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Port Arthur Historic Site
| Source: |
Go to the National Heritage List for more information. |
| Identifier: |
105718 |
| Location: |
Arthur Hwy, Port Arthur |
Local
Government: |
Tasman Municipality |
| State: |
TAS |
| Country: |
Australia |
Statement of
Significance: |
The Port Arthur Historic Site is a significant national example
of a convict site demonstrating, with a high degree of integrity and
authenticity, an aspect of the British strategy of convict transportation to
Australia. This type of coerced
migration had a major impact on the formation of Australia and the Australian
psyche. As one of a few major
sites now surviving to evidence the secondary punishment aspect of this penal
system, Port Arthur Historic Site ably demonstrates the evolution of penal
system to suit Australian conditions.
Also, because of its long years of operation, 1830-1877, which included
the cessation of transportation to Tasmania, it provides valuable and tangible
evidence of the physical form and evolution of the penal system in Australia
and, in particular, in Tasmania, over these years.
Port Arthur was also a key part in the Probation System
phase of the Australian convict story.
The Probation System of the 1840s was unique to Van Diemen’s Land and
Norfolk Island, although short-lived in the latter, involving less direct
physical punishment and more persuasion to reform through education, isolation,
work and religion. The solitary
punishment process apparent in British penal thinking of this era is
particularly well-illustrated by the Port Arthur Separate Prison – a relatively
rare surviving example of this type of facility in Australia, especially in
this kind of setting. Similarly,
the Point Puer boy’s establishment provides a demonstration of the spread of
British ideas on the treatment of boy prisoners. The evidence of work and religion at Port Arthur still
dominates the landscape with the large number of buildings (and their
respective functions), major site modifications, known past industrial site
functions and related areas, and religion-related elements and buildings
evident.
The cessation of transportation to Tasmania in 1853 and the
decline in the need for Port Arthur for convict use saw this use gradually
replaced by a social welfare role with facilities being given over to, or built
for ex-convicts, convict invalids, paupers and lunatics, demonstrating the
legacy of the convict system. The
Port Arthur Asylum (1868) is a rare example of this type of facility.
Port Arthur Historic Site is a significant, very rich and
complex cultural landscape, the primary layers of which relate to the convict
era (1830-77) and subsequent eras as a country town and tourist site, including
a State National Park and a major historic site under conservation
management. It combines the
contradictory landscape qualities of great beauty and association with a place
of human confinement and punishment.
A gunman took the
lives of thirty-five people and wounded nineteen others on 28 April 1996 - an
additional layer of tragic significance was added to the place. This tragic loss of life on this scale,
and its effect on Australians, led to changes in Australia’s national gun laws.
Port Arthur Historic Site has extensive research potential
primarily related to the convict experience because of its relative integrity
and authenticity. This is enhanced
because of the extensive other sources of evidence of the past history of the
place including documentary, collections, structures, archaeological and
landscape evidence.
Port Arthur Historic Site is outstanding in demonstrating
the principal characteristics of an Australian convict site related to classification and segregation; dominance by
authority and religion; the provision of accommodation for the convict,
military and civil population; amenities for governance, punishment and
healing, and the elements of place building, agriculture and industry.
Port Arthur Historic Site is a landscape of
picturesque beauty. Its ruins and
formal layout, in a serene setting, and the care with which this is maintained,
symbolise a transformation in Australia from ‘hated stain’ to the celebration
of a convict past. The picturesque
setting of the place, recognised (and in certain areas consciously enhanced)
since the early days of the settlement, features buildings in a landscape of
hills with valley, edged by harbour and forest, is a very important aspect of
the place’s significance. The
parkland of today’s Port Arthur Historic Site is, in part, an accidental and
deliberate artefact of park management practices, in the context of ruined
buildings and mature English trees, which now seems to project an idealised
notion of rustic contentment contrasting dramatically with Port Arthur’s known
penal history. This apparent
conflict and contrast is a critical element of the place’s significance. This complex, ambiguous character has
been further strengthened as a result of the April 1996 shooting tragedy,
creating, for many Australians, a more immediate poignancy and symbolism
attaching to the values of the place.
Port Arthur Historic Site has outstanding
heritage value to the nation because of the place's special association with
British convicts in Australia and their administrators in the period 1830 to
1877, exemplifying a world-wide process of colonial settlement.
There are many significant people associated
with the place from those who developed the penal philosophy used at Port
Arthur to people who managed the convict system, those who lived at Port Arthur
and ran the establishment, and those incarcerated there. These include John Howard, Jeremy Bentham,
Joshua Jebb and the Prison Reform Movement; Governor Arthur, the Governor of
Van Diemen’s Land at the time that Port Arthur was established as a penal
settlement and the person after whom it was named; Sir John and Lady Franklin;
the Corps of Royal Engineers; Commandant Charles O’Hara Booth, Commandant
William Champ, Superintendent James Boyd, Thomas Lempriere, Commissariat
Officer at Port Arthur; political prisoners William Smith O’Brien: the leader
of the Young Ireland Movement ticket-of-leave, John Frost and Linus Miller.
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| Description: |
The Port Arthur Historic Site
contains the major and several ancillary sites of the Port Arthur penal
settlement which operated between 1830 to 1877. The main penal settlement at Mason Cove was later
transformed into a small rural township, tourist destination and a nationally
recognised historic place. The core
of the Historic Site is contained within a natural amphitheatre formed by Mount
Arthur and Mount Tonga encircling the protected cove, freshwater creeks and the
basin floor. Forest covered hills
provide the backdrop to the west of the Historic Site. To north is Garden Point, the east are
the sheltered waters of Mason Cove, the sandy shores of Carnarvon Bay and Point
Puer, and the broad expanse of the harbour known as Port Arthur. The forested eastern shores – now part
of the Tasman National Park – include the distinctive silhouette of Arthurs
Peak and the heathy vegetation and high sea cliffs of the sea entrance to Port
Arthur - Cape Pillar, Tasman Island and Cape Raoul.
This setting of forest,
harbour, mountains and sea cliffs contrasts strongly with the Historic Site at
Mason Cove, with its cleared parkland character, exotic trees and plants,
historic buildings and ruins, and modern tourism facilities. The regrowth vegetation and geology of
Point Puer and the Isle of the Dead blend more easily with the surrounding
natural landscape – revealing evidence of their place within the penal
settlement system only on closer inspection.
The Port Arthur Historic
Site also holds several important collections - the Port Arthur Historic
Collection, the Port Arthur Archaeological Collection, published records,
manuscripts, databases, and architectural, photographic, and archaeological
records.
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