Darlington Probation Station

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A building of the Darlington Penitentiary Camp

The historic Darlington Probation Station (German: Darlington Probation Camp ) is located on Maria Island off the east coast of Tasmania , Australia . The camp is located in the northwest of the island on Darling Bay in Maria Island National Park , where the former Darlington settlement was located. A camp for prisoners who had committed serious crimes had existed on the island since 1825. From 1842 to 1850, it was operated as an education camp as one of two British penal camps, alongside the Cascades Female Factory .

prehistory

In 1825 the second convict colony in Van Diemens Land (now Tasmania ) was established by Governor George Arthur with 50 convicts and a few soldiers on Maria Island , which was closed again in 1832. Despite the short time, several buildings were built, of which the Commissariat Store and the constructions of the convict camp, known as the penitentiary , have been preserved.

The convicts built a wood, shoe and clothes maker and tannery . The establishment of a mechanized, water-powered clothing manufacture was remarkable. Due to several escape attempts and disciplinary problems, this penal colony was closed in 1832. The Port Arthur prison, which has now been established and could accommodate a large number of convicts , also played a role .

Darlington Probation Station

Ten years later, the penal colony was reopened as a prison camp on the initiative of Lieutenant Governor Franklin in 1842, after repairing the existing buildings. When a second station was opened at Pointlesenur, more than 800 convicts came to the island and more buildings were built. The overcrowding created numerous problems and the stations were closed in 1850.

Among the convicts was the Irish nationalist from the Young Ireland movement William Smith O'Brien , two Khoikhoi and five Maori who were detained there because of national conflicts over borders.

The camp's facility has been on the Australian National Heritage List since August 1, 2007 and since August 1, 2010 one of eleven Australian convict sites recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The accommodation station is one of the best-preserved buildings of the convict camps from the early days of the convict colony in Australia . There were 78 such camps in Tasmania. On Maria Island there are 13 buildings, some of which have been preserved and some of which are ruins.

The buildings on the island reflect the system of labor discipline for convicts in the early British colonial times. In the convict camp, strict rules and discipline prevailed with division into groups and according to training, the exercise of religious coercion and methods of rigid punishment. The Darlington Probation Station with this form of convict discipline with public work goes back to Franklin (1837 to 1843).

In the camp there was a canteen and a classroom, a chapel and buildings for the accommodation of the priest and the religion teacher. The convicts' barracks and ruins were divided into separate rooms for well-behaved and rebellious convicts, where well-behaved convicts were housed in bedrooms and the others in separate rooms. The single cells give evidence of the practiced method of punishment of isolation.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Darlington Probation Station for more information on environment.gov.au , accessed January 11, 2011
  2. ^ Commonwealth: Inclusion of eight convict-related places on Australia Gazette. No. S 141, August 1, 2007 ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English; PDF file; 127 kB), accessed on January 11, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.environment.gov.au
  3. a b artistwd.com : Maria Island Penal Establishment (English), accessed November 26, 2011
  4. ^ Australian Convict Sites at whc.unesco.org , accessed January 11, 2011

Coordinates: 42 ° 34 '58.3 "  S , 148 ° 4' 9.2"  O