THE GHOSTS OF PORT ARTHUR
The Pyderrairme people were the traditional owners of the area that is now known as Port Arthur. Middens and other cultural sites remain from many thousands of years of occupation. Port Arthur penal station was established in 1830 as a timber-getting camp, produciing sawn logs for government projects. After 1833 it became a punishment station for repeat offenders from all the Australian colonies. It also managed a number of outstations that produced raw material like timber and food.
By 1840 over 2000 convicts, soldiers and civil staff lived here. It had become a major industrial settlement, producing ships and shoes, clothing and bells, furniture and worked stone, brooms and bricks. When the probation system was introduced in 1841, many convicts were sent to outstations around the Peninsula to work in timber-getting and agriculture. Port Arthur became a punishment station for serious repeat offenders.
Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land ended in 1853 and Port Arthur began to enter its welfare phase. Increasingly it housed the wreckage of the convict system, men too physically or mentally disabled to look after themselves. Again Port Arthur became the administrative centre of a system of outstations that now housed invalids who worked at agriculture if they could, or who simply served out their time.
The penal settlement finally closed in 1877. Many of the settlement’s buildings were pulled down or gutted by fire. Others were sold to private settlers and gradually a small town, named Carnarvon, was established. Tourists began to pour in immediately the settlement closed. Some of the buildings became hotels, guest houses and museums. Almost 100 years ago, the government began to acquire and manage town lots for their historic value. The Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority is now responsible for the site’s management and conservation as a place of international significance. Port Arthur is Tasmania’s premier tourist attraction and stories continue to abound of the restless spirits who still inhabit this historic site.
Watch the documentary below ” The ghosts of Port Arthur”
