the period of assignment. Having served their 'probation', convicts were transferred to hiring depots where they could be rented out to private individuals in return for a wage the value of which was to be regulated by government.15	10
The station at Deloraine was constructed in order to assist in the opening up of the country between Westbury and the Van Diemen's Land Company agricultural settlement centred on Circular Head.16 The establishment of the station was also backed by many local settlers who lobbied the colonial government for labour to complete the road linking the frontier settlements with Westbury, Longford, Perth and Launceston. In fact the station at Deloraine was largely paid for by private interests.17 By June 1845 the establishment consisted of one superintendent, three assistant superintendents, a medical officer and dispenser, a protestant religious instructor, three overseers, and a storekeeper, plus 304 convicts.18 The superintendent was instructed to report to the visiting magistrate based in Westbury who in turn was responsible to the comptroller general of convicts. The 304 convicts were divided between three probationary classes. Each class was further subdivided into messes of ten men headed by a mess captain.	11
Newly arrived convicts were supposed to labour in the third-class gang until they earned promotion to less demanding work through good behaviour.19 The period of probationary labour to be served was fixed at 12-18 months for those sentenced to seven years transportation, 18-24 months for those sentenced to 10 or 14 years transportation, and over two years for lifers.20 In effect the system of probationary labour was designed to operate as a moral barometer where the good would rise through the ranks to freedom and the wicked sink, via chain gangs and penal stations, to the gallows and oblivion.21 To quote from the official instructions issued by the Convict Department in October 1843:	12
The principle of the whole scheme of convict discipline, as laid down by Her Majesty's Government, is that of a very formidable punishment at the commencement, gradually relaxing in severity with the lapse of time; each successive mitigation being expedited by good conduct, or retarded by ill behaviour. The pivot of the whole plan is that part of the system which is described as the probation gangs; a stage through which all must pass,-- in which all must be observed, known, and closely superintended, ... a stage from which all will be anxious to emerge, and to which the most incorrigible and refractory may be sent back, --a punishment the most easily inflicted, and as it may be anticipated, the most formidable and effective!22
The promotion and demotion criteria operated by probation station superintendents and religious instructors leave little doubt that the object of the exercise was to shape a diligent and docile workforce which could be hired out to the private sector. Each station was issued with forms which were used to score convicts on a monthly basis. The cards were printed with the following favourable categories: 'clever, well informed, cheerful, contented, simple, cleanly, obedient, industrious, faithful'. Unfavourable categories were listed as: 'ignorant, stupid, revengeful, hardened, sullen, cunning, thievish, restless, dirty, disobedient, idle.'23	13
An important aspect of the system was the separation of the convicts into classes. They were to be set to work at different tasks and accommodated, fed and mustered out in different yards, which at Deloraine were separated by a high wooden palisade.24 Communication between the various classes was strictly forbidden. Indeed, John Donovon, one of the 21 mutineers, was punished with ten days solitary while stationed at Deloraine for 'Misconduct in communicating with the 1 st Class'.25	14
In August 1844 the first class was employed in the vicinity of Deloraine breaking stones for road metalling, and cutting drains. The second class were marched out each day to work on a section of the Westbury Deloraine road near the end of the intersection with Mrs Horne's lane, while the third class were ordered to start work on the road from the end of Mr Rooke's lane. The plan was to insure that while each class was physically separated, they were employed in a line strung out across the country.26	15
