During the 2017-20 Australian Research Council project, Landscapes of Production and Punishment, we collated much information on the type of work that convicts were doing at places like Port Arthur. The following table gives you some idea about the very many trades that convicts carried out at Port Arthur – much of which took place in the workshops. The data is drawn from many different sources. Click on the image to magnify it.
A list of Port Arthur trades, many of which would have been carried out within the workshops precinct
I’m interested as to why there are gaps in the data, were those records destroyed? It’s fascinating to see the ebb and flow of trades throughout time.
Hi Jonathon. Nice question. As a historical archaeologist one of the cooler parts of my job is archival work. Over the last three years I have been trawling the Tasmanian Archives finding everything I can on convict labour processes and products on the Tasman Peninsula. The administrators were obsessed with accounting for the costs of the convict system, with reports and tables full of data on economic incomings and outgoings. Much of this data still exists, filed away in correspondence, or sent as official reports back to London. However, inevitably, some of it has been lost (perhaps misfiled) – or perhaps we just have not found it yet.
Yes, the number of trades at Port Arthur is interesting and really shows how the convict system was not just about locking men and women up and forgetting about them. They cost the government money and the government wanted a return. The ebb-and-flow relates to what is needed at the time: either at the station or in government. An example is timber-getting. There’s a massive focus on that at Port Arthur until the 1840s, at which time focus shifts to another station (Cascades). Port Arthur once again becomes the main timber-getting station in 1856 – right when the new workshops (with the shiny new steam sawmill) is constructed.
Very useful for knowing the various types of blacksmithing undertaken at Port Arthur.