Junior Medical Officer's House, Port Arthur

The Junior Medical Officer’s House was originally built in 1848 for Commissariat officer Thomas James Lempriere, his wife Charlotte and their large family. They had previously been living in a condemned wooden cottage situated below the ruin of the hospital and Lempriere threatened to resign if he was not provided with appropriate accommodation.

The family only lived in the house for seven months before they left Port Arthur.  They were replaced by the Colonial Surgeon, Dr Brock and later in 1853 by Dr Brownell. Hence the house was referred to as the Junior Medical Officer’s house as the medical officer lived there until 1873 when the schoolteacher, Mr Todd, took over residence. Mr Todd would also provide visitors with room and board in the house.

The house has twice been used as a hotel. In the early 1900’s, it was known as “Tasman Villa” From 1921 until 1959 it was known as Hotel Arthur. It became the base for the cast & crew of the classic movie, “For the Term of His Natural Life” who stayed there when the movie was shot in 1927. The convict era kitchen at the rear of the building was the hotel dining room.  The hotel finally closed in 1959.

A fine example of Georgian architecture, the building has been restored and furnished in the style of the 1850’s and is one of the buildings on the Port Arthur site that is open for inspection at various times. Well worth taking the time to have a look through this beautifully restored house.

Main Text & Information Sources – 

Interpretive Signs at the site

“Port Arthur – Convicts & Commandants” - Walter B Pridmore

Australian World Heritage Convict Sites

My apologies for the lack of posts recently but I have been on a trip checking out some of the World Heritage listed Convict sites in both New South Wales & especially Norfolk Island.
To visit and photograph these wonderful sites has been part of my bucket list for ages so I was rapt to be able to visit some of these sites. There are some sites and buildings already posted on the blog so I will be adding the "World Heritage Convict Sites" label on each of those posts so they can be gathered together by clicking on the labels on the right hand side of the blog page.
For those who are unfamiliar with these sites, the Australian World Heritage Convict Sites are a collection of UNESCO World Heritage Listed properties consisting of 11 penal sites originally built within the British Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries on fertile Australian coastal strips at Sydney, Tasmania, Norfolk Island, and Fremantle. These sites are now representing "...the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers through the presence and labour of convicts."
I will begin posting some of these shortly and I hope you'll enjoy them.

UNESCO Australian Convict Sites Webpage

Separate Prison, Port Arthur

The Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, USA, opened in 1829, was the first prison using the ’separate system’. The idea had originated with Englishman John Howard but it first appeared in bricks and mortar in America and then travelled to Van Diemen’s Land via England. In this new kind of prison, solitary confinement replaced physical punishment. In isolation from others, prisoners would be forced to look inwards and repent their crimes. Thick walls and doors ensured complete separation and silence between prisoners. English reformers adopted it as the ‘model’ for Pentonville in London.

Built 1840–42 Pentonville was designed as a machine to subdue the spirit of men. The regime was based on silence, isolation, work and religious instruction. The use of soundproof materials and ventilation systems ensured absolute separation and silence. Men spent 23 hours per day in their cell; they only emerged for exercise, school and chapel. Even in the Chapel, with its separate cubicles, each man was strictly isolated from his fellows. Each cell had gas lighting, and a toilet and water tap.

As time went on, however, Chaplains and Medical Officers expressed concern at the unusually high number of cases of ‘madness’ among the prisoners. These rates were many times higher than those found at prisons run along different lines. But John Hampton, the new Comptroller of Convicts in Van Diemen’s Land, was unmoved by such concerns. He was a fervent promoter of the system, and in this he was supported by Port Arthur’s newly appointed Commandant, James Boyd, who had formerly been the Principal Warder at Pentonville.

Port Arthur’s Separate Prison was closely modelled on Pentonville and hence was known as the Model Prison. It was built in 1849–50 with three wings of cells and a fourth wing containing a chapel. Every man who came to Port Arthur had to spend a certain amount of time here when he first arrived, based on his sentence. If sentenced to Life, he might spend 12 months in solitary confinement.