This line was far more than a geographical landmark. It was also a physical embodiment of the principal of reward and punishment that underpinned the operation of the probation system. Thus, the convicts in the first class were stationed close to the probation station. They had the least distance to travel to the works in the morning. On the other hand, the third class were ordered to commence work at a location which was so far removed from the station that they were accommodated in a temporary sod hut at the end of Mr Field's paddock. While the first-class convicts were supposed to perform similar work to the other two, it is apparent that many actually worked constructing buildings in the township, working in the gardens around the probation station, and making pots and repairing tools and other station infra-structure. Other convicts were also employed as servants for the officials, as bakers, cooks, shoemakers, washermen and wardsmen.27 These men were supposed to be drawn from amongst the best-behaved convicts. One of the principal allegations which had been levelled at the operation of the assignment system was that it tended to favour convicts whose skills were in demand.28 The rules governing the operation of probation specifically warned against the practise of favouring skilled convicts:	16
Nothing can be more contrary to the dictates of justice and of sound policy, than allowing men on account of their previous acquirements to escape the severity of labour which their fellow convicts of less capacity, although not of greater guilt are enduring. A principle invariably to be acted upon will be, that the character and conduct of the convicts, and not their ingenuity alone, are to be determine the kind of labour to be allotted them; those who manifest a bad or restless disposition, being always employed upon that which is most irksome.29
The problem with the rules, however, was that they were in conflict with each other. Any convict set to work at a task with which they were unfamiliar would appear 'ignorant' and 'stupid' in comparison to their more skilled colleagues who would appear 'clever, well informed' and 'industrious'. Moreover, as the literature on workplace coercion and incentives has stressed, it makes sense to coerce large bodies of workers engaged in simple manual tasks and reward those working on their own or in small teams on complex exercises involving expensive equipment and materials.30 Thus, despite official stipulations to the contrary, the net effect of the system was that those engaged in ganged work were more likely to be hauled up in front of the magistrates bench if for no other reason than that they were under the constant gaze of their overseer. At best this would merely confirm that they were 'sullen, disobedient' and 'idle'.	17
That much of the work completed by probation gangs required the input of considerable skill only compounded the problem. For example, in 1844 the bridge over the Meander River was washed away. The replacement structure was especially designed to withstand the impact of future floods. It had pigsty piers and diamond shaped chock and log enclosures.31 This was an engineering feat that clearly required the use of considerable skill. As with the operation of the old assignment system, it was easier for convict mechanics to rise through the ranks than those who had little to contribute other than coordinated muscle power.	18
The different ways in which ganged and non-ganged prisoners were managed had widespread implications. Ganged prisoners were regimented in ways experienced by few other nineteenth century workers. The system was designed to strip convicts of their identity. Regulated by disciplinary knowledge, the individual convict was reduced to a number in a surveillance register. At work they moved as part of a mass and were referred to collectively: 'the third-class men'; the 'party stationed in Mr Field's paddock', 'Mr MacKinnon's gang', or the 'Port Arthur centipede'. This de-individualising process was accentuated through the issue of uniform grey slops and the regular cropping of hair.32 The bodies of ganged men were thus re-fashioned by the state into what Thomas Laqueur has called 'objects of administration'.33 While the work they performed shaped the physical landscape, in the process their own bodies were welded into a corporeal landscape on which the products of convictism were inscribed.34 In short, ganged men were forced to function not as individual bodies, but as bodies of men. James Ross's account of a timber-carrying gang at Port Arthur, popularly known as a centipede, provides a vivid description of this process in action.	19
