Description

Convict Hell

The year 2022 marks the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour. This convict penal settlement located on the isolated primeval rugged west coast of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) quickly gained a reputation as an ‘Earthy Hell’.

As colonial historian John West succinctly recorded in 1852: ‘The passage to this dreary dwelling place was tedious and often dangerous. The prisoners, confined in a narrow space, were tossed for weeks on an agitated sea. As they approached, they beheld a narrow opening chocked with a bar of sand and crossed with peril. This they called Hell’s Gate…’

This was just the beginning for those sentenced to Macquarie Harbour. The barbaric treatment, from officials and fellow convicts alike, resulted in Macquarie Harbour representing a true convict hell hole, not only resulting in murder, but in cannibalism by several men in their attempts to escape.