Citation
Changes and continuations: the post/ penal settlement of Tasman Peninsula, 1877-1914. Peter MacFie. From SMITH, S.J. (Ed.), 1989: Is history enough? Past, present and future use of the resources of Tasman Peninsula. Royal Society of Tasmania, Hobart: p97-106.
Paper presented at a symposium conducted by the Royal Society of Tasmania at Port Arthur (Tas), 1986
Outline
The history of Tasman Peninsula during the initial post-penal period from 1877-1914 is presented and discussed. Settlement of the peninsula after the closure of Port Arthur prison resulted in two distinct communities — one providing recreation facilities and services to tourists and the other dependent on farming, orcharding, logging and fishing. During this period Tasmanians began to come to terms with the convict history represented by Port Arthur, with Eaglehawk Neck and Port Arthur becoming foci for the developing tourism industry.
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CHANGES AND CONTINUATIONS (2018-03-20)b
Excerpt
1877 is seen as a watershed in the history of Tasman Peninsula. Water-locked land, retained as a prison since 1830, was open to free settlers. No area better epitomises the quandary facing Tasmanians over their past than Tasman Peninsula. In virgin forests of the northwest and northeast, such reminders could be forgotten. The new settlers who arrived after the closure of Port Arthur were faced with unavoidable reminders. Although the new arrivals brought new traditions, free occupants of the peninsula entered an existing and continuing administration, based on those officials of the Convict Department who chose to remain. The free occupants also inherited an existing infrastructure of roads, buildings and jetties. In some areas, especially around the Probation Stations, land had been cleared by prison labour and gardens established.
The post-1877 settlement of Tasman Peninsula resulted in two distinct communities; one, increasingly “cosmopolitan”, was centred on Port Arthur, providing services for tourists and recreation; the other, centred around a series of communities on the northern coastline, relied on small-farming, orcharding, logging and fishing. The latter two continued near Port Arthur and Long Bay also.
Central features of the post-1877 settlement of Tasman Peninsula are:
(1) the continuing administration of Convict Department officials;
(2) the inheritance of an infrastructure of roads, buildings, jetties and tramway;
(3) the migration of free settlers from around the Derwent estuary to the northern Peninsula;
(4) the concurrent development of free-settlement and religious fundamentalism;
(5) a continuing and distinct personality for Port Arthur;
(6) development of a long-realised commercial potential based on primary resources and building materials;
(7) the gradual growth of tourism centres at Port Arthur and Eaglehawk Neck;
(8) unacknowledged labour of forestry workers around Port Arthur, Koonya and Taranna; and
(9) a confused reaction by occupant and Tasmanians generally to the stigma of the “hated stain”.
Commercial Potential
The scenery and the commercial value of the Tasman Peninsula were recognised attractions throughout the penal era. A reporter with a parliamentary delegation in 1860 heard and saw the area’s timber, fishing and coal mining potential. The larger portion of the peninsula was, however, considered “worthless for agriculture”. At Port Arthur and Cascades (Koonya), wooden tramways carried timber from convict fallers to mills to awaiting craft.
The 1860 Joint Report of the Tasmanian Parliament on the desirability of opening up Tasman Peninsula heard evidence from a number of witnesses who referred to the fishing and milling potential. Charles de Graves, shipbuilder, referred to the “1st Class quality of the Blue Gum, Stringy Bark, Swamp Gum and light wood”. Mr King, fishmonger, referred to his fourteen years of knowledge of the “land, bays and ports” of Tasman and Forestier Peninsulas.
King had obviously fished the coastline and believed Fortescue Bay a potential fishing station because of “Trumpeter, Gurnet, Perch, Habuker and John Doree” found there; he found a market overseas for his smoked fish. He believed, with accurate foresight, that fishermen would purchase small lots of land for themselves and families.
Captain Gourlay of the steamer Culloden also believed that “many persons would settle on the Peninsula for the sake of the fine timber”. Ballantine, former Superintendent of Cascades Probation Station, also believed that, if opened to the public, “settlement for fishing, sawing and splitting timber would be established”, and had no doubt the “grazing land would be occupied”. The buildings, he felt, might enhance the value of land on the peninsula, particularly at Saltwater River.
