While convict labour was an integral and necessary part of constructing a society in Australia, the forced labour of convicts in penal settlements, especially on Norfolk Island, was unnecessary and often unprofitable, and was used simply as punishment for petty crimes and indiscretions. The punishment was not designed to reform, deter, or provide profit for the settlement, and can therefore be labeled torture for cruelty's sake.

Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island is only 34 square kilometres in area, and an imposing 1,000 kilometres from the coast of Australia. The small island had a reputation for being the worst place a convict could possibly be sent at its heyday. The history of Norfolk Island as a penal settlement was not a static one. Different governments, commandants and prisoners over the years necessarily changed the purpose and severity of the island. When the island was first settled it was not intended to be a prison so horrific that men would rather die than be sent there. In fact, the convicts who helped build the first settlement were often better treated than their counterparts on the mainland. However, over the years, the purpose of Norfolk Island was deliberately changed in order to be a deterrent to convicts in Australia and Britain. Major Joseph Foveaux, who governed the island between 1800 and 1804, forced the convicts to work hard labour from sun-up to sun-set. He required that ten yards of stone be cut every day, and when the poor tools broke, he punished the men with the lash or solitary confinement.

Technological advances to improve productivity and reduce the necessity of physical labour were not permitted on the island. Instead, the men ground grain in the crank-mill, which was incredibly hard work for little gain. This was considered a punishment-job for petty offenses.

Reformation

The futility of excessive work as a reformation technique is indicated when recidivism rates are taken into account. The experience and reformation of convicts under experiments at reform contrasts strongly with the increase in crime and disobedience, as well as the 'unmitigated wretchedness' of the men themselves under the torturous conditions of some of the more monstrous commandants.

The Anglican Reverend T. Sharp reported that the overseers were tyrannical, had men do too much work, did not have care for the convicts' well-being and lives, and this was therefore 'very unfavourable to moral reformation and a great obstacle to the men being careful of their words and actions'. There was no incentive for rehabilitation, as overseers did not seek to grant favours or leniency for good behaviour. As well as this, if an overseer took a dislike to a convict he could arbitrarily condemn him to do more work than physically possible and then punish him for being unable to complete the workload. Captain Alexander Maconochie was sent to Norfolk Island to experiment with reformation of the prisoners. He reported that the punishments such as 'solitary confinement, and months, or even years, of hard labour in chains' were 'lightly ordered for crimes in themselves of no deep dye' such as drunkenness and disobedience. This was, he stated, 'severe, even to excessive cruelty'. As the men were likely to be punished arbitrarily and unlikely to be rewarded for good behaviour, they had nothing to lose by attempting to escape or otherwise misbehaving.

Maconochie

Between 1840 and 1844 Alexander Maconochie was allowed to attempt a revolutionary moral reformation and convict discipline experiment on Norfolk Island. Maconochie believed that by 'judicious improvements' transportation could become 'an effective instrument of deterrence and reformation'. He was originally only to practise his reformation technique on the prisoners known as 'new hands'. These were men sent to Norfolk Island directly from Britain specifically because the island had such a fearsome reputation. They were supposed to be kept separate from the habitual offenders known as the 'old hands', who were convicts multiply convicted for crimes in Australia. Maconochie almost immediately disobeyed his instructions and merged the 'old hands' with the 'new hands'. Maconochie had quickly realised that the system would not work unless he incorporated the new hands with the old hands, as there was simply no effective way to separate the two groups. He promised the prisoners early release for good behaviour, a promise which he could not deliver without breaking the law. The Governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, attempted to have the law changed to legalise Maconochie's scheme. However, the British Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, only permitted Maconochie to give the prisoners 'tickets-of-leave'¹ on the island itself, not the promised early release.

Under Maconochie's system, had it been implemented fully, the convicts would have been encouraged to work to accumulate 'Marks' in order to 'purchase' their freedom from the island. This system would have encouraged reformation with the promise of early release, rather than the threat of punishment, which in many cases just did not work.

He was deemed a failure despite the penal settlement's many improvements, partly because he disobeyed orders that would have made the improvements impossible, and partly because of a misunderstanding about the success of the experiment due to the delay in communication between Australia and Britain. Lord Stanley, the Earl of Derby, who succeeded Russell as Prime Minister, recalled Maconochie and stated that 'Norfolk Island would again become a place of the severest punishment'.

