Citation
‘Fruits of an Evil System’ – Some Notable Failures of the Pt Puer Juvenile Prison, Port Arthur, Tasmania. Paper presented to the Australian History Teacher’s Conference, Port Arthur, August, 1989.
Outline
While there are many reports of the positive outcomes from Point Puer Juvenile Prison, what has been less-well studied is the failures. Those boys who did not go on to be ‘good citizens’. Here is an account primarily of the bushrangers who came from Point Puer, but also the others who continued to run foul of the law after they left Point Puer.
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Excerpt
The conduct record for the rebellious Point Puer lads are useful guides to the offences, work habits, sub-culture and punishment regime used. Although some boys played the system, many took head-on 19th century society, and the lads suffered the consequences.
Although flogging was used, limiting or removing hours of play had a more drastic effect, and was less harsh than removing one of two blankets for boys under detention. Common elements emerge when studying their “crimes” on The Point, and their later careers. Of these selected, apart from Robert Hay, six were bushrangers while another was executed on Norfolk Island. Four reached Victoria where the best known, Frank McCallum (or Captain Melville) became part of Australian folk-lore. Five died violently. All had accomplices of whom some were Point Puer lads or had met at Port Arthur.
The first “rebel” to arrive, aboard the “Norfolk” on 28th August 1835 was William Driscoll, alias Timothy. As a bushranger on Tasmania’s East Coast and Northern Districts, Dido – as he was known – robbed in an apologetic manner. From St Giles, London, Driscoll received 14 years fro stealing a “boot from a child”; aboard ship he was flogged for disorderly conduct.
Arriving when the population of Point Puer was only 229, a succession of offences began with “losing potato sets” (15 lashes on the breech), plus several “refusing to work” (5 days solitary confinement) plus “bathing and endangering himself”; “talking in cells”, “blasphemous language”, “absenting himself from Point Puer until brought back by a (military) escort” and “most improper language to an overseer” (remanded) [1] Once freed, Driscoll was assigned to the Cottons near Swansea (a Quaker family) and in 1855 with accomplice George King absconded. After a varied but ‘successful’ career, including holding up Dr Storey and other East Coast residents he knew, “Dido” was sentenced to 5 years at Port Arthur, receiving a conditional pardon in 1858.
James Platt, a Tasmanian bushranger in the Prosser-Buckland area of Tasmania, arrived aboard the “Francis Charlotte” in May 1837. The boys on ship were put under the guidance of a far-sighted tutor, Nesbitt, who divided them into messes, providing above-deck activities, including music, and the boys were apparently well-behaved while on board. But once at Pt Puer, the ship-board advances quickly disappeared. From Launceston, England, Platt was transported for stealing tobacco and behaved well aboard ship. Four months after arrival at Pt Puer he received 48 hours solitary confinement on bread and water for “gambling in school”, with offences of “idleness and insolence” degenerating into more serious misdemeanours including “absenting himself from the establishment” on several occasions, plus secreting chisels, removing leg irons and his “log” (to which he was chained.)[2] By 1839 stripes on the breech were replaced with 50 lashes for absconding from the Grass Tree Hill Road Party near Richmond, only to be sent to the Victoria Valley station in the Tasmanian highlands in 1840, where he was charged with “aiding and abetting” and a “strong suspicion of having committed an unnatural crime”, as homosexual acts were described. After being sentenced to Campbell Town, Platt was returned to Port Arthur in 1843. He absconded and, with accomplice Moore, became an outlaw. He joined with George Jones, the last free member of Martin Cash’s gang, committing more violent crimes near Hobart before being caught in a shoot-out at the Tea Tree Brush near Brighton. On 30th April 1844 Platt was executed in Hobart. [3]
…..
End of Excerpt
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References from this excerpt
[1]Con 31/10 No. 1037 Archives Office of Tasmania.
[2]Platt, conduct record. Archives Office of Tasmania.
[3]CON 31/36, Archives Office of Tasmania.
Index
Aitcheson family, 6
Aitcheson, David, 6
Alexander, Thomas, 3
Arthur, Lt. Gov. George, 1, 2, 8
Avoca, 7
Barlow, Samuel, 8
Barry, Sir Redmond, 6
Booth, Charles O’Hara, 2, 4, 8, 10
Buckland, 4
bushrangers, 3, 4
Butters, Rev. William, 3
Campbell Town, 5, 7
Cascades Probation Station, 2, 9
Cash, Martin, 5, 6
chains, 2
Champ, William, 6
Clark, Marcus, 8
Coal Mines, 8
Cocum, Joseph, 10
Cotton family, 4
Cotton, Francis, 4
Dalton, James, 7
Denison, Gov. William, 2
Dido, 4, See Driscoll, William
Driscoll, Timothy. See Driscoll, William
Driscoll, William, 4
Farris, George, 9
Franklin, Lady Jane (Sir William), 4
gambling, 5
Gavagan, James, 7, See Morgan, James
Geelong, 6, 7
Grass Tree Hill Road Party, 5
Hargraves, John, 3
Hargraves, Nigel, 3
Hart, Robert, 2, 8, 9
Hay, Robert, 4
Horne, Benjamin, 7
Hughes, Robert, 2
Jones, George, 5
Kelly, Andrew, 7
King, George, 4
Koonya, 2
leg irons, 5, 6, 7
Lempriere, Thomas J., 3, 5, 8
Lindsey, R., 2
liquor, 7, 8
Lord, Simeon, 7
Mackie, Frederick, 2
Malcolms Hut Road Station, 6
McCallum, Frank, 4, 5, 6, 7
McNamara, Frank, 10
Melville, Captain, 6, See McCallum, Frank
Mitchell, John, 9
Model Prison, 9, 10
Moore, Frederick, 5
Morgan, James, 7
Nesbitt, Alexander, 5
New Town Farm Depot, 9, 10
Norfolk island, 4, 5, 7, 9
Norfolk Island, 2, 5, 6, 9
North, Thomas, 2
Pearson, William, 5
Platt, James, 4, 5
Point Puer Descendants Association, 3
Port Arthur, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
potatoes, 5
Price, John, 6, 7, 9
Pritchard, William, 10
properties
Bona Vista, 7
Halfway House, 7
Kelvedon, 4
Queens Orphanage, 9
rape, 8
Roberts, William Robert, 6
Robson, Lloyd, 2
Shaw, A.G.L., 2
ships
Asia, 7
Elphinstone, 8, 10
Forfarshire, 8
Francis Charlotte, 4
Minerva, 5
Nelson, 7
Norfolk, 4
Success, 6
shops
Francis Charlotte, 5
Storey, Dr George, 4
suicides, 8
Tea Tree Brush, 5
tobacco, 5, 8
unnatural crimes, 5, 8, 10
Victoria Valley Road Station, 5
Wardy Yallock, 6
West, ?, 2
West, Rev. John, 2
Williamstown hulks, 6
Willson, Bishop Robert, 9
End of Index
Copyright Peter Macfie © 2018