As the centipede moved along, and the truth flashed upon the mind, that it was a collection of human beings performing that expiation of crimes against their country which its laws were exacting, it seemed as if the strangest lesson that could be compulsorily given upon erring men — this log seemed the weight of evil consequent upon it, which they were called upon to unite in resisting.35
Thus the effect of ganged labour ran far deeper than the cuts of the lash. The gang became an object, to be preached at, ordered out, mustered in, fed, clothed, audited. The effects of this were quite striking. As one master told the Molesworth committee, he preferred not to employ men from the road parties for they were no good at farm work being wound up like machines. 36	20
In contrast to the mechanical cohesion of the gangs, the command structure at Deloraine probation station was in disarray in the mid-1840s. The trouble started in early 1845. Assistant Superintendent MacKinnon was sick. In order to avoid working in the field, he asked Mr. Horsham, an overseer, to take over his duties as supervisor of the second-class party out on the road until his health was restored. Syme and the other overseers took it in turns to monitor the third-class gang, stationed at the sod hut in Mr Field's paddock. Horsham refused and the dispute was brought to the notice of Superintendent Pineo. Pineo not only supported Horsham, but decided to suspend MacKinnon from duty on the grounds that, if he was fit enough to report for station work, he was fit enough to labour in the field. MacKinnon retaliated by lodging an official complaint. The chief police magistrate, Matthew Forster, instructed the local visiting magistrate, J.B. Jones, to inquire into the matter. The ensuing report exonerated MacKinnon. Pineo was furious. He claimed that Jones and MacKinnon were in league and he accused the visiting magistrate of 'caballing with disobedient officers—the two men had apparently been seen out riding together.37 The matter was brought again before Forster who disciplined MacKinnon for insubordination to a superior officer, but also rebuked Pineo for mishandling the situation.	21
In the following months, J.B. Jones issued a series of damning reports into the state of the stores and discipline at Deloraine, and he succeeded in getting Pineo removed to Westbury hiring depot. Pineo retaliated by calling on his friends in high places. He petitioned the Secretary of State, Lord Stanley, making a number of accusations against Jones. (Pineo had been awarded the job of station superintendent through his political connections in London). The case was reported to Administrator La Trobe who ruled that Pineo was incapable of performing his professional duties. Out of sympathy for his advanced age and because of the 'circumstances under which he was led to come out from England with his family', it was decided that he should be granted a free passage home.38	22
It is the inconsistencies that emerge from this list of charge and counter charge which are of most interest. Visiting Magistrate Jones accused Pineo of being too harsh on his convict charges. He produced comparative statistics of punishments awarded at Deloraine and Westbury to back up his case. According to Jones statistics, in the period from 1 June 1844 to 31 May 1845, Pineo had awarded 310 punishments at an average of 0.84 committals per man under his charge. In contrast Captain Blackford at Westbury hiring depot who over a slightly longer period awarded 208 punishments at an average of 0.49.39	23
Overseer Syme, the man who had been in charge of the third-class prisoners in the sod hut at the end of Mr Fields Paddock, later published an account of his experiences at Deloraine. Although he was no supporter of Pineo, Syme blamed the lax rule of his replacement at Deloraine for the catastrophic collapse of discipline which led to the mass absconding of October 1845 and the destruction of the cow.40 Pineo concurred pointing out that the mutiny, and mass absconding had occurred after he had been transferred to Westbury. An obviously embarrassed Jones wrote to the Comptroller General to inform him that there had been no break out, this despite the fact that 21 convicts were about to stand trial in Launceston for the offence.	24
