Convict builders of Frederick’s town: Outpost convict experience, King George’s sound, Western Australia, 1826-1831
Convict builders of Frederick’s town: Outpost convict experience, King George’s sound, Western Australia, 1826-1831 Journal Article
Studies in Westerna Australian History
- Author(s): Young, Denise
- Published: 2020
- Volume: 33
Abstract: In 1826, around two and a half years before the start of the Swan River Colony, a small group of convicts was despatched from New South Wales to King George's Sound on the far south-western corner of the Australian continent, as skilled labour for a British military outpost. The convicts would live at the remote outpost alongside officers, soldiers and the local Indigenous people for over four years, until 1831 when colonial authorities called for the outpost's abandonment, and most but not all soldiers and convicts were returned to Sydney. Initially known as Fredericks-town, the military outpost at King George's Sound constituted the earliest official European settlement on the western side of Australia, and while it has been studied for the unusually 'friendly' European-Indigenous relations which took place there, little has been written about the convict experience. This article highlights the lesser-known details of convict lives at the outpost, including their labour, shelter, diet, how they were controlled, some of their concerns and more, and presents these within a greater chronology of outpost life. The study reveals that this outpost convict experience echoed neither the horrors of more lurid convict experience at larger settlements in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, nor was it a convict Eden. Instead, this convict experience evolved and changed over time, resultant to a range of variables including stage of the outpost, availability of food, and changing prison command and philosophy. Significantly, it reveals how extended amicable relations between outpost dwellers and the local Indigenous people at this rare 'friendly frontier' assisted newcomer interaction with the local natural surroundings, helping to change convict experience from conflict and ill-health in 1827, to relative outpost security and sustainability by 1831. This article will contribute to convict experience at smaller or lesser-known settlements and outposts around Australia during the early nineteenth century, as well as earliest convict experience on the western side of Australia more than two decades before Western Australia's official convict transportation period.
- Urls: https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;res=IELHSS;dn=132182316732123
- Keywords: History--Data processing, Prisons--British colonies, Prisoners--Transportation, Law--British colonies, Working class