As observed by fishmonger King, fishing vessels had worked the coasts of Tasman Peninsula. The Parliamentary Committee viewed the peninsula during their in-depth excursion and were reported as believing the “Hippolite Rocks, the greatest fishing ground of the Colony”.
These fishermen and owners of larger boats, with an intimate knowledge of the coast, were the first to ferry excursionists to the peninsula after 1877. Previously, they had only been allowed permission to shelter in the ports. By 1879, these were in full use, as a report reveals that four fishermen, William Veal, James Cowen (Tasman), George Massey (Parir), and Edward Fitzgerald (Alemwake), had helped prevent the government schooner Spray from coming around in a storm.
Ironically, the fishermen who ferried visitors were probably ex-convicts as, in 1864, Boyd, Port Arthur commandant, complained of “the constant presence of fishing and other boats about the shores of the peninsula [which] induces convicts to plan escapes [as] many of the persons working these boats are old convicts who are quite ready for the sake of a bribe to assist.”
In the last decade before closure, timber merchants Henry Chesterman and Risby Bros had gradually gained access to the “door” of the peninsula. In 1874, Chesterman had extracted timber from the gullies around Eaglehawk Neck; Joseph McGinnis, working for Chesterman, occupied buildings at the Neck. In 1874, timber cutters and oystermen wanted to occupy the Eaglehawk Neck buildings for housing. In that year Risby sought — and was granted — permission to land at Eaglehawk Neck, and also rent a timber barge at the neck. Chesterman purchased the Port Arthur Military Barracks for demolition. McGinnis, probably Chesterman’s foreman, occupied Smith O’Brien’s Cottage which Chesterman gratuitously saved from destruction. In 1881, Joseph McGinnis occupied the Catholic Chaplain’s House, also purchased by Chesterman (next door to Surveyor Blackwood.)
Although Tasman Peninsula was “terra incognita” until 1877, one district on the peninsula had been open to private occupation from 1848. The Coal Mines, Saltwater River, failing because of “moral and economic” reasons, had been worked by various lessee companies with increasing lack of success. Although formally abandoned in 1867, the birth register indicates that miners were still active at the Coal Mines in the early 1880s. Alfred Mansell Lord was both farmer and miner in 1879-82 (as was Martha Annie Burdon).
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Copyright Peter MacFie © 1986, 2017
Index
alcohol, 7, 19
Anson, Joshua, 14
apples, 11
Badger Creek, 14
Ballanie, Elizabeth, 5
Ballanie, Thomas, 5, 14, 17
Ballantine, ?, 3
Ballantine, Harriet (Mrs Robert), 10
Ballantine, Robert, 10
Ballantine, Robert jnr, 10
Bayes, William, 14
Benjafield, Dr Harry, 11
Best, John, 20
bird-watching, 10
births, 6
Blackwood, (Miss ?), 6
Blackwood, ? (Mrs Archibald), 5, 8
Blackwood, Alfred, 6
Blackwood, Archibald, 5, 6, 7, 8, 18
Blackwood, Archibald, 5