Finally, in an effort to enforce upon his readers that he at least was a good upstanding Victorian citizen, Syme reported that while at Deloraine he had taken the men to 'the Western River every Sunday after breakfast to bathe, and every attention to cleanliness was observed.'41 The problem with this account is that it is directly contradicted by J.B. Jones report on the state of the soap, for it transpires that, although the contractor was paid for and delivered 617 lbs of soap to Mr Savage, the storekeeper at Deloraine probation station, the latter was never issued to the convicts. As Jones was quick to point out, throughout 1845 cleanliness at Deloraine probation station left something to be desired.42	25
Not only was the chain of command at Deloraine fractured, but also many of the officers were compromised in their dealings with mechanics. Convict labour was necessary in order to accomplish tasks and where this involved skilled labour that labour came at a price. As the Rev. William Ullathorne informed the Molesworth Committee, 'when the men find that they are under constraint, and that they receive no wages in return for their work, they very soon get the idea into their minds, it is astonishing how quickly they get that idea that they are entitled to pilfer from their masters the amount of what their wages would be at home.'43 This placed masters and junior officials in a difficult position. If they prosecuted then they risked losing valuable workers and tasks would not be completed on time. George Hobler probably spoke for many managers when he complained that, although the example of one of his convicts would 'spoil a regiment', the 'fellow can work and therefore must not hastily be thrown up'.44 As part of this process, convicts in promoted positions regularly struck deals with officers that invariably resulted in the defrauding of the Government.	26
The buildings at Deloraine probation station were described in the 1847 La Trobe Report as 'bad' with the exception of the Superintendent's residence.45 Pineo constructed the one good building for his own accommodation. Having a fancy for blackwood, he had ordered a team of sawyers to cut this article. This took them some distance from the station. Working on their own recognisance, the prisoners cut more timber than was required for the construction of the cottage, selling the surplus to neighbouring settlers.46 Convict narratives from the period are rife with similar examples. Thus, Superintendent Wright of Green Ponds probation station sent two Canadian Exiles, Solomon Reynolds and Thomas Baker, out to cut timber. In the knowledge that Wright intended to sell the timber to neighbouring settlers for personal gain, the two sold their government saw and axes.47	27
As the last example illustrates these opportunities to make a buck on the side were also responsible for forging complex relationships between convicts in class one and their commanding officers. Thus, Wright did not prosecute Reynolds and Baker since to do so would have only resulted in unwarranted scrutiny of his own clandestine activities. Similarly, since Pineo had no official sanction for the new cottage constructed at Westbury, he was hardly in a strong position to lodge a complaint against the conduct of his mechanics. As each probation station contained, in addition to mechanics, sub-overseers, watchmen, cooks, store porters, shoemakers, school teachers, clerks and officer's servants, all drawn from the ranks of the prison population, many such relationships emerged.	28
The implications of this are important. If the first-class prisoners located nearest to Deloraine were disproportionately engaged in jobs, which provided them with opportunities to ameliorate their condition, the converse was true at the opposite end of the line. Indeed, everything that filtered down to the second and third-class gangs had already passed through a number of hands starting, with the commissariat store in Launceston. At Westbury, 'the inattentive mode adopted in the issue of the provisions, that duty being performed by the men employed as cooks and porters' lead to a great deal of pilfering.48 But, this was perhaps hardly surprising in a system where even the superintendent had become embroiled in the black market economy. At both Deloraine and Westbury, Superintendent Pineo struck a deal with the storekeepers whereby he received a cash payment in lieu of the extra rations his rank entitled him to. Not only was this practice contrary to the Convict Department rules and regulations, but when the stores were audited, it was discovered that the undrawn rations had never been credited to the government.49	29
