Juvenile convict labour and industry: The Point Puer landscape

2020-07

D'Gluyas, Caitlin

2 For example, see I. Brand and G. Dow, 'Cruel only to be kind? Arthur's Point Puer', History of Education Review, Vol. 15, 1986, p. 2; C. Nunn, ''"Making them good and useful": The ideology of juvenile penal reformation at Carters' Barracks and Point Puer', History Australia, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2017, pp. 329-343.

3 H. Shore, 'Transportation, Penal Ideology and the Experience of Juvenile Offenders in England and Australia in the Early Nineteenth Century', Crime, History & Societies, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2002, pp. 81-102.

Journal Article

en

Publication

University of New England, School of Humanities

Australia

10.25952/ahd0-hx96

une:1959.11/54449

The nineteenth-century boys' establishment at Point Puer operated as a carceral institution that attempted to reform young inmates by offering trade training. These functions, however, are poorly understood. Previous historical research has established that the training was separated into a series of trade and work tasks, that a highly regular and disciplinary routine was enacted, and that a growing population and lack of resources marred the success of the training programs.² However, a more nuanced understanding becomes possible when Point Puer is considered through the lens of its work and various industries. Operating between 1834 and 1849 as an outstation of the Port Arthur penal settlement, Point Puer provides an institutional snapshot of the specialised and separate treatment of juvenile criminals in colonial Australia and also a case study of how training and industry formed a crucial part of prisoner labour systems, both in Australia and worldwide.³ In this article the processes and products of juvenile labour at Point Puer are examined through the archaeological landscape and historical record. A focus on industry provides a framework for understanding the value of juvenile labour and the network of activity that existed at and around Point Puer.

link

Journal of Australian Colonial History, v.22, p. 85-118

1441-0370

85

118