Convicts: Life at the Barracks
Photo courtesy of Museum of Sydney
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Convicts: Life at the Barracks
AUSTRALIA
SYDNEY • Hyde Park Barracks Museum • Ongoing
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Curator, John Petersen, who spent months researching and locating objects said that this exhibition, the story of Sydney’s male convict labour force, gives people an insight into how these convict men lived at the Barracks.
Between 1819 and 1848, more than 15,000 male convicts passed through the Hyde Park Barracks. The majority of convicts were English and Irish men found guilty of theft. Their punishment was exile to the opposite side of the world and as a further punishment, the government controlled their labour.
The Barracks provided lodgings for male convicts working in government employment like mines, waterworks, land clearing and road making projects around Sydney. Under Governor Macquarie’s administration the more skilled convicts constructed churches, courthouses, gaols and barracks. Male convicts also stayed at the Barracks for short periods while awaiting assignment to work for free settlers and emancipists.
Regimentation and surveillance were supposed to make the Barracks run efficiently and reform the convicts but men often misbehaved. Convicts gambled and sold their rations and absconded from work to sneak down to The Rocks district.
This exhibition focuses on convict men lodging at the Barracks. Intriguing personal observations and over 20 historic images provide glimpses of the men’s experiences and fresh perspectives on this Sydney landmark. Highlights include a rare wooden sea chest for storing a convict’s possessions during the journey to New South Wales and the only intact government issue ‘convict’ blanket and shirt ever found in Australia
Hyde Park Barracks Museum Web Site
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Tel: (61) 2 92 51 59 88
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