Men sentenced to the roads were not only supplied with less than those in private service, but the quality of their ration was also inferior. This applied especially to items that quickly perished. Livestock tendered by private settlers was prepared for government use at slaughterhouses. The meat then had to be shipped up the road system to gangs stationed in the interior. The American convict, William Gates, described the end product:	30
during the hot weather, the flies are ...sure to people it almost instantly with living things, unless the greatest caution is observed. I have often seen the liquor in the meat kettle covered with maggots of a large size; and yet our hunger was so craving that we were compelled to eat such food.50
Although the administration could claim that the same quality of rations were supplied to all prisoners undergoing punishment at a station, this argument masked larger, more serious discrepancies. The clamp down on rations assumed that all that was supplied was carefully controlled and that stores in transit reached their designated point and were then equally distributed. However, convicts staffed all points along this distribution network. This included the clerks who filled out the victualling ledgers, the butchers and bakers who processed the food, the sailors and drivers who manned the supply network, and the cooks and the overseers who monitored the final distribution. It is not surprising that large parts of the ration could disappear before they ever reached the gangs.	31
Although the landscape of the probation system was meant to insure that punishment was imposed on the 'undeserving' while the 'deserving' were rewarded with promotions and other small indulgences, the reality was very different. Skill shortages and the need to maintain output meant that convict clerks and mechanics were favoured over their transported brethren and the resultant gulf in working conditions was exacerbated by the operation of black economies. The records of the third-class prisoners involved in the Deloraine mutiny illustrate the point. Half were labourers, although labourers accounted for only nineteen percent of male convicts transported to Australia.51 The remainder were made up of two farm lads, a farmer's labourer, a shoemaker, two sailors, a linen draper, a stocking weaver, a butcher's boy and a groom—hardly skills which were likely to be in demand in a probation station.52 All were serving as third-class probationers at the time of the outbreak, although William Thompson and Patrick Riley had previously been employed in the station cookhouse. As Thompson had a previous offence for losing a truss, it seems likely that he secured the job as he was thought unfit for fieldwork.53 Both men were demoted to the third-class gang after being arraigned for food related offences Thompson for losing bread and Riley for taking meat out of the boiler.54 Compared to the convict population the mutineers were young, their average age at the time of the outbreak was just twenty-two.55 As such they fit the profile of gang convicts established by other studies.56	32
While the emphasis that previous historians have placed on the importance of imported notions of rights and customs on the shaping of labour relations in convict Australia has been useful, there is a danger that such discussion has deflected attention away from the political economy of labour extraction. There is little evidence that the strike and mass absconding at Deloraine was triggered by some imported notion of moral economy, as Kent has argued in the case of the Parramatta female factory riot.57 Nor does the incident provide evidence to support Atkinson's contention that collective action was rare in frontier locations where notions of rights had yet to be distilled from the process of negotiation between convict workers and their administrators. Our analysis would suggest that collective action was a likely by-product of ganging. In the mid-1840s Deloraine was still a frontier settlement. Indeed, it was precisely because of its poor communications with the settled districts that local colonists had lobbied hard for the introduction of probationary ganged labour. Nor is there evidence that the convicts who participated in the action were veterans of the convict 'system' who imported notions of rights obtained through experience of extensive labour in other more settled areas. Most were relatively recent arrivals who were yet to emerge from their introductory period of probationary labour. Instead the strike and subsequent absconding appears to have resulted from a combination of administrative processes designed to shape the bodies of ganged prisoners and the operation of black economies. These are processes which are likely to have been associated with other sites where extensive use was made of ganged labour.	33
