'Underground cells, Point Puer', c1911-15

Educational value

• This asset provides evidence of the first reformatory built exclusively for juvenile male convicts in the British Empire - approximately 3,000 boys ranging in age from 9 to 18 years passed through the Point Puer Boys' Prison from 1834, when it opened, until its closure in 1849.
• It shows the Tasmanian bush location of Point Puer - the reformatory was built on a small, narrow, windswept peninsula 1 mile (1.61 kilometres) across Carnarvon Bay from the Port Arthur penal station and adjacent to the Isle of the Dead; the site was badly chosen, with poor, sandy soil and little fresh water, which had to be delivered daily by convicts from Port Arthur.
• It shows ruins of an experimental reformatory - the aim of Point Puer ('puer' is a Latin word meaning 'boy') was to train boys to be useful members of society by providing them with trades such as cobbling, metalwork, carpentry, sawing, boat building, gardening and bookbinding.
• It reveals cells that may have been used for solitary confinement - the boys were subject to an extremely harsh code of discipline and many endured periods of isolation, reduced rations and beatings.
• It demonstrates one of the construction techniques used at the site - these cells and the large building that housed the workshops were terraced into the hillside, while other buildings such as the bakehouse, store, sick room and wooden barracks were freestanding.
• It provides an example of items compiled by E W Searle between 1911 and 1915 while he worked for John Watt Beattie (1859-1930) - Beattie was a renowned photographer of Tasmania and expert on Tasmanian history and was, from 1896, an official government photographer.

Year level

3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12

Topics Prisons Penal colonies Convicts Juvenile justice system