1820 - Day in the life of a convict

By 1820 the days of relative freedom for convicts in Sydney were over. Now, unmarried ‘government men’ were ordered directly into the new Prisoners’ Barracks, where Deputy Superintendent of Convicts John Gandell would control their work hours and their whereabouts. The barracks was not a prison, just a place to sleep and eat, but the rules and regulations might have made living here feel like an additional punishment. The convicts knew of institutions like this back home, and distrusted them because of the harsh living conditions and loss of freedom.

At least everything was fresh inside – the window panes glimmered in the sunshine, the flax hammocks were strong and taut, the scent of the recently cut eucalyptus timbers lingered, and the white lime-washed walls were clean and hygienic. The main building had 12 cavernous sleeping wards, designed to hold 600 men, but now – just a year since the barracks had opened – it proved to be too small, having to hold as many as 1000 men each night.¹ Convicts who were married or had established businesses were permitted to remain living out of barracks in their family homes, and the small number of women convicts enjoyed much more freedom, unless they were badly behaved and were sent to the Female Factory.

Clothing

New arrivals at the barracks often had boxes and trunks with a few precious possessions they had brought with them. But with 1000 men in the sleeping wards, there was no space for cupboards. Their boxes were taken, as well as the clothes off their backs, to be put away in storage, and the storekeeper handed them their uniforms. Stripped of their individuality and personal belongings, the men must have truly felt their loss of liberty.

Major George Druitt, 1819²

This year, the convicts wore a cotton shirt, white ‘duck’ trousers, a blue coarse woollen jacket, a yellow and grey waistcoat, stockings and shoes, a neckerchief, and a woollen or leather cap, all clearly marked with the government ‘broad arrow’ and the letters ‘P.B.’ (Prisoners’ Barracks), to make the men and their clothing identifiable. The convicts were supposed to receive two sets of clothing per year, but they only got one set at a time so they would not sell their second set on the black market.³ The previous year, clothing issues had been few and far between, so by now many of the convicts complained they were dressed in rags, or had garments missing.⁴

On Mondays and Fridays the laundry along the eastern wall was awash with filthy trousers and shirts,⁵ which were afterwards hung out in the sun in the drying yard. To be sure each man received his own shirt back, with its particular rips, holes and stains, each shirt was marked with his initials.⁶ In September and October of this year, convicts John Wilford and Stephan Curran stole others’ clothing.⁷ It was most likely the stamped initials that gave them away, and led to their whipping on the flogging triangle.

Breakfast

Convicts awoke at sunrise each morning with the ringing of the yard bell.⁸ Rising from their hammocks, they shuffled from their wards and down the staircases to the mess rooms on the south side of the compound, where their breakfast of salty meat stew was bubbling away in enormous pots. All of it seemed a bit like being back on board the transportation ships. While the hungry men crowded into timber booths in messes of six men,⁹ former-convict-turned-Deputy Superintendent John Gandell inspected the stew to see if it was well cooked and that each man received his breakfast portion of half a pound (227 grams) of meat.¹⁰

Convict John Slater, 1819¹¹

Food at the Barracks

Jacqui Newling talks through how food preparation and management would have changed for convicts when they moved into the Hyde Park Barracks in 1819.

Work

At the second sounding of the bell, the convicts assembled into work gangs in the yard. Under the watch of the youthful principal overseer Israel Chapman, each man was stopped at the gate and searched for stolen property.12 Marching into town, the gangs headed to worksites, workshops, quarries and other places of toil and industry. Many of these ‘government men’ had been hand-picked by Governor Macquarie, with his eye for those with Aside: useful building skills.

Convict ‘Mellish’, 1825¹³

At the brickfields and building sites, master brickmakers and bricklayers like Joseph Smith worked among clay and brick dust, while at the lumberyard, other skilled workers went about their specialised trades such as carpentry, blacksmithing, coopering, leatherwork, tailoring and shoemaking. Down at the docks, others were building boats, making rope, tanning and sailmaking. Some men carted water and stores, loaded and unloaded ships, drove bullock teams and served as boatmen. Unskilled convicts toiled under the sun while building, clearing land, ploughing, harvesting, gardening, fencing, cutting wood and collecting shells for lime mortar. Road and mining gangs built roads and bridges, quarrying the stone from nearby sites. Saturdays were set aside for the men to work for themselves.

Convict Jack Bushman, remembering 1818¹⁴

A large proportion of convicts were born to city life, and had trained in highly specialised trades, but here in the colony many found themselves assigned to rural or labouring jobs that were a mismatch with their trade.

Convict John Slater, 1819¹⁵

Hospital

Hard physical labour and hazardous work conditions often resulted in serious injuries and illnesses that required treatment at the notorious ‘Rum Hospital’. Convicts liked to call it the ‘Sidney [sic] Slaughter House’, due to the excessive use of bloodletting by cupping by the resident surgeon William Redfern and his staff, not to mention the unhygienic conditions that meant convicts might not make it out alive.

Convict Matthew Heyland feared being mistreated at the hospital, but one day a ‘lump’ in his stomach forced him to visit. Later, back in the barracks wards, he cried out in pain. In a violent sweat, he was carried downstairs, and before he died, he said to the wardsman, ‘Oh, the Doctors have killed me’.¹⁶

Dinner

In the bakehouse in the northern buildings, the oven fires roared as the bakers prepared several hundred loaves of bread, to be served the next day (so already stale).¹⁷ Fires under the kitchen cauldrons were stoked and re-stoked as meat and a scattering of vegetables stewed quietly away. By 1pm, the nearby gangs had returned for dinner (lunch), for their remaining ration of 1 pound (454 grams) of salt beef or mutton (or a smaller portion of pork), while meals for the rest were carted out to their worksites.¹⁸

Evening muster

Marching back to the barracks at sunset, the work-weary men were again searched at the gate, this time to ensure no illegal liquor was being brought in.¹⁹ About once a week, one or two convicts didn’t show up and their names would appear in the papers with a call for their apprehension. Some were successful: in December 1820, word went out for the capture of barracks convicts William Russell and William Atkins, who had escaped the colony in an open boat.²⁰ Convict latecomers or no-shows soon found themselves tending the vegetable garden in their free time on weekends, as punishment.²¹ Laid out in a grid pattern just south of the barracks, the garden grew vegetables for the prisoners’ stew.

After the muster, convicts loitered around the yard or huddled around fires in recreation sheds in winter,²² smoking pipes, chatting in their ‘flash’ language, and whiling away the time. Sometimes a few might have even sung a song, accompanied by clapping and the twang of a ‘jaw harp’.

In the wards

As the 8.30pm bell sounded, the convicts trudged up the staircases to their allocated wards and slumped into their numbered hammocks. Each area was lit by a hanging oil lamp, but at about 8.45 it was lights out.²³ Some men might have stayed awake chatting and telling yarns, while others contemplated their miserable lives as prisoners, or fell asleep quickly out of exhaustion, dreaming of home, family and freedom. The doors were left open to allow access to the privies (toilets, along the eastern wall),²⁴ which also allowed the convicts to roam freely in the dark.

Convict Jack Bushman, remembering 1818²⁵

Convict Sydney © Sydney Living Museums, 2017