Moreover, collective action is less likely to have been reported in frontier settlements as throughout the convict era labour was generally in short supply in districts far removed from major port towns. As a result convict and free workers enjoyed greater bargaining power and disputes rarely resulted in a magistrates bench appearance. Indeed as Breen has argued, one of the reasons why it took so long to complete the Westbury—Deloraine road was that local demand for the labour of pass holders remained high. Settlers put pressure on the convict department to release men from class one to work in the private sector clearing forests and constructing houses and fences.58 The reserve of government labour locked in the second and third-class gangs, however, remained isolated from the wider frontier economy which impacted on the gangs only through the effects of black market transactions. Although they laboured under different conditions ganged men were not merely passive subjects of power. While the convict department sought to fashion ganged prisoners into a unit capable of performing tasks in a similar fashion to heavy plant machinery, the process of ganging could also foster collective agency such as occurred at Deloraine in 1845.59	34
Endnotes 1. Launceston Examiner , 8 October 1845. 2. A similar point of view was put by 'An Inhabitant' in a letter in the same issue which ended:: The interests of the Settlers are nothing compared to the supposed interests of the debased, criminal, yet formidable probation gangs . Launceston Examiner , 8 October 1845. James Bruce's Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile was originally published in a five volume edition in 1790. A number of subsequent editions appeared in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries including Bruce's Travels through part of Africa, Syria, Egypt, and Arabia into Abyssinia with engravings , Halifax, 1845. 3. Cornwall Chronicle , Saturday, 11 October 1845. 4. Subsequent reporting of the incident and the resulting trials make no reference to this supposed sexual assault. Launceston Examiner , 8 October 1845. For a similar argument on the reporting of riots at the Parramatta female factory see J. Damousi, Depraved and Disorderly: Female Convict Sexuality and Gender in Colonial Australia , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 79-81. 5. Daniel Heustis, A Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of Captain Daniel D. Heustis , S.W. Wilder, Boston, 1848, p. 118. 6. Launceston Examiner , 14 January 1846. 7. Ibid . 8. The Cornwall Chronicle , 10 January 1846. 9. Their capture was advertised in the Hobart Town Gazette , 14 October 1845. 10. Launceston Examiner , 14 January 1846. 11. Ibid , 15 January 1846, Cornwall Chronicle , 10 January 1846. At 35, Comer was the oldest of the mutineers, 14468 Isaac Comer per Lord Auckland , 1, Con33/61. 12. Exceptions include: T. Dunning, 'Convict Resistance: The American Political Prisoners in Van Diemen's Land', Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers and Proceedings , vol. 38, no. 2, June 1991, pp. 88-9; G. Karskens, 'Defiance, Deference and Diligence: Three Views of Convicts in New South Wales Road Gang' , Australian Historical Archaeology , vol. 4, 1986, pp. 17-28; P. Macfie, 'Dobbers and Cobbers: Informers and Mateship among Convicts and Settlers on the Grass Tree Hill Road, Tasmania 1830-1850' , Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers and Proceedings , vol. 35, no. 3, 1988, pp. 112-27; W. Nichol, 'Malingering and Convict Protest, Labour History', vol. 47, 1984, pp. 18-27, T. O Connor, 'Buckley's Chance: Freedom and Hope at the Penal Settlements of Newcastle and Moreton Bay', Tasmanian, Historical Studies , vol. 6, no. 2, 1999, pp. 115-128 and D. Roberts, '"A Sort of Inland Norfolk Island" ? Isolation, Coercion and Resistance on the Wellington Valley Convict Station, 1823-26', Journal of Australian Colonial History , vol. 2, no. 1, 2000, pp. 50-72. 