Blackwood, Elizabeth (Mrs JT). See Ballanie, Elizabeth
Blackwood, J.T., 21
Blackwood, J.T., 5
Blackwood, John, 6
Board of Agriculture, 21
Booth, Charles O’Hara, 13
Boyd, ? (Commandant), 4
Bream Creek, 11, 18
Brickfields, Port Arthur, 16
Briggs, Allan, 18
Bufton, Rev. John, 11
bullocks, 14, 20
Burden, Avis (Mrs William), 8
Burden, Edith (Mrs John), 8
Burden, George, 8
Burden, Isaac, 8
Burden, Jacob, 8
Burden, John, 8
Burden, May, 8
Burden, Reuben, 8, 21
Burden, William, 8
Burdon, Martha Annie, 5
Cahill, Harriet. See Ballantine, Harriet (Mrs Robert)
Cahill, Miss ?, 10
Cahill, Robert, 10
Carlton River, 7
Carlton., 11
Carnarvon, 6, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19
Carnarvon Athletic Club, 19
Carnarvon Town Board, 18, 19
Cascade, 18
Cascade Gaol, Hobart, 13
Cascades, 3, 7, 9, 10, 15, 21, See Koonya
Cascades Probation Station, 3, 10
Cascades,, 9, 20
Cash, Martin, 6
Catholic Chaplain’s House, 5
cattle, 6, 9
Chatfield, A.W., 5
cheese, 10
Chesterman, Henry, 4, 9, 20
churches
St Albans Anglican, 10
Clark, ?, 9
Clark, M.J., 8
Clark, Moses, 11
Clarke, George E, 11
Clarke, Rev George, 11
coal mines, 5
Coal Mines, 5, 15
coal mining, 3
Codlin Moth Board, 21
convicts, 4
Cowan, JC, 18
Cowan, Mary (Mrs Joseph), 15
Cowen, J.H., 21
Cowen, James, 4
cricket, 18
Crisp, Samuel, 20
dances, 19
Danker, Heinrich, 18
Danker, Johann, 17
Danker, John, 18, 19, See Danker, Johann
Danker, Maria (Mrs Johann), 17
Dart Island, 14
de Graves, Charles, 3
Dear. Rev. R.E., 10
deer, 6, 14, 15
Deer Point, 15
Denison, Sir William, 12
Dennison, Lady Caroline (Sir William), 12
D’Entrecasteaux Channel, 5
doctor’s house (Saltwater River), 8
Dohrmeyer, Louisa. See Frerk, Louisa (Mrs Henry)
Downie, WA, 18
Eaglehawk Neck, 3, 4, 12, 14, 20
Eldridge, GR, 17
eucalyptus oil, 11
Evenden, ?, 20
Evenden, John, 6
Fagg, George (architect), 18
Ferck, Heinrich. See Frerk, Henry
firearms, 14
fires, 16, 17, 18, 19
fish
habuker, 3
John Doree, 3
perch,, 3
trumpeter, 3
fish”gurnet, 3
fishing, 3, 14, 21
fishing., 2, 14
Fitzgerald, Edward, 4
Forestier Peninsula, 3
Fortescue Bay, 3
Frerk, Heinrich Frederick, 17, 18
Frerk, Henry, 18, 22, See Frerk, Heinrich Frederick
Frerk, Louisa (Mrs Henry), 18
fruit, 7
Gamett, Albert Peel, 15
Garden Point, 6
gardens, 2, 6, 7, 9
Garnett family, 16
Garnett, Ada (Mrs Albert), 15
Garnett, Col AR, 19
Gates, ? (jetty builder), 20
Gourlay, Captain ?, 3
Hanigan, ? (Mrs J), 8
Hanigan, Constable J, 8
Hansen, Carl, 11
Harris, David, 20
Harris, George, 19
Harris, Thomas, 19
hated stain, 3
Highcroft, 11
Hippolite Rocks, 4
horses, 9, 13
Impression Bay, 6, 7, 8, 9, 15, 18, 20
inns
Carnarvon Hotel, 15, 19, 20
Taranna Hotel, 8, 14
Tasman Hotel, 13
Tasman Villa Hotel, 18
Island of the Dead, 15
Kangaroo Point, 10
kangaroos, 14
Kellevie, 7
Kettering,, 7
King Island, 20
King, ?, 3
Kingston, George, 7
Koonya, 3, 9, 10, 14, 19, 20, 21
Koonya Show, 21
Lacy, James Dysart, 10
Lawless, Anne (George Seaborne), 21
light wood, 3
Locke, T.F., 21
log splitters, 19
logging, 2, 3, 4, 9, 19, 20, 21
