The West Coast of Tasmania has a significant convict heritage. The use of the west coast as an outpost to house convicts in isolated penal settlements occurred in the eras 1822–33, and 1846–47.
The main locations were Sarah Island (known by many in the late twentieth century as Settlement Island) and Grummet Island in Macquarie Harbour. The entrance to Macquarie Harbour was known as Hells Gates and the play on this name has travelled from its naming in the 1830s to Paul Collins's book published in 2002.
Convict parties used the land around the harbour as a work area as far as Gordon River. The prison's existence was for only 15 years, but its hold on the imagination has spawned a significant literature.
Physical heritage
While most physical traces of the convict era were abandoned or lost, many foundations and outlines of the buildings of the settlement can still be seen. Sarah Island was allegedly vandalised for building materials in the 1890s by mining communities. However, enough remains that guided tours of the island can still give a vivid and moving glimpse into the lives of the convicts and their keepers, and the huge amount of building and land reclamation that took place during the relatively short life of the prison. Piners also have periodically discovered convict era items during their work along the rivers and shore of Macquarie Harbour.
The Frederick
The Frederick was a merchant ship stolen in 1834 by escaping convicts from Sarah Island. It has inspired several books and a play.
The Ship that Never Was, by the Round Earth Theatre Company, at the Strahan Visitor Centre, in Strahan, is a long-running play about a successful escape. It was written by Richard Davey, a descendant of Governor Davey who worked on Sarah Island as a guide and researcher. He has also written The Sarah Island Conspiracies — an account of twelve voyages to Macquarie Harbour and Sarah Island (Hobart, 2002) and two pamphlets — a narrative of the event the play was based on and "Sarah Island - The People, Ships and shipwrights — a guided tour". Collins refers to Davey in his Hell's Gates book.
The Ship Thieves by Sian Rees focuses upon James Porter one of the group of convicts on The Frederick, and manuscripts found in the Dixson Library in Sydney. Rees had previously written about a very different ship of convicts — the Lady Juliana.
Julen, Hans. The Penal Settlement of Macquarie Harbour Launceston, 1976. ISBN0-9599207-3-0
Pearn, John. "Sarah Island/The infamous prison island in Macquarie Harbour", Van Dieman's Land. Chapter 1 of:
Pearn, John and Carter, Peggy. Editors. Islands of Incarceration/ Convict and Quarantine Islands of the Australian Coast by Seven Authors. Brisbane, 1995. ISBN0-86776-599-2
Pink, Kerry.G. Through Hells Gates/ A History of Strahan and Macquarie Harbour. Strahan, 1984. ISBN0-646-36665-3 Chapter 3: Macquarie Harbour: Convicts' Hell
Porter, James. (1981) The capture of the Frederick, Macquarie Harbour Van Diemen’s Land 1834 Adelaide : Sullivan’s Cove. ISBN0-909442-19-3
Alexander, Alison (2010). Tasmania's convicts: how felons built a free society. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, ISBN9781742372051
Robson, L. L. (1983). A History of Tasmania. Volume I. Van Diemen's Land From the Earliest Times to 1855. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-554364-5.
Robson, L. L. (1991). A History of Tasmania. Volume II. Colony and State From 1856 to the 1980s. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-553031-4.