Men who reoffended while at Port Arthur might also be sent there for punishment. Men who offended while in the Separate Prison could be sent to ‘the dumb cell’ or punishment cell. This cell lay behind four thick doors and was completely light and sound proof. Here men might languish for up to 30 days, although after four days they had to be taken out each day for one hour of exercise. The regime was designed to achieve the most intense social isolation and control.

A warder sat at a desk in the central hall, keeping an eye on all the cell doors and the corridors. Warders patrolled the corridors in felt slippers, using sign language to ensure that the prisoner heard no sound. Each man was kept in solitary confinement in his cell for 23 hours each day; he wore a mask when outside his cell to prevent communication. At first he was only allowed to read the Bible but later other ‘improving’ books were allowed. He took exercise alone in a small yard and was fed through a hatch in his cell door. His only human contact was with warders, and with the chaplain and the medical officer who both visited regularly.

Dozens of rules and rigid daily routines reinforced the inmate’s sense of powerlessness; they were designed to train him in the virtues of order and discipline. But even under such intense control and deprivation, a few men found ways to assert themselves. In chapel, men would insert their own words to ‘talk’ to their fellows under the cover of hymn singing. Big Mark Jeffrey trashed his cell repeatedly in protest at his treatment. Richard Pinches and George Nutt escaped. Poor young Leonard Hand went slowly insane. And William Carter hanged himself in his cell.

After the settlement closed the Separate Prison was sold and alterations began to convert it into a hotel and private residence. A fire in the 1890s halted these building works and it remained as a ruin until 2008, when an extensive program of conservation and interpretation works began. ‘A’ Wing and the Chapel have been refurbished and furnished to recreate something of their original appearance.

Evocative sounds bring these spaces alive. You can hear a ‘service’ in the Chapel every ten minutes, featuring a soundscape artwork called ‘Rewards of Silence’ by Sonia Leber and David Chesworth. ‘B’ Wing will be left as a ruin, a reminder of the building’s evolution. And ‘C’ wing will use 19th century portraits, text and other images to explore how the idea of the prison developed, and to explain what life was like here for both prisoners and staff. Outside, the perimeter walls have been reconstructed to recapture the prison’s originally closed and secretive appearance, designed to strike fear into the hearts of those inside and outside.

Main Text & Information Source

Port Arthur Separate Prison Fact Sheet

The Hospital, Port Arthur

Port Arthurs first hospital was a wooden building built in the 1830’s just below the site of the existing ruin. The existing hospital was built between 1841 and 1842. The new sandstone & brick hospital had two gabled wings which contained the wards and also housed a provisions store, a kitchen with a baking oven, a morgue and a waste collection room.

This building was the third hospital built at the settlement and the wards were capable of housing about 70 patients, the convicts and Point Puer boys being separated from the soldiers & officers. During busy periods, the convict patients were segregated by religion with Catholics in one ward and Protestants in another. Civilians and their families were generally treated in the comfort of their own homes. The first medical officer at Port Arthur arrived in 1832 and since he was also the catechist, he was responsible for the convicts’ spiritual health too.

After the closure of the settlement in 1877, the building was abandoned. It was eventually purchased by the Catholic Church for 300 pounds for conversion into a boys home but it was gutted by the 1895 bushfires. The outer walls remained strong and in good condition , so the church, claiming on their insurance, once again rebuilt the structure. But unfortunately for the Catholic Church, it was again gutted by the 1897 bushfire and left in much the same condition that it appears today.

The reconstructed brick footings at the rear of the building indicates the original extent of the rear wings. A wooden building at the rear of the hospital was the hospital laundry.
The ruin has now been stabilized and accessible with some interpretive areas having been set up within the ruins.

Main Text & Information Sources – 

Interpretive Sign at the Site

“Port Arthur – Convicts & Commandants” – Walter B. Pridmore

Historic Photos – 

www.myplace.edu.au

The Officer's Quarters, Port Arthur

Tents accommodated the 63rd Regiment when it arrived at Port Arthur in September 1830. More permanent accommodation was constructed soon after with a timber barrack capable of holding over 60 men. As Port Arthur grew, so did the need for larger barracks. Plans were prepared in 1837 but construction was delayed until 1840 when a brick building with an impressive sandstone façade was erected on the hill behind the Guard Tower. The original barracks were then demolished. The new building seems to have comfortably accommodated 100 rank & file in 1842 but by 1846, with over 270 officers & soldiers, it had become so overcrowded that men were sleeping on the ground. In response to this issue, a new barracks was proposed on the other side of Mason’s Cove, but this did not proceed with a second barracks being constructed to the west of the existing one.

For the first decade or so, the officers & officials who administered Port Arthur lived in timber framed cottages on the hillside behind the Guard Tower. However, as time went by, the cottages grew older, there became cause for complaint. Thomas Lempriere, the Commissariat Officer quote in 1847 – “In two months time I shall have completed a residence of 14 years under this roof, a weatherboard house that has not a single door wind or watertight. The plates supporting the uprights are decayed from damp and age, which has caused the walls to sink, the whole having been constructed from green wood, every door and window, has shrunk. In fact, the residence is quite unfit for the residence of any officer of the department…..they might perhaps serve as temporary accommodation for some of the inferior officers of the convict department”

During the 1840’s the senior officers’ accommodation was upgraded and their new brick & stone buildings form what is known today as Civil Officers Row. These buildings have survived and have been restored in recent years. The old cottages became the residences of clerks, overseers, and storekeepers. Some of them had families with them and some shared with other officials. By the time the settlement closed in 1877, the houses would have been in very poor condition. They were purchased at the government auction, presumably for demolition. Any remaining traces of the cottages have been lost with the 1895 & 1897 bushfires.

The Senior Military Officer had a separate house constructed for him and his family next door to the Commandants House in 1834. It became known as Rose Cottage. Lempriere described it in 1838 as a neat cottage with a verandah at the front and comprising 4 rooms and a kitchen. The house was initially constructed entirely of wood (no bricks were produced at Port Arthur before 1839) but the kitchen and outbuildings were later rebuilt in brick. There was grass at the front and a garden at the rear. By the early 1840’s the house was occupied by Captain & Mrs Errington. She sent paintings of the house and her little boy to her family in the UK which showed a comfortable, well furnished interior. But by 1848, the occupants were complaining that the building was damp and rotting. The garden of the cottage seemed to be noted for its “prettiness” and this was probably why it was called Rose Cottage.

It was one of the settlement buildings that remained unsold at the original government auction after the settlement’s closure in 1877 but by 1887, the cottage was named “Mount Parnassus” and was run as a juvenile school. By 1889, it was again sold and once again known as Rose Cottage. By 1897, it housed the State School. By this time, it would have been a very old timber building and while it caught fire during the 1895 bushfires, it was saved. However it was not so lucky during the 1897 fire.

Many of the serving military soldier’s were married and in some cases their families accompanied them to Port Arthur. Unless they were officers, the families all shared a room in the barracks. In 1853, two double cottages were approved for married military officers. The plan was to have one built on either side of the guard tower. However, only one cottage was ever constructed. Each half of the cottage had two rooms on the ground floor, one or two attic rooms above and a kitchen behind.

The tenants were military families at first but later overseers and civil officers occupied them from time to time. The building was sold after the closure of Port Arthur but was badly damaged in the 1897 bushfires. Half of it was rebuilt a few years later, the other side serving as a chicken house. When rebuilt, it was used as a museum for visitors for a number of years. In 1963, both sides were renovated and in 1986, further conservation work was completed.

Main Text & Information Sources – 

Interpretive Signs at the Site

“Port Arthur – Convicts & Commandants” – Walter. B. Pridmore