Long Bay, 2, 7, 17, See Oakwood
Long Bay, Middleton, 5
Lord, Alfred Mansell, 5
Lottah, 11
Mackie, Frederick, 12
Manning, G, 21
Mason, Annie, 16
Mason, Annnie, 16
Mason, Fanny (Mrs Thomas), 16
Mason, Francis, 16
Mason, Heather, 16
Mason, Thomas, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
Mason, Walter, 16
Massey, George, 4
Mawle, Alf, 5, 22
Mawle, Joseph, 5
McArthur, James, 16
McClymont, James Roxburgh, 10
McGinnis, Joseph, 4, 5
McGinnis, Jospeh, 4
McGuiness children, 20
McGuiness, Albert, 18
McGuiness, Joseph, 20
McGuinness, Albert, 20
Medical Officer’s House (Port Arthur), 6
Melville, Captain David, 21
Middleton,, 5
military
11th Hussars, 15
Prince Albert’s Own. See Military:11th Hussars
Royal Sappers and Miners, 6
mining, 5
Model Prison, 17
Munday, Elizabeth (Mrs Samuel), 7
Mundy, Samuel, 7, 12
Norfolk Bay, 7, 13
Noye, James, 21
Nubeena, 7, 14
Oakwood, 6, See Long Bay
orchards, 2, 7, 9, 11, 21
oxen, 9
oystermen, 4
oysters, 13
palings, 20
Parsonage (Port Arthur), 5
pears, 11
Peppermint Bay, Kettering, 7
Perkins, Thomas, 9, 11
pigs, 7
Pirates Bay, 12, 14
Port Arthur, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
Port Arthur military Barracks, 4
Port Arthur Sports, 22
Premaydena, 14
Price, James, 16
Prices Bay, 8
properties
Clougha, 16
Lottah, 11
New Walden, 10
Valley Farm, 8
Queen Victoria, 22
rabbits, 14
Ragged Tiers, Kelevie, 7
Read, Elwin, 21
religion
Anglican, 7, 8, 10, 11, 16, 17
Baptist, 11
Church of Christ, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11
Congregational, 10, 11
Wesleyan, 8
religious fundamentalism, 3
Reynolds, Laurence, 17
Risby Bros, 4
S.S. Pinafore, 14
Safety Cove, 7
Saltwater River, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15
Saltwater River Probation Station, 8
Seaborne, George, 21
Seabourne, George, 19
semaphore, 14
sheep, 6, 9
ships
Alemwake, 4
Coral, 13, 14
Culloden, 3
Ella, 14
Foam, 13
Gazelle, 21
H.M. Harriet, 13
Kangaroo, 10
Kingston, 8
Koonya, 14
Parir, 4
Procidea and Waiapa, 17
S.S. Huon, 14
S.S. Nubeena, 14, 15
S.S. Pinafore, 13, 14
S.S. Southern Cross, 13
S.S. Taranna, 14
Sir Walter Raleigh, 15
Spray, 4
Surprise, 13
Taranna, 14
Tasman, 4
Shoobridge, Alison, 11
Slopen Main, 8
Smith O’Brien’s Cottage, 4
Smith, Coultman, 18
Smith, Herbert, 9, 11
Spaulding, ? (Mrs George), 7
Spaulding, George, 7, 10
Spaulding, Thomas, 21
Stinking Bay, 6
swamp gum, 3
Taranna, 3, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15
Taranna Wood Company, 20
Tasman Arch, 12
Tasman Peninsula, 2
Tasman Peninsula Fruit Board, 21
The Blowhole, 12
Thoreau, Henry, 10
timber
blackwood, 20
blue gum, 3
stringy bark, 3
timber industry, 3
tourism, 3, 4, 12, 14
tourist guides, 6
tourists, 13
tramways, 3
Trentham’s Store, Port Arthur, 20
Veal, William, 4
Watchorn & Risby, 14
Wedge Bay, 7, 11, 13, 14, 20
Wellard, George, 15
Whitehouse and Pitfield, 15
Whitehouse Bros, 13, 14
Winter, Alfred, 13
Wocannawitch, Johann, 20
Woody Island, 14, See Dart Island
Woolnough, Joseph Boss William. See Woolnough, Rev JBW
Woolnough, Rev JBW, 15, 16, 17, 18