Legal Change, Convict Activism and the Reform of Penal Relocation in Colonial New South Wales: The Port Macquarie Penal Settlement, 1822-1826

Abstract

This article investigates how imperial legal reforms and convict activism combined to challenge the expanding system of internal 'removal' and 'transportation' in New South Wales during the 1820s. In particular, it explores how prisoners at the Port Macquarie penal settlement disputed the legal foundations of sentencing by colonial magistrates, contributing to the closure of the settlement and a flurry of ameliorative legislation. This article also examines the limits of imperial legal reform in a distant colony. Remediation of the convict relocation system was impeded by bureaucratic intransigence and by the new emphasis on convict subordination in the aftermath of the 1819-21 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the state of the colony of New South Wales.