Isle of the Dead is an island, about in area, adjacent to Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia. It is historically significant since it retains an Aboriginal coastal shell midden, one of the first recorded sea-level benchmarks, and one of the few preserved Australian convict-period burial grounds. The Isle of the Dead occupies part of the Port Arthur Historic Site,Godden et al., 2009, p. 3 is part of Australian Convict Sites and is listed as a World Heritage Property because it represents convictism in the era of British colonisation.
Before European settlement, Aboriginal people gathered food on the island. From 1833 the island was used as a cemetery for convicts and free people of the Port Arthur penal settlement.
The Isle of the Dead was the destination for all who died inside the prison camps. Of the 1,000 estimated graves recorded to exist there, only 180, those of prison staff and military personnel, were marked. The cemetery was closed following the demise of the Port Arthur settlement in 1877 and the island was sold as private land. It was reacquired and managed by the Tasmanian government from the early twentieth century.
Over the last century tourism has grown with improved services and infrastructure. Increased conservation initiatives have been undertaken to preserve the island and its relics, resulting in the island being declared a cultural heritage property and protected under Australian state and federal laws. It is also listed under UNESCO's world heritage sites.
Location Isle of the Dead is an approximately 10,000 square metres (1 hectare) island within Carnarvon Bay at the northern tip of Point Puer on the Southern Tasman Peninsula in the Island State of Tasmania, Australia. It is approximately southeast of the state capital, Hobart. Driving from Hobart, via the Tasman Highway /A3, the Arthur Highway /A9 to Port Arthur Historic Site takes around 80 minutes. Isle of the Dead is approximately from Point Puer. It is 1.2 km (3/4 of a mile) from Mason Cove. It is only accessible by boat and Port Arthur Historic Site offers guided ferry tours to the island.Doyle et al 2002, p. 7Godden et al, 2009. p. 2
Aboriginal shell midden Original inhabitants of this area were the Pydairrerme people, a band of the Oyster Bay tribe.Doyle et al., 2002, p. 22Godden et al, 2009, p. 19 Prior to the 1830s, local Aboriginal people used the island to gather shellfish and camp. Isle of the Dead retains a large midden.Thorn & Piper, 1996, p. 4 The midden contains shells and the remains of campfires (charcoal and ash), evidence of past Aboriginal people visiting the isle to gather shellfish and molluscs such as abalone and mussels. It is located under an overhanging cliff and rock platform, which was used for shelter. This midden is defined as an Aboriginal relic and is protected under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1975.
Naming the Isle
With the arrival of settler colonialism, the isle was called Opossum Island in 1827. It was named after Captain John Welsh's sloop Opossum while seeking shelter nearby when surveying the harbours on the Tasman Peninsula.Lord, 1990, p. 1
Reverend John Allen Manton, an English Wesleyan missionary, arrived in February 1833 as first chaplain for the Port Arthur settlement. He wrote in a religious pamphlet that he selected this isle for a cemetery, as it was close to the colony, "a secure and undisturbed resting-place" and renamed "Isle of the Dead" for its purpose as a burial place.Manton, 1844, p. 4 The isle was recorded as "Dead Island" in a hydrographic survey undertaken from the surveying ship HMS Dart in 1893 and published as Admiralty chart 1475. The Island was also known as "Isle des Morts" and "Dead Men's Isle".
Cemetery for penal colony
Penal settlement usage The isle was used as a cemetery for the penal settlement of Port Arthur from September 1833 to 1877.Thorn & Piper, 1996, p. 2 This included the Point Puer boys' prison, which operated from January 1834 until 1849. There were also a small number of burials from the military posting at Eaglehawk Neck and from the Coal Mines (Coal Mines Historic Site), which operated from 1833 to 1848. The colony experienced population decline following the closure of Point Puer boys' prison in 1849,Hargraves, 2006 the end of convict transportation to Tasmania in 1853, and the departure of the military in 1863.Doyle et al., 2002, p. 29 The cemetery continued to be used for destitute, aged and infirm men, mainly convicts and ex convicts, residing in Port Arthur's welfare institutions, the hospital, Paupers' (invalid) Depot (established in 1864) and Lunatic Asylum (established in 1867) until they were closed in 1877.Godden et al, 2009, p. 46Ross. 1995, p. 22
Burial designation The cemetery was divided into designated sections. Convicts were buried on the lower, southern end of the island. No headstones or markings were placed on convict graves, as they were not allowed.Manton, 1845, p.10 Alfred Mawle, a tour guide for Port Arthur from about 1899 to 1939, described that convict graves were marked with small metal numbers, which went missing in the 1920s.
Free people were located on the northern western corner of the island and their graves were generally marked with footstones, headstones and tombstones cut by convict stonemasons. Approximately eighty-one headstones and five footstones, dated from 1831 to 1877, were identified and inscriptions recorded in the late 1970s. Of these, four belonged to former convicts who were free at the time of their deaths and nine were erected as memorials to convicts after the closure of the penal colony.Lord, 1990, pp. ix–x It is estimated that less than 10% of all the burials on the Isle of Dead were formally marked.
