Point Puer Children's Prison.

At a particularly dark point in Australia's history, Britain constructed  the first purpose-built children's prison in the Empire here in 1842. (Puer = boy in Latin). There were 716 boys incarcerated here at its peak; having been transported for relatively minor offences, they were taught trades.



The majority of the place-marks are obscured by forest growth, the following map indicates where the features were. The names of the features speak for themselves.





www.flinders.edu.au/ehl/fms/archaeology_files/dig_library/directed_studies/ARCH8404_JStephenson_Report.pdf



Point Puer Childrens Prison.kmz (1.59 KB)

Thanks for the post, larryc1, I remember reading about a children's prison in The Fatal Shore. Also, that it wasn't uncommon to imprison boys as young as 13 with adult hardened criminals. You can imagine how this was not a good situation for the boys, to say the least. You're right, the children's offenses were usually what we would now call petty shoplifting, often of food.  It's so interesting to see your placemark of the place. 

Would you consider adding to this some info and photos of the Island of the Dead (convict's graves) to the north? I just discovered that thanks to your post! 

Consider it done! I finished 'The Fatal Shore' - thank you for a great recommendation! Like you I was appalled at the sadism of the 19th century prison system. 

Diane - if you look at my post on the Port Arthur prison, you will see that I have already indicated the 'Isle of the Dead'. I also had revised this post to include a coal mine where the prisoners were worked under slave conditions.

Ah, I see it there. I've commented in that post.