Punishment or reformation was unable to be confined to one group of prisoners only. Maconochie merged both groups for the purpose of his reformation attempt, but in general the practice of mixing the two 'types' of criminals had a negative effect. John Frederick Mortlock comments in his autobiographical novel Experiences of a Convict that the merging of the two groups allowed the new hands to receive 'higher degrees' of crime from the doubly-convicted criminals. Marcus Clarke, in his fictional For the Term of His Natural Life describes:

The newly arrived English prisoners – and some of their histories are most touching – are insulted by the language and demeanour of the hardened miscreants who are the refuse of Port Arthur and Cockatoo Island. The vilest crimes are perpetuated as jests .... With these the English farm labourer, the riotous and ignorant mechanic, the victim of perjury or mistake, are indiscriminately herded.

Profitability

Profitability can also be discounted as a motive for the torturous conditions of work the convicts were put through on Norfolk Island. The Molesworth Committee, which was set up specifically to examine the treatment of convicts on Norfolk Island claimed that 'far too much stress has been laid upon the profit to be expected from the labour of criminals as a reason for particular descriptions of punishment'. The Report goes on to say:

... in searching for a substitute for Transportation, and in attempting to divine the best system of punishment, the best course to be taken is to discard from one's thoughts entirely, in the first instance, all considerations of profit to be derived from the labour of criminals, and to look with singleness of purpose to the two grand objects of penal legislation: first, the prevention of crime, and, secondly, but 'longo intervallo', the reformation of offenders.

However, the reformation of convicts through physical punishment has been proven to almost never work. Another person to discount profitability was New South Wales Governor Ralph Darling, who in 1827 regulated that convicts should be 'worked in irons that the example may deter others from the commission of crime'. Sir Richard Bourke instructed Major Joseph Anderson, the notorious Commandant of Norfolk Island from 1834 to 1839, to keep prisoners working manually in irons even though it was expensive and inefficient, as the penal settlement was considered a place of punishment. He deliberately warned him against implementing any more efficient methods of production, such as mills which were not 'urged by the labour of convicts'. While Governor Bourke also urged Commandant Morisset to remember that 'reform, not mere punishment, should be his aim', these instructions were mostly ignored, as evidenced by his flagrant use of the whip, used four times more often than the average in Australia at this time during his command. Despite the reliance on hand labour, the prisoners on Norfolk Island were cheaper to keep than chained prisoners on the mainland, and the existence of the place at all was considered by many in Britain to be part of the 'moral cost' of the transportation system.

Deterrence

While Norfolk Island was widely known among convicts in Australia as a fate worse than death, it is not known conclusively whether the penitentiary's severity proved a deterrent. It has been widely documented that convicts preferred death by hanging than the slow death the penal settlement offered, but there is no evidence available to determine whether Norfolk Island's existence prevented the committing of crime in the first place. The deterrent effect Norfolk Island had on mainland Australia notwithstanding, if those in Britain were under the belief that transportation to Australia possibly offered them a chance at a better life, and the severity of Norfolk Island was unknown, it would have no beneficial deterrent effect at all, as the Molesworth Report explains:

The remoteness of the place of punishment aids deception, the enjoyment of those who fare the best being exaggerated, and the sufferings of others concealed, so that the evil of punishment, the misery actually endured, may be going on to the utmost extent, while the benefit of punishment, the terror inspired, is almost entirely lost.

In 1791 the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger stated that he 'saw no reason to hold out the prospect of luxury to exiles; nor did he wish that the effect of their conviction should be so described'. Because so many people saw in transportation the possibility of a better life, the House of Commons Select Committee regarding secondary punishment suggested that in lieu of imprisonment in England or work in chain-gangs in Australia, both of which were prohibitively expensive, and the latter impractical, serious offenders would be sent to Norfolk Island or Macquarie Harbour for a probationary period as a disincentive.

Transportation to Norfolk Island was deliberately made to be the severest punishment short of death, though under the regimes of some commandants death was considered preferable.

Other Motivations

While Alexander Maconochie was a revolutionary and possibly ahead of his time, many people recognised that the treatment of convicts at Norfolk Island was cruel and inhumane. However, the penitentiary system was seen as the best solution to the problem of crime in the colony.

The Committee assumed that any man in a penitentiary was a danger to those around him and he must therefore be kept isolated from settlers in perpetuity. The Report went on to state that convicts could continue to be sent to Norfolk Island and other such penitentiaries, 'provided the system of punishment now pursued there were completely altered'. The Molesworth Committee was not ignorant of the suffering of the convicts on Norfolk Island, and they suggested that Maconochie's system of governing the settlement might be at least attempted.