Number of burials Approximately 1,000 people have been buried on the Isle of the Dead.Links et al., 2004, p. 1Ross, 1995, pp. 31–33Ross, 2006. The actual number of people buried on the island is unknown because of the destruction of many official records, incomplete burial records and lack of records for free people located at Port Arthur and the outstations. Estimates of the number buried is based on geophysical studies, remaining burial and death records and the limited size of the convict burial section on the isle.Ross.1995, pp. 36–37
Historical estimates have been variable. The Hobart Town Courier published 43 burials on the isle in 1836. The Tasmanian reported 1,500 graves in 1872. 1,500 graves were recorded again on an "Isle of the Dead" tourist postcard in 1909. In 1907 an Australian Town and Country Journal article about convict burials across the Tasman Peninsula cited 1,700 convict burials on the isle.
Burial records The Wesleyan mission conducted all the religious duties, including the burial services on the Isle of the Dead and recorded them in a burial register from 1833 to 1843.Ross, 1995, p. 17 The register shows that in the cemetery's first decade, 90% of burials were convicts and 90% were younger than 40 years old of which 39 were children from Point Puer boys' reformatory prison.Ross, 1995, p. 15 Over 50% of the convicts buried were labourers with the remaining mostly shoemakers, carpenters and sawyers for the timber industry. Free people buried on the island were 1 government official, 7 soldiers, 7 seamen, an officer's wife and 9 children.Ross, 1995, p. 16
The Wesleyan burial register indicates that four women were buried on the island.Ross, 1995, p. 20 In addition to this number, an elderly aboriginal woman may also have been buried on the isle in 1833. In a diary entry by Lady Jane Franklin, she describes the elder dying while journeying on the government brig, Tamar, on its way to Hobart, and her burial undertaken during the boat's layover at Port Arthur. Catholic and Church of England ministers replaced the Wesleyan missionary in 1843. The only remaining burial record from 1843 to the closure of the cemetery are the Church of England's register kept from 1850 to 1864.
Causes of death From the existing records most burials on the Isle of the Dead were a result of death caused by disease. Convicts arrived to the colony from the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions of the hulks and gaols and experienced nutritional deficiency.Bateson, 1969, as cited in Ross, 1995, p. 42 In the early years illness such as dysentery, enteritis and fever were the main causes of death followed by respiratory disease and epidemics spreading through the colony. There were also a significant number of deaths from accidents, murder and suicide.Ross, 1995, pp. 38–58
Gravediggers There are two known gravediggers who lived and worked on the Isle of the Dead during its time as a penal colony. The first was John Barron, an Irish convict who lived and worked on the island for more than 10 years until pardoned in 1874.Lord, 1990, p. 10 The second was Mark Jeffrey, an English convict who volunteered for the job as gravedigger and lived on the isle from Mondays to Saturdays and returned to the Port Arthur settlement to attend Sunday church services. He was the gravedigger until the penal colony's closure in April 1877, then transferred to Hobart Town prison.Ross, 1995, p. 66
Structures The Isle of the Dead had two shelters that were constructed during its period as a penal cemetery: the gravedigger's residence which was a weatherboard hut with a wood shingled roof and brick chimney; and a shelter for funeral parties which was a latticework-sided shed located near the jetty.Lord, 1990, pp. 9, 11, 87Tropman & Gibbons, 1984, p. 6;
Sea level benchmark In 1841 Captain James Clark Ross, on his Southern Antarctic expedition, undertook scientific excursions on the Tasman Peninsula. Accompanied by Lieutenant-Governor John Franklin, he visited Port Arthur. One reason for this visit was to establish a permanent sea level benchmark based on tidal observations initiated by Franklin and continued by Thomas James Lempriere, Deputy Assistant Commissary General of Port Arthur.
Lempriere had taken on the duties of recording meteorological and tidal observations following the drowning of the Surveyor for the Royal Navy, Lieutenant Thomas Burnett in May 1837.Pugh et al., 2002, p. 3 He recorded observations with a thermometer, water barometer, rain and tide gauge from 1 July 1837 to 30 June 1841.Lord, 1990, p. 18 These charts were then sent to the Royal Society through the Colonial Office.Pugh et al., 2002, p. 8
Captain Ross describes in his book, A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions during the Years 1839–43, that the Isle of the Dead was chosen for the placement of the benchmark as it was near to the tide register. The benchmark was then struck following Franklin giving Lempriere the workers he needed to have the mark cut deeply in the rock where Lempriere's "tidal observations indicated as the mean level of the ocean".
The benchmark was carved into a north facing vertical rock on the Isle of the Dead on 1 July 1841. The standard British ordnance survey benchmark of a broad arrow was used with the horizontal line measuring 50 cm across. A small stone tablet was also installed above the benchmark recording the date the benchmark was struck and the measurements used to determine its position.Shortt, 1889, p. 19 The tablet remained until the early 20th century when it was reported missing.Lord, 1990, p. 19
The Isle of the Dead benchmark, including the related surviving records up until 1848, were placed on the Australian National Heritage List in June 2005 for having "exceptional historical and scientific significance in the international field of climate research".