'The evacuation of that scene of wickedness and wretchedness': Jeremy Bentham, the Panopticon and New South Wales, 1802-1803

Abstract

Jeremy Bentham was one of the foundational critics of convict transportation to New South Wales. His philosophical objections to both convict transportation and the penal colony of New South Wales, were also products of his fury at the abandonment by the British government of his panopticon penitentiary scheme. Drawing upon Bentham's writings, correspondence and unpublished manuscripts, as well as other unpublished official and private material, this article examines the three phases of Bentham's interest in New South Wales, each correlating to key points in his panopticon campaign. By examining what Bentham sought to do with his writings on New South Wales, this article contributes to and complements the wider historical literature on the panopticon scheme, and in particular highlights the importance of Britain's antipodean penal colony to that story.