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Book Review
| Michal Bosworth, Convict Fremantle: a Place of Promise and Punishment, University of WA Press, Perth, 2004. pp. + 108. $24.95 paper.
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| Most visitors to Fremantle, Western Australia's main port, are fascinated by the high walled, large sandstone prison that dominates the town. But surprisingly little has been written about this prison, which was built by convicts for convicts between 1852 and 1857 and remained functional until 1991. Bosworth has thus filled a much- needed gap — and has done it admirably. She briefly deals with the reasons behind the British Government's decision to make the free colony of Western Australia a Penal settlement in May 1849, together with the colonists' reactions. Her main interest, however, is in the prison and the impact that the buildings and their occupants made upon the town of Fremantle. |
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When the first contingent of convicts, warders, Pensioner Guards and soldiers from the 20th Regiment of Royal Engineers arrived in the colony, on 2 June 1850, no accommodation had been prepared. In charge was 28-year-old Captain Edmund Henderson who immediately arranged to rent the Harbour-Master's warehouse as a temporary prison where hammocks were strung on wooden frames. Bosworth has managed to find plans of the alterations and additions made to this building, and a rare photo. When the temporary prison and its enclosing 10-foot high wall was complete, convicts were put to work to build the Commissariat Store (now the Shipwrecks gallery of the WA Maritime Museum) and a wooden rail-line down an extended Anglesea jetty, below Arthur's Head, to bring horse-drawn cartloads of goods from ships into the Store. |
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The building of the permanent prison establishment significantly altered the landscape. Not only the quarried-out hill and the immense prison itself, but the variety of housing surrounding the prison 'transformed the small village of Fremantle'. The accommodation, type of work and conditions faced by each of the groups involved — warders, pensioner guards, soldiers and convicts are discussed at length. Naturally, closest attention is given to the prison itself, which comprised three different types of convict accommodation: cell blocks, dormitories and punishment cells, as well as community rooms, including chapel, bakehouse, wash house, workrooms etc. She points out that the prison was quite modern for its time, having hand-basins and running water in each cell. However, this facility soon proved to be a disaster. Convicts were all male and most used the basin rather than the toilet bucket. Unfortunately, very poor basin drainage resulted in such foul smells from the plugholes that the surgeon eventually had to order their removal. |
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The chapter on the accommodation and duties of warders, as opposed to pensioner guards, again fills a gap in the literature. Warders were fed and housed at Government expense, although the terraced housing Henderson provided from 1851 left much to be desired. Two families were put into each building of four rooms, two-up and two-down with no passageway, and fireplaces (hence cooking facilities) located only downstairs. Bosworth comments that although Henderson's terraced warders' quarters were distinctive, terraced houses 'never became a model for popular housing in the west', perhaps because 'they were too closely associated with the Convict Establishment'. |
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The soldiers were housed in convict built Barracks, together with pensioner guards during the six months duty they served after arrival. By 1853 the numbers of pensioner Guards, soldiers and warders was said to almost equal the number of convicts — though many in the first two groups later returned to England. In fact, of the 1,191 pensioner guards who migrated to the colony only 581 remained when transportation ceased in 1868. The soldiers, who came out to design and supervise construction, were more skilled than the warders but according to Bosworth were paid 'less than a quarter of hired tradesmen'. Actual rates of pay are cited for warders in 1865 — when they ranged from £112 per annum for chief warders to £30 per annum for night warders. She notes that warders were also responsible for flogging, though generally disliked doing so, and quotes a case of remission in lashes ordered in 1853 'because no one could be found to carry out the punishment'. This comment provided the author with an opportunity for comparison with the regime in the Eastern Colonies, but she has chosen to stick to Fremantle. This can be justified because the paucity of published work on the convict system in the West means that the story has to be told before comparisons can be made. Bosworth has done a remarkably good job in telling the stories, and finding a large number of telling photographs, but a few more documented facts and statistical information (which is available) would have made this attractive and readable publication even more useful. It nevertheless ends with the most comprehensive bibliography of the Western Australian convict era published to date. |
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| University of Western Australia |
PAMELA STATHAM-DREW | |
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