Everything about Convicts On The West Coast Of Tasmania totally explained
The
West Coast of Tasmania has a significant convict heritage. The use of the
West Coast as an outpost to house convicts in isolated penal settlements occurred in the era 1822-1833, and 1846-1847.
The main locations were
Sarah Island (known by many in the late twentieth century as Settlement Island) and
Grummet Island in
Macquarie Harbour. The entrance to Macquarie Harbour was known as
Hells Gates and the play on this name has travelled from naming in the 1830s through to Paul Collin's book published in 2002.
Convict parties utilised the landscape surrounding the harbour as a work area, this also extended into the
Gordon River. The physical reality was no more than 15 years, but the long term effects on the imagination have spawned a significant literature.
Physical heritage
Most physical relics of the convict era were either abandoned or lost on the west coast. Sarah Island was, according to some stories, vandalised for building materials to use in the early days of the mining communities in the 1890s. But there are sufficient materials left to give the guided tours of the island adequate evidence of the past
Along the banks of the rivers or the harbour at different times in the twentieth century
piners discovered convict era items in their activities.
The Frederick
The ship
The Frederick was a ship that was stolen by a group of convicts in 1834 from Sarah Island has inspired a number of books and a play.
The Ship that Never Was, by the
Round Earth Theatre Company, at the Strahan Visitor Centre, in
Strahan - has been a long running play to do with a successful escape, conducted since 1984. The author is
Richard Davey who as a descendant of Governor Davey has worked on Sarah Island as a guide and researcher. Offshoots of his research include his book
The Sarah Island Conspiracies - Being an account of twelve voyages to Macquarie Harbour and Sarah Island (Hobart, 2002) as well as two pamphlets - a programme - narrative of the story that the play was based, and a guided tour booklet -
Sarah Island - The People, Ships and shipwrights - a guided tour. Reference to Davey is made in Collins'
Hells Gates book.
The Ship Thieves by Sian Rees focuses upon James Porter one of the group of convicts on
The Frederick, and manuscripts found in the Dixson Library in Sydney. Rees had previously written about a very different ship of convicts - the
Lady Juliana (ship).
Curiously no mention of Davey or his work on the Sarah Island convicts is noted at all in Rees book about James Porter, yet dealing with the same subject.
Fiction
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