13. A. Atkinson, 'Four Patterns of Convict Protest , Labour History' , vol. 37, 1979, pp. 28, 35, 39 and 49. 14. D. Kent,' Customary Behavior Transported: A Note on the Parramatta Female Factory Riot of 1827 ', Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 40, 1994, pp. 75-79. 15. I. Brand, 'Charles Joseph Latrobe and the Van Diemen's Land Probation System ', Bulletin of the Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies vol. 2, no. 1, 1988, p. 50. 16. British Parliamentary Papers ( BPP ), Correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, 1845, 659, vol. XXXVII, p. 2. 17. S. Breen, Contested Places: Tasmania's Northern Districts from Ancient Times to 1900 , Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, Hobart, 2001, p. 95. 18. BPP , Correspondence between the Governor and the Secretary of State on the Subject of Convict Discipline, 1846, 36, vol. XXIX, pp. 52-3. 19. BPP , Correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, 1845, 659, vol. XXXVII, p. 14. 20. J. Syme, Nine Years in Van Diemen's Land , Dundee, privately printed, 1845 p. 185. 21. H. Maxwell-Stewart and J. Bradley, '"Behold the Man ": Power, Observation and the Tattooed Convict,' Australian Studies , vol. 12, no. 1, 1997, p. 73. 22. BPP , Correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, 1845, 659, vol. XXXVII, p. 12. 23. BPP , 'Regulations for the Religious and Moral Instruction of Convicts in Van Diemen's Land ', Convict Department, 1st December 1843, Correspondence Between the Secretary of State and the Governor of Van Diemen's Land on the Subject of Convict Discipline, 1845, 78, vol. XXXV, pp. 21-22. 24. I. Brand, The Convict Probation System , Blubber Head Press, Hobart, 1990, pp. 186-8. 25. 11466 John Donovon, per Anson , Archives Office of Tasmania (AOT), Con 33/49, 15 August 1845. 26. J.B. Jones to Assistant Comptroller General, 19 August 1844 - AOT , Con 1/2026. 27. J. Syme, Nine Years in Van Diemen's Land , p. 185. 28. H. Maxwell-Stewart, ''Convict Workers, 'Penal Labour' and Sarah Island:: Life at Macquarie Harbour, 1822-1834' in I.. Duffield and J. Bradley (eds) Representing Convicts: New Perspectives on Convict Forced Labour Migration , Leicester University Press, London, 1997, pp. 146-7. 29. BPP , Correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, 1845, 659 vol. XXXVII, p. 12. 30. For comparative literature see S. Fenoaltea, 'Slavery and Supervision in Comparative Perspective a Model ', Journal of Economic History , vol. 44, no. 3, 1984, pp. 637-643. For Australian examples, see W.M. Robbins, 'The Lumber Yards: a Case Study in the Management of Convict Labour 1788-1832 ', Labour History , vol. 79, 2000, pp. 141-161; H. Maxwell-Stewart, 'The Rise and Fall of John Longworth: Work and Punishment in Early Port Arthur ', Tasmanian Historical Studies , vol. 6, no. 2, 1999, pp. 96-114; S. Nicholas, 'The Organisation of Public Work' in S.. Nicholas (ed.), Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia's Past , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988, pp. 152-166; R. Hawkins, The Convict Timbergetters of Pennant Hills , Hornsby Shire Historical Society, Sydney, 1994 and G. Karskens, Defiance, Deference and Diligence , pp. 17-28. 31. L. Newitt, Convicts and Carriageways: Tasmanian Road Development until 1880, Department of Main roads, Hobart, 1988, p. 195. 32. For information on grey slop clothing see Cornwall Chronicle 10 January 1846. Such slops were probably marked with 'BO' standing for Board of Ordinance and a broad arrow indicating that they were government issue. They may also have been marked 3rd or 2nd class and with individual issue number. For the cutting of hair see 11466 John Donovan per Anson AOT, Con 31/ 49 who was charged on 25 April 1845 while serving probation at Deloraine with Disobedience of orders in not having his hair cropped as ordered . 33. Thomas Laqueur, 'Bodies, Death and Pauper Funerals, Representations , no. 1, February 1983. 34. R. Evans & B. Thorpe, 'Commanding Men: Masculinities and the Convict System,' Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 56, 1998, p. 18. 35. Extracts from Ellison's Almanak & Ross Van Diemen's Land Annual , 1837, p. 91, Royal Society Collection, University of Tasmania Archive, RS 2143/A237. 