After Maconochie was recalled, Lord Stanley implemented a new Probation system in which all convicts sentenced to Transportation for Life and some convicted of aggravated crimes and sentenced to not less than 15 years were to serve out a probationary sentence of hard labour on Norfolk Island, followed by terms of punishment which decreased in severity until the convict was freed. This was an attempt to balance the punishment aspect of transportation with the reformation aspect. Unfortunately, this system was abandoned after only two years and the old system of torturous punishment was reinstalled.

Under the command of Major Childs between 1844 and 1846, the conditions at Norfolk Island deteriorated further. Upon an inspection the buildings were found to be dilapidated and filthy, food and water inadequate, and despite intensive discipline, disorder and insubordination were rife. Prisoners awaiting trial were often confined in heavy irons, and many were gagged. The conditions on the Island led to a riot, which was suppressed using severe tactics, and the new Commandant, John Price, declared that Norfolk Island must be maintained under the 'strictest discipline and coercion'. Under Price's command Norfolk Island again became a hell on earth, and for small breaches of discipline – not as a sentence for breaking the law – prisoners would be flogged, placed in heavy chains and forced to perform hard labour, or confined in 'solitary' cells crammed with other prisoners, gagged to prevent talking, and on starvation rations.

Conditions at Norfolk: Mortlock

One of the greatest sources for infomation on Norfolk Island is John Frederick Mortlock, who wrote Experiences of a Convict about his own treatment at various settlements around Australia. Mortlock arrived in Norfolk Island after Maconochie's departure, with the requirement of two years' probation. His experience in the penal settlement was more comfortable than most, though he emphasised the lack of enough food and the mistreatment he witnessed but did not experience. Mortlock became a wardsman of the dormitory, the overseer of the cookhouse, a 'dispenser, or doctor's mate' and the tutor of Gilbert Robinson's children. While Mortlock enjoyed a relatively peaceful existence on Norfolk Island, he related how many of the other prisoners were not as lucky. Transgressions were punished with the whip, solitary confinement, or hard labour while heavily chained in stone quarries.

Mortlock further explains that 'instead of awakening moral responsibility, it [injudicious severity] strengthens the Devil, and makes men more difficult to manage – more likely to be dangerous when restored to society'. He went on to describe the days before Maconochie's regime when escape attempts were common and a type of murder-suicide lottery would take place, wherein four men would draw lots to determine who among them would be murdered, who would stand trial in Sydney, and who would be witnesses, this in order to release the four men from the conditions of the Norfolk Island penitentiary, two of whom temporarily, and two permanently. This process was also described in Clarke's For the Term of His Natural Life, with only three convicts partaking in the scheme (and the murdered one described as the 'lucky one'), and is also documented in the Molesworth Report. Mortlock also described the whipping of his shipmates, often on complaints made with 'wicked purpose' by the overseers.

Norfolk Island was reported to have issued an average of one flogging per inmate per year, which was four times the average in New South Wales and six times the average in the population outside of other penal colonies in Van Diemen's Land².

Convicts in History

The perception of convict life has been one of extremes in the Australian consciousness. Throughout Australia's European history convicts have been maligned and admired, condemned and pitied, and for many Australians today, far from being a source of shame, the 'convict stain' is now a badge of honour. As the perception of convicts has reached one extreme and the other, the understanding of convict history has also been crudely generalised as either one of universal pain and suffering, or as an opportunity for unfortunate poor and working class criminals to start a new and better life on the other side of the world. While much attention has been paid in the past to the cruel treatment of all manner of convicts, it is a fact that many did become prosperous and led far better lives than they would have had a chance to in Britain. Lately historians have intensified research into convict history as a positive force. This, however, has the effect of drawing attention away from the very real suffering that occurred in penitentiary settlements such as Norfolk Island. In the interests of portraying a balanced and fair view of Australian convict history, all of the many sides must be taken into account.

Relatively useless as a deterrent, a complete failure as a reformation centre, and definitely not profitable, penal settlements such as Norfolk Island were nothing other than 'settlements of punishment'. With no reason for existence other than punishment for the sake of punishment, Norfolk Island and other penal settlements such as Moreton Bay and Port Arthur simply provided an isolated scene for sadistic men to commit crimes they themselves would be arrested for, had they not the authority to do them to the men under their command.