Citation
Government Sawing Establishments of Van Diemen’s Land, 1817-1832: Peter MacFie, in P&P of Australian Forest History Society, Australia’s Ever-changing Forests, ed Dargavel, Gaughwin and Libbis. 2002, pp105-131.
Paper presented to the Fifth Australian Forest History Conference, Hobart, 2002.
Outline
Interest in attitudes toward forests inherited from the colonial era arose from being historian at Port Arthur Historic Site 1983-91. I was curious about the stations that operated before Port Arthur was established in 1830, and especially those which were public works, rather than penal stations like Sarah Island and Maria Island. These stations included North West Bay and Birch’s Bay in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. Birch’s Bay was particularly relevant, as a gang from that station had been sent to establish the new Port Arthur Station in 1830.
Archival records give a very different insight into the pre Port Arthur public work stations. Here sawyers were enouraged to produce a proporton of sawn timber in their own time, using the supposedly discarded Task Work System with Lt Gov George Arthur’s approval. This led to a black market as timber was taken by small ships from remote beaches of the D’entrecasteaux Channel.
Proceedings
Proceedings 5th Australian Forest History Conference
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Government Sawing Establishments in Van Diemen’s Land (2018-07-04)b.pdf
Excerpt
In 1826, John Lakeland, the Principal Superintendent of Convicts at Hobart Town, advised the Engineer how convict sawyers at the Birch’s Bay Sawing Establishment were to be motivated. He recommended a well-tried system of incentives known as task work:
“As sawyers as well as artificers in general are averse to their trades and occupations being known (and) from not receiving more encouragement than the common labourer, and knowing that being of useful trades is a reason for their being kept by the Government, we beg to recommend that the sawyers be allowed task work …”
In addition, Lakeland suggested, ‘their surplus work be taken by Government at a certain price, or be permitted to be sold as an encouragement.’ This had the advantage of providing labourers with an incentive as they ‘will become sawyers and Government will have the means of punishment in their hands by turning the man of bad habits out of the sawing gang into the labourers.’
Unlike the punishment station of Macquarie Harbour, Lakeland saw the necessity for positive encouragement for skilled workers:
“we beg to recommend … the necessity of something more than coercion to keep men in orderly and industrious behaviour in so remote a situation, so remote from inspection.”
This is a very different station to the well-known Port Arthur Penal Settlement which was established immediately after the closure of Birch’s Bay. What caused the change in approach, from financial to punitive motivation in the space of a short few years?
While concentrating on Birch’s Bay & North West Bay Sawing Stations however, the full impact of timber production and its effect on Australia’s cultural attitudes to forests must be read in the experiences and reputation of Macquarie Harbour, Port Arthur and later the Cascades on the Tasman Peninsula.
End of Excerpt
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Indexed Words
Aborigines
Adventure Bay
alcohol
Anglesea Barracks
Archer, John Lee
Armstrong, Joseph
Arthur, Lt.Gov. Sir George
Ashforth, Robert
Barnard, G.W.
Battery Point
Bell, Major Thomas
Bigge Enquiry
Birch, Thomas William
Birch’s Bay
Birch’s Bay Sawing Establishment
Birch’s Bay village
blacksmiths
boatmen
Booth, Charles O’Hara
Brady, Matthew
bricklayers
brickmakers
Brissa, Richard
Britton, William
Brown, Joseph
Bruni Island
bullocks
Burnett, John
bushfires
carpenters
Cascades
Chace, Samuel Rodman
chain gangs
charcoal burners
Charles, Frederick
Civil Engineers Department
Cleburne, Richard
convict accommodation
Convict Department
convict elites
convict living conditions
convict working hours
convicts
Cooley’s Shell Lime Party
Copperwaite, Richard
Cotton, Sydney
Crawley, Jeremiah
Crossland, George
D’Entrecasteaux Channel
D’Entrecasteaux, Bruni
deGrave, Peter
Duncan, Fred
Egg Island
Engineering Department
fallers
file cutters
Fortune, Matthew
Garrett, William
Gibbons, John
Giblin, Marie
Gordon, James
Gould, Stephen
government outstations
Gunn, William
Gwynne, ?
Hamilton, William Henry
Hill, Samuel
Hobart Port Officer
Hobart Town
Hobbs, James
Home Office
Hornsley, William
horses
Huon River
incentives
Inspector of Public Works
Kangaroo Bottom
Kelly, James
Kinghorne, William
Kirkwood, Major Tobias
Lakeland, John
Launceston
Lea, Charles
Lenah Valley
lime burners
Linaphon, Crussa
Macquarie Harbour
Margate
Maria Island
Maycock, William
McConnell, Ann
military
11th Regiment
40th Regiment
48th Regiment
63rd Regiment
Bourbon Regiment
Mitchelmore, Elakanah
Mitchelmore, Peter
Mitchelmore, William Solomon
Monro, ? (Mrs Peter)
Monro, Peter
Montagu, John
motivation methods
Mt. Louis
Mt. Nelson
Mt. Royal
Mt. Wellington
Mulgrave, ?
New Norfolk
North West Bay
North West Bay River
North West Bay Sawing Station
North West Bay village
Olsen, Hans
Oyster Bay
Parry, John
Payne, Edward
Peppermint Bay
Peppermint Hill
plunder
Port Arthur
Port Arthur Sawing Station
Principal Superintendent of Convicts
properties
Yellow Point
Read, John
Riddell, John
Riddell, John Read
Royal Engineers
Russell, Lt John
Satchell, Elizabeth
Saunders, Joseph
saw sharpeners
sawmills
sawyers
Scott, Thomas
semaphore station
shingle cutters
shingle splitters
shingles
shingle-splitters
shipbuilders
ship-building
ships
Atlas
Bussadorah Merchant
Caledonia
Cape Packet
Clyde
Cyprus
Derwent
Duke of York
Earl Spencer
Eliza
Government brig
Gratitude
Guildford
Inspectors (of Works) Boat
Isabella
Lord Sidmouth
Mary
Mystery
Opossum
Pearl
Prince Leopold
Rambler
Swallow
Tamar
Union
Waterloo
shoemakers
Signal Stations
signalmen
sixths
Somercote, Richard
Sorell, Lt.Gov. William
split palings
split posts
split rails
split spokes
Stewart’s Harbour
stonemasons
strike
Superintendent of Works
tailors
Taite, James
task work system
Tasman Peninsula
Tasmania
Taw, Captain ?
Taylor, John
theft of timber
timber
blue gum
celery-top pine
huon pine
huon pine
huon pine
huon pine
huon pine
king billy pine
peppermint
pine
stringy bark
timber carriage gangs
timber carriages
Tinderbox
Turnbull, (John?)
Turton, Major Richard
Tyler, Symer Mark
Tymer, Mark Tyler
Van Diemen’s Land
Veitch, Robert
wattle bark
Welsh, Captain John
Wise, Mr ?
Woodbridge