36. BPP , XXII,, 1837-8, Minutes of Evidence, Rev. W. Ullathorne, 8 February 1838, p. 17; E. Parry, 26 February 1838, p. 64 and P. Murdoch, 22 March 1838, p. 124. For a study of the effects of punishment on convict bodies, see Tom Dunning, Convict Bodies in Van Diemen's Land: The North American Experiences, Australian Studies , vol. 13, no. 1, Summer, 1998, pp. 134-142. 37. O. Pineo to Comptroller General, 12 September 1845, AOT, Con 1/4085. 38. I. Brand, The Convict Probation System , p. 166. 39. J.B. Jones to Comptroller General, 13 October 1845, AOT , Con 1/4085. 40. Syme, Nine Years in Van Diemen's Land , pp. 206-7. 41. Ibid., p. 202. 42. Commissariat Officer Hobart Town to Comptroller General 24 October 1845 and J.B.Jones and Henry Priaulx, Commissariat Office, Launceston to Comptroller General, 13 October 1845, AOT, Con 1 /4130 43. BPP , XXII, 1837-8, Minutes of Evidence, Rev. William Ullathorne, 8 February 1838, p. 17. 44. As quoted in A.G.L. Shaw, Convicts and Colonies: a study of penal transportation from Great Britain to Australia and other parts of the British Empire , Faber, London, 1966, p. 223. 45. I. Brand, The Convict Probation System , p. 187. 46. J.B. Jones to Asst Comptroller General, 20 December 1845, AOT , Con 1/2026. 47. Daniel Heustis, A Narrative of the Adventures , p. 112 He writes that the action was taken against a man who was the thief of their rations, 'their purloined daily bread.' For more on Canadian Exile convict resistance, see Tom Dunning, 'Convict Resistance: The American Experience in Van Diemen's Land ', Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers and Proceedings , vol 38, June, 1991, pp. 88-97. 48. J.N. Casey To Comptroller General, 14 October 1845, AOT, Con 1/4350. 49. Ibid. 50. William Gates, Recollections of Life in Van Diemens Land , Australian Historical Monographs, Sydney 1961,Part 1, p. 44. For more on Vandemonian convict diet and living conditions, see T.P. Dunning, 'Convict Care and Treatment: The American Experiences in Van Diemen's Land' , Tasmanian Historical Studies, vol. 2, 1991, pp. 72-85. 51. L.L. Robson, The Convict Settlers of Australia , MUP, Carlton, 1965, p. 181. Convict details as follows: 14906 James Thompson per William Jardine, AOT, Con 33/62; 3356 Michael Collins per Prince Regent, 2, Con 33/15; 955 John Donovan per Lord Lyndoch, 3, Con 33/5; 328 Timothy Hopwell per Asia, 5, Con 33/2; 245 Martin Kearney per Robert Peel Con 33/63; 14329 Patrick Lawler per Emily Con 33/59; John Buchanan per Elphinstone , 3, Con 33/25; 8870 George Williams per Duchess of Northumberland , 1, Con 33/36; 14468 Isaac Comer per Lord Auckland , 1, Con 33/61 and 10843 William Thompson per Lord Pertre , Con 33/45. 52. 9185 William Poole per John Renwick, AOT, Con 33/38, butcher's boy; 14389 Patrick Riley per Emily Con 33/59, farm labourer; 12397 William Barnes per Marmion , 1, Con 33/53, linen draper; 2876 Joseph Bishop per David Clark Con 33/13, stocking weaver; 9772 Charles Westcott per Cressy Con 33/40, groom; 126 Levi Jupp per Mandarin , Con 33/1, farm lad; 10945 John Hinds per Henrietta , Con 33/46, farm lad; 8782 George Mills per Duchess of Northumberland , 1, Con 33/36, sailor; 11466 John Donovon per Anson , Con 33/49, Shoemaker; and 14563 James M Guire per Lord Auckland , 1, Con 33/61, sailor. At time of writing 1013 John Richards could not be traced in the Convict Department records. 53. 10843 William Thompson per Lord Pertre , Con 33/45, 31 October 1844. He was punished with a three-month extension of his existing period of transportation. 54. 14389 Patrick Riley, per Emily , Con 33/59 15 March 1845; Thompson Con 33/45, 10 May 1845. 55. Their mean age on arrival in the colony was twenty compared to twenty-six for male convicts in Robson's sample. Robson, Convict Settlers p. 9. 56. Maxwell-Stewart, 'Convict Workers, "Penal Labour" and Sarah Island ', p. 148; Maxwell-Stewart, 'The Rise and Fall of John Longworth ', pp. 104-6 and P. MacFie and N. Hargreaves, 'The Empire's First Stolen Generation ', Tasmanian Historical Studies vol. 6, no. 2, 1999, p. 130. 57. D. Kent, 'Customary Behavior Transported: A Note on the Parramatta Female Factory Riot of 1827 ', Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 40, 1994, pp. 75-79. 58. Breen, Contested Places , p. 95. 59. For other examples see P. Macfie,' Dobbers and Cobbers ', p. 119; and Roberts, 'A Sort of Inland Norfolk Island ', pp. 63, 67 and 71 and 72.

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