27 Piper states that the use of large dormitories as opposed to smaller, more private accommodation, was
instigated at Impression Bay to prevent ‘unnatural crime’—homosexual activity—between the men. Presumably this was also the motivation for their continued use in future institutions.
28 Port Arthur temperatures average around 15°C (59°F) during the daytime and 8° (46°F) at night: see
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=94157
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Not everyone believed Port Arthur to be appropriate for the purpose, or that complete separation of the men from society was beneficial. A Joint Committee of the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly in 1858 reported that the inmates were kept
under regulations too nearly approaching to those of a Penal Establishment, at the same time cutting off the inmates from the view of nearly all society, and placing them beyond the reach of such sympathy and kind attention as the well disposed might be desirous of offering.30
With the completion of the transfer of administration from imperial to colonial rule, there were now a number of buildings in the main town that were no longer needed for convicts or soldiers, and it was suggested that the ‘almost unused’ Brickfields Convict Hiring Depot, on the outskirts of Hobart Town, would be a suitable replacement. A further recommendation that a similar facility be set up in Launceston to accommodate the destitute from the north of the island, rather than send them south, was ignored. In 1859 most of the men were moved from Port Arthur to the newly adapted Brickfields Invalid Station (Brickfields). The Port Arthur Pauper House continued in use for some years, however, taking the overflow of emancipist men who applied for admission to the general hospital and could not be accommodated at Brickfields.31 Despite being semi-closed, a Royal Commission into Charitable Institutions in 1871 noted that there were 169 men in the Pauper Asylum at that time32, and in 1876 more than one hundred men were
transferred there when the Cascades Invalid Asylum became overcrowded.33 When it was finally closed in 1877, there were one and twenty six old men still living in the Pauper House.34
TheBrickfieldsInvalidStation,Hobart
An asylum for the decrepid [sic] and cast away, who know not where to lay their
heads…35
Brickfields appeared to be an ideal solution to the accommodation problem. It was closer to town, making it easier for those of a charitable bent to visit regularly, but still distant
30 TLC, 3, 1858, Paper 37, pages 5-6 31 The
Mercury, Monday, 8th October 1860, page 2; report from General Hospital Board of Management
32 TLC, 17, 1871, Paper 47 33 The
Mercury, Friday, 28th July 1876, page 2. The newspaper report noted that the move had not been
announced, and no provision had been made to care for the ‘old and incapable fellow beings’. In the same paper, the Benevolent Society reported that ‘100 inmates of the Cascades and 23 of the Brickfields had been forwarded to Port Arthur’.
34 Maggie Weidenhofer,
Port Arthur: A Place of Misery, (Port Arthur, Tas, 1990), page 121
35 The
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enough to keep the invalids isolated from the community. The building was well designed to control the inmates; apart from high surrounding walls, it had two internal quadrangles which could be pressed into service as holding yards to contain the men on Sunday, the superintendent’s day off. This close confinement was too much for several local citizens, who complained to the Colonial Secretary and requested that the men be allowed some freedom. The Superintendent of Brickfields, John Withrington, refused this request, on the grounds that the men would go out, get drunk and cause trouble.36 The notion that another person could oversee them in his absence did not appear to have been entertained by anyone in authority.
Withrington’s contention was proven correct when some men found their way into town whilst on leave passes, begging from the populace, spending the money on alcohol and causing ‘much trouble and annoyance to the Government’.37 The authorities naturally bore the brunt of public disapprobation for this misbehaviour; as Goffman points out, when the inmates of a total institution are given access to the outside world, then ‘ the mischief they may do in civil society becomes something for which the institution has some responsibility’.38 It was determined that men who went out and returned intoxicated should not be readmitted. Later changes limited town access further, allowing inmates to go out for the day, six at a time, once a month during the summer only, and the
superintendent recommended that no leave at all should be granted in the first six months of an inmate’s arrival.39 This prolonged separation from the community after admission
to a total institution serves to ensure a ‘deep initial break with past roles’40, a method of
depersonalizing the inmate and emphasizing the total control of their new existence by institution rules.
Once again the men were expected to work for their board, either in the depot or its grounds or out in the community. Those who were able engaged in hard labour, breaking stone, making roads and laying footpaths, and twenty were employed at the Public
36 Kim Pearce,
Historical Study: North Hobart, (Hobart, 1992). The Sunday confinement was only one of a
series of complaints made by Philip Smith, a long-time advocate for the invalids, and for the convicts before them. He and his daughter, Marian, were both regular visitors to the charitable institutions of Hobart, and he wrote many times to the Colonial Secretary about various aspects of the conditions within: see the Mercury, Saturday, 8th January 1876, page 3, for copies of his correspondence.
37 TLC, 11, 1865, Paper 9
38 Erving Goffman, ‘On the characteristics of total institutions’,
Asylums (Harmondsworth, 1968), page 78
39 TLC, 17, 1871, Paper 47, page 87: evidence of John Withrington, question 455. 40 Goffman, ‘On the characteristics of total institutions’, page 24
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Cemetery in nearby New Town.41 When two visitors suggested that easy entry to Brickfields allowed many of the inmates (who had an average age of seventy-one) to be idle, the superintendent assured them that thoseinmates ‘considered capable of work who refuse to do so are dismissed from the Depot’.42 Dismissal was the ultimate form of punishment—the fear of losing their place in the only shelter available was enough to keep most of the inmates compliant with the rules—but there were other punishments, too. These included solitary confinement, imprisonment ‘with or without hard labour’43, and loss of privileges: meal rations were cut, the supply of tobacco was stopped, or extra workloads imposed.