- Title
- Carters' Barracks and Point Puer: the confinement experience of convict boys in colonial Australia, 1820-1850
- Creator
- Gorton, Kerin Joy
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2002
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Recently efforts have been made to bring to the public's attention the Point Puer Boys Establishment, as an annex of the Port Arthur penal establishment in Van Diemen's Land. The Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority wish to secure its position in Australian history very firmly. Point Puer however, was not the only, nor the first juvenile establishment in the British Empire as the have claimed. Chapter two of this thesis will draw particular attention to the colony's first juvenile prison and industrial reformatory, Carters' House of Correction, in Sydney, commonly known as Carters' Barracks. Until now, very little has been written about its establishment, role or presence in the colony. However, as this thesis will argue, it was a highly significant child-saving institution of a pioneering nature. The nature of Carters' Barracks, as an institution, highlights significant questions surrounding child welfare, re-education policies and their social ramifications as well as the problems faced by imperialist administrators who had never before experienced such a situation. Carters' Barracks can be arguably viewed as an unconscious precedent for future child reform ideologies in nineteenth and early twentieth century Australia. While convict boys and their experiences have been substantially neglected, numerous recent studies have contributed to the knowledge of adult male and female convict experienced within the development of Australian colonial society. Academic, popular and public historians' alike, more than ever before, revel in the debates of new interpretations of the convict experience. However, as it will be concluded it is erroneous to continue in the belief that the colony seemingly operated without the presence of convict child labour. From the arrival of the first fleet, children were present and active in the colony forming a vital part of its convict labour economic structure. It is the aim of this thesis to examine the experiences of these younger convicts, in particular their confinement experiences within the boundaries of Carters' Barracks and Point Puer.
- Subject
- colonial Australia; Point Puer Boys Establishment; Port Arthur; convict boys; child labour; child welfare
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1312565
- Identifier
- uon:22427
- Rights
- Copyright 2002 Kerin Joy Gorton
- Language
- eng
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