ATTACHMENT A
ATTACHMENT A
CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN
HYDE PARK BARRACKS MUSEUM CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN Volume 1: The Report Final draft report October 2016
Historic Houses Trust of NSW, incorporating Sydney Living Museums, cares for significant historic places, buildings, landscapes and collections. It is a statutory authority of, and principally funded by, the New South Wales State Government.
Revision Table
CMP Issue No. Issue Date Review- CLSP
Issue A 15th June 2016 SJ, KD
Issue B 29th August 2016 SJ, KD
Issue C 21st October 2016 SJ, KD TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Volume 1 Executive Summary 1-i The Brief 1-i Structure of the Report 1-ii The Place 1-ii Prècis of History of the Place 1-iii Cultural Significance of the Place 1-v Limitations 1-vi Authorship 1-vi
1. Introduction 1-1 1.1 Background to the Conservation Management Plan 1-1 1.2 Definition of the Place and Features 1-1 1.3 Heritage listings 1-6 1.4 Methodology 1-6 1.5 Terms and Abbreviations 1-6 1.6 Exclusions and Limitations 1-7 1.7 Author Identification 1-7 1.8 Acknowledgments 1-7 1.9 Copyright 1-8 1.10 Previous Reports 1-8 1.10 Management Plan Objectives 1-8
2. Historical Chronology of the Place 1-11 2.1 Introduction 1-11 2.2 Historical Context for the Hyde Park Barracks 1-13 2.3 Historical Chronology of the Hyde Park Barracks 1-22
3. Physical Evidence 1-83 3.1 Description of the Place Generally 1-83 3.2 Survey of the Principal Components 1-84 3.3 Context 1-90 3.4 Site Elements 1-98 3.5 The Buildings 1-113 3.6 Historic Period Archaeology 1-135 3.7 The Collection 1-142 3.8 History of Development 1-149
4. Analysis of Significance 1-163 4.1 Introduction 1-163 4.2 Identified Heritage Values 1-163 4.3 Reassessing Cultural Significance of HPB 1-174
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4.4 Aspects of Significance 1-182 4.5 Comparative Analysis 1-189
5. Statement of Significance 1-209 5.1 Introduction 1-109 5.2 Statement of Cultural Significance 1-210 5.3 Summary Statement of Significance 1-216 5.4 Grades of Significance of the Principal Components of the Place 1-217
6. Constraints and Opportunities 1-229 6.1 Obligations and Opportunities Arising from Significance 1-229 6.2 Procedural Constraints arising from Significance 1-230 6.3 Constraints and Opportunities Generally 1-231 6.4 Constraints and Opportunities arising from Statutory Requirements 1-234 6.5 Non-Statutory Heritage Constraints 1-244 6.6 Australian Convict Sites Management 1-245 6.7 Owners Requirements 1-246 6.8 Existing Operational and Management Conditions 1-248 6.9 Other Interested Individuals and Groups 1-256
7. Conservation Policies 1-257 7.1 Development of Conservation Policies 1-257 7.2 Definition of Terms 1-258 7.3 Defining the Place 1-258 7.4 Conservation in Accordance with Significance 1-261 7.5 Management of the Place in Accordance with Significance 1-262 7.6 Care of the Fabric 1-265 7.7 Treatment of the Fabric 1-274 7.8 Interpretation of the Place 1-277 7.9 Use of Place 1-284 7.10 Intervention in the Fabric Identified to be Conserved 1-288 7.11 Adaptation of the Fabric Identified to be Conserved 1-291 7.12 Other New Features 1-300 7.13 Conservation Procedures and Practice 1-302 7.14 Adoption and Review of Conservation Policies 1-303
8. Implementation Plan 1-305 8.1 Implementation Plan 1-305
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Volume 2 Appendices Introduction 2-1 Appendix 1: Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance (The Burra Charter) 2-3 Appendix 2: World Heritage management principles 2-11 Appendix 3: National Heritage places 2-13 Appendix 4: Site Specific Exemptions 2-17 Appendix 5: Heritage Listings 2-19 Appendix 6: Aboriginal Heritage & History 2-21 Appendix 7: Historic Archaeology Evaluation 2-23 Appendix 8: Stakeholder Outcomes Report 2-25 Appendix 9: Bibliography 2-27
Volume 3 Fabric Survey of Built Components Introduction 3-1 Fabric Survey of the Built Components 3-1 Main Barracks Building 3-8 Building A 3-82 Building B 3-84 Building C 3-86 Building D 3-89 Building E 3-91 Building F 3-104 Building G 3-111 Building H 3-123 Building I 3-147
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Hyde Park Barracks Museum
Executive Summary
The impressive duty of preserving the immigrants’ Barracks of Governor Macquarie lies in the fact that, in a century of subsequent efforts, the same degree of dignity and simplicity has not yet been accomplished with anything like such limited means and materials. Walter Burley Griffin, 21st June 19351
The Brief This report is a Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for Hyde Park Barracks, Queen’s Square, Macquarie Street, Sydney.
Hyde Park Barracks (HPB) is widely recognised for its cultural significance. In 2010 it was one of 11 “Australian Convict Sites” inscribed on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The place is also listed on the National Heritage List, the NSW State Heritage Register and on the City of Sydney Council’s Local Environmental Plan.
Hyde Park Barracks is managed as a museum by Sydney Living Museums (SLM), a statutory authority of the NSW Government operating under the Historic Houses Act 1980.
Sydney Living Museums (SLM) has received Federal Government grant funding through the Protecting National Historic Sites Programme (PNHS) to facilitate revised interpretation and updated conservation management planning at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum.
SLM has the opportunity to revisit the heritage values of the place, undertake interpretation reviews and enhance visitor experience and engagement. The overall project includes audience research, a new conservation management plan, the revision of existing conservation management plans and museum plans and the development of enhanced and renewed site interpretation.
This new CMP has been commissioned to guide Sydney Living Museums in the management of Hyde Park Barracks to ensure its best practice conservation as a World Heritage site.
1 Letters to the Editor: Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 21st June 1935, page 8
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Structure of the Report This report has been prepared in a manner consistent with the Australian World Heritage management principles contained in Schedule 5 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations 2000 (EPBC Regulations) and the National Heritage management principles contained in Schedule 5B of the same.
The CMP (Volumes 1, 2 and 3) has been developed in line with The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance, The Burra Charter, 2013 (Burra Charter) and JS Kerr’s Conservation Plan (7th edition, Australia ICOMOS, 2013).
The overall structure of the CMP consists of the following:
Volume 1: The Report (this volume) a chronology of the history of the place (Section 2), the study of the built fabric, the setting, the archaeological deposits (Aboriginal and European) and assemblage of excavated artefacts (Section 3), an analysis of the heritage values of the place (Section 4) a Statement of Cultural Significance (Section 5). opportunities and constraints on the treatment and use of the place (Section 6) conservation policies (Section 7) implementation plan for the recommended conservation policies (Section 8) Volume 2: The Appendices
Volume 3: The Fabric Survey All three volumes of the conservation management plan should be read in conjunction with each other, to form an understanding of the cultural significance of the Hyde Park Barracks.
The Place Hyde Park Barracks is situated at the southern end of Macquarie Street, Sydney. It is bounded by Queen’s Square to the west, Prince Albert Road and the Registrar General’s Building to the south, the Land Title’s Office and Hospital Road to the east and the Mint complex to the north.
Constructed in 1817-1819 as a convict barrack at the instigation of Governor Macquarie and to the design of Francis Greenway, the original complex comprised a central three-storey brick Barracks set in an open courtyard bounded by symmetrical ranges of buildings to the north and south, all enclosed within a stone perimeter wall and was designed to be seen in the round on three sides: from the government Domain to the east, from Hyde Park to south, and primarily from Queen’s Square to the west.
Today, the place is comprised of the surviving original barracks building enclosed by a complex of buildings on its northern and eastern perimeters and stone perimeter walls on its western and southern sides, a diverse archaeological resource including stratified deposits throughout the complex and beyond its legal boundaries, as well as the extensive artefact assemblage managed by SLM.
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Since it was restored in the late 20th century, the Hyde Park Barracks has been open to the public as a museum.
Précis of the History of Hyde Park Barracks Hyde Park Barracks was commissioned as part of a program of civic infrastructure works by Lachlan Macquarie, one of the early governors of the British penal colony in New South Wales. Designed by convict architect Francis Greenway and built by convict labour on land very recently occupied by the Indigenous Cadigal people, an estimated 50,000 convicts passed through Hyde Park Barracks between 1819 and 1848.2
From the 1820s Hyde Park Barracks’ role began expanding from providing male convicts with food and shelter to becoming the administrative hub of the New South Wales penal system. From 1830 it housed the Principal Superintendent of Convicts and soon, the Assignment Board, which administered to all convicts around the colony. Also in 1830 a Magistrate’s Court began meeting there to conduct the trials of re- offending convicts. Punishments such as flogging or solitary confinement were often inflicted on site. It also became the place in Sydney where male convicts were mustered and held when moving between private assignments and government work sites. The detailed records of convict transit though Hyde Park Barracks have contributed to Australian convicts being recognised as one of best documented groups of nineteenth century working people anywhere in the world.3
After 1848, when the last remaining convicts at Hyde Park Barracks were marched off to Cockatoo Island, the complex accommodated a myriad of other government and semi-government functions. Between 1848 and 1887 it was an Immigration Depot for an estimated 40,000 women arriving in New South Wales, including 2253 orphaned girls fleeing famine-racked Ireland. These female immigrants were encouraged to come to New South Wales to remedy both the gender imbalance and the domestic labour shortage; Hyde Park Barracks served as their reception house and as a labour exchange. Between 1862 and 1886 Hyde Park Barracks hosted an Asylum for invalid and destitute women on the top floor of the Barracks building, at little public cost—they lived almost self-sufficiently. This women’s home was the New South Wales State Government’s “first direct intervention into social welfare for the colony’s aged and infirm”4 (previous Asylums having been run by churches and charities).
In these middle decades of the nineteenth century Hyde Park Barracks also accommodated a range of semi-government organisations such as the Government Printer, the Volunteer Rifle Corps and the Vaccine Institution. In addition the Colonial Architect’s office and its successors were located for many decades just outside the eastern perimeter wall.
Hyde Park Barracks accommodated many New South Wales legal institutions throughout its history. There was the magistrates’ bench for convict trials from 1830; then in 1858 the Metropolitan Court was founded there—a court which is still in operation today throughout New South Wales as the District Court. From 1887 to 1979 Hyde Park Barracks became a focal point for New South Wales government departments under the
2 Sydney Living Museums 2014, HPBM Guidebook; Cozens 1848, Adventures, p. 110. 3 Brooke & Brandon 2005, Bound for Botany Bay, p. 218 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 50 4 Hughes 2004, “Hyde Park Asylum,” p. 3.
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control of the Minister for Justice and thus a key point of administration of the state’s legal system.5 During this time Hyde Park Barracks was home to the Equity Court, the New South Wales Industrial Court and Arbitration Commission, the Bankruptcy Court, the Coroner, Probate, the Land Appeal Court, the Master of Lunacy and more. A number of landmark legal cases were heard in its perimeter buildings, including the basic living wage case in 1927, the dispute over the Archibald Prize-winning portrait by William Dobell in 1944 and the successful equal-pay case for New South Wales women in 1973.
Throughout much of the twentieth century Hyde Park Barracks was under recurrent threat of demolition as a semi-derelict building with unpleasant reminders of the past. Architects such as William Hardy Wilson, B.J. Waterhouse and Walter Burley Griffin defended the place on its architectural merits and in the mid-1930s publisher/artist Sydney Ure Smith organised a petition in its defence with 8000 signatures. These debates have been described as “the most notable preservation cause celebre of the interwar years in Sydney.”6 Although a decision to conserve the Hyde Park Barracks was finally made by the New South Wales Government in the mid-1970s, conservation works for its adaptive reuse only began in earnest under the Wran Government in 1979.
Since 1979 Hyde Park Barracks has been a site of pioneering work in heritage conservation, interpretation, historical archaeology and museum curatorship. It was a key part of the major conservation works undertaken in central Sydney in the early 1980s—also including The Mint, Parliament House and the site of the first Government House—considered a landmark in the professionalization of heritage practice, when Australia ICOMOS and the Heritage Council of New South Wales were becoming active. The historical archaeological work at Hyde Park Barracks in 1980 and 1981 was the first time that heritage evaluation criteria were applied to archaeology in New South Wales and that members of the public were invited to participate as volunteers.7 A rich archaeological assemblage of about 120,000 artefacts recovered from the site since the 1970s attests to the different historical uses of the place and offers considerable potential for further research.
Although the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences was running Hyde Park Barracks as a public museum of history from 1984, in 1990 its administration was taken over by the Historic Houses Trust, now called Sydney Living Museums. The curatorial approach became more innovative and focused on the building and its history, presenting it as a “museum of itself.” The Hyde Park Barracks Museum continues to attract a diverse local, interstate and international visitation.
Aboriginal dispossession is a strong theme which sits alongside, and cuts across most aspects of the historical significance of Hyde Park Barracks. The site was part of an Aboriginal cultural landscape long before Europeans arrived in Sydney or planned to construct Barracks there. The clearing of trees, reshaping of ground and the construction of the building and perimeter walls in the early 19th century were acts of appropriation of this Aboriginal land. The dispersal of convicts and women immigrants from Hyde Park Barracks throughout New South Wales is also significant for the history of Aboriginal dispossession as these people were often at the vanguard of colonial settlements and the taking of land. Hyde Park Barracks forms part of the history of colonisation of the continent of Australia by Britain and remains a symbol of the dispossession of their land for many Aboriginal people.
5 Clive Lucas Stapleton Partners 1996 “Conservation Plan for Perimeter Structures”, p. 73; Sydney Living Museums Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook, Sydney Living Museums, 2014. 6 Freestone, 1999 “Early historic preservation in Australia.” 7 Thorp, 2016 “Historic period archaeology”
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If the first half of the nineteenth century in New South Wales was defined by the convict system, the second half of the century was driven by the repudiation of that system. The adaptation of Hyde Park Barracks for use by numerous government institutions, including building alterations and regular proposals for its demolition, may be seen as part of a widespread cultural practice of repressing the convict phase of Australian history. It was not until a national paradigm shift occurred during the 1970s towards valuing Australian history and heritage that the New South Wales State Government decided to keep, conserve, reconstruct and display Hyde Park Barracks. The history of its post-convict uses, alterations, demolition proposals and interpretative difficulties in engaging with Aboriginal history, may thus be seen to be an integral part of Hyde Park Barracks’ convict history and representative of Australians’ changing responses to their past.
Hyde Park Barracks has been endlessly represented in art works and in historical accounts of the founding of Australia. It was amongst the earliest places in Sydney proposed for heritage protection when lists began to be compiled in the 1940s by the NSW National Trust and the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. It has since been listed on the City of Sydney heritage schedule of the Local Environmental Plan, the State heritage Register and the National Heritage List. In 2010 Hyde Park Barracks was included on the UNESCO World Heritage list as one of a serial inscription of 11 Australian Convict Sites, listed collectively for their “outstanding universal significance” as part of the world’s history of forced migration of people internationally.
Cultural Significance of the Place Hyde Park Barracks is of exceptional historical significance for its evidence of the early 19th century era of convict transportation—both as an aspect of the world history of forced migration and as part of the founding of the modern Australian nation on Aboriginal land. With more than 50,000 convicts passing through its gates, Hyde Park Barrracks was for many years the administrative hub of the penal system in NSW. The place is mentioned in just about every historical account of the founding of modern Australia.
Aboriginal dispossession is a strong theme which sits alongside, and cuts across most aspects of the historical significance of the place. Although there are no known Aboriginal relics associated with the place, it is important for the history of contact relations throughout New South Wales as the site from which thousands of male convicts (and later female servants) were assigned to outlying settlements.
Completed in 1819, Hyde Park Barracks is one of the finest designs by celebrated convict architect Francis Greenway, combining English classicism with the available vernacular building traditions to create a uniquely Australian architecture. The three-storey brick barracks building set in its walled quadrangle was an ambitious set-piece and a major statement of urban civility and decorum. Its handsomely proportioned façade is reflected in Greenway’s St James’ Church opposite. The two buildings combine with the public square as a landmark example of urban design in one of Australia’s most historic precincts.
The place was subsequently home to an estimated 40,000 immigrant women including orphaned girls from the Irish Famine. It is thus an important site in the history of Australian immigration and part of the history of a second diaspora of populations around the globe. Between 1862 and 1886 Hyde Park Barracks also hosted an asylum for invalid and destitute women, one of the Government’s earliest direct interventions into social welfare for the infirm.
For more than a century it was also home to many legal institutions, a focal point of judicial administration in NSW and the location of a number of landmark legal cases.
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Since the 1980s Hyde Park Barracks has been an innovative site of building conservation, interpretation and archaeology that remains influential today. As a preservation cause celebre of the mid-20th century, the place is a landmark in the history of Australian heritage, illustrating a national paradigm shift towards valuing Australian history, including its convict past.
Hyde Park Barracks is strongly associated with Governor Macquarie, its convict architect Francis Greenway and later Governors, politicians and bureaucrats, as well as the many people who lived or worked, or had their legal matters settled here.
Hyde Park Barracks has significance for the descendants of convicts, female immigrants and Asylum dwellers who inhabited the place during the first phases of its history and to the legal community and other occupants. Wider community appreciation of its architectural, urban design, archaeological and historical meanings is evidenced by its numerous heritage listings and World Heritage status. The values that Aboriginal people ascribe to the site remain an under-investigated aspect of the place’s history.
The Hyde Park Barracks site has exceptional archaeological and research potential. It has already yielded more than 120,000 archaeological artefacts and the “underfloor” collection is considered to be an internationally significant archive of 19th century institutional life.
Limitations This report does not address the natural heritage values of the place.
Authorship This report has been produced at Lucas Stapleton Johnson & Partners Pty Ltd and is the compilation of work by the following team:
Lead Consultants Lucas Stapleton Johnson & Partners Pty Ltd
Heritage Architects Lucas Stapleton Johnson & Partners Pty Ltd
Materials Conservation International Conservation Services
European Archaeology Cultural Resources Management
Aboriginal Archaeology Mary Dallas Consulting Archaeologists
Client body and review Sydney Living Museums/Historic Houses Trust
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1 Introduction
1.1 Background to the Conservation Management Plan Hyde Park Barracks is a fine Georgian building designed by a convict architect and built by convict labour in 1817-1819, located in the centre of Sydney. It was commissioned by the Governor of NSW to provide accommodation for male convicts while making an architectural statement about colonial authority and civility. By subjecting convicts to order and discipline while removing them from the streets of Sydney and providing a fine, substantial building which would (eventually) be utilised by many public agencies, the Hyde Park Barracks has contributed to the cultural development of NSW. It thus presents an emblem of both the Australian penal colonies and their transformation into a modern nation.
Today, the place is comprised of the surviving original barracks building enclosed by a complex of buildings and stone perimeter walls, a diverse archaeological resource including stratified deposits throughout the complex and beyond its legal boundaries, as well as an extensive artefact assemblage.
The place is managed by Sydney Living Museums (SLM), a statutory authority of the NSW government, operating under the Historic Houses Act 1980 and administered through the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) within the NSW Department of Planning and Environment. Hyde Park Barracks currently functions as a “museum of itself” and has been in this use since 1990.
This conservation management plan (CMP) has been prepared for Sydney Living Museums (SLM). The brief for the report required the preparation of a CMP that will guide Sydney Living Museums in the best practice conservation and management of Hyde Park Barracks ensure its continuance as a World Heritage Listed site. This CMP has been developed to assist SLM with managing the practical and business needs of its growing organisation working within an important heritage context.
This CMP is the first heritage report commissioned to investigate the physical fabric of Hyde Park Barracks in its entirety together with the archaeology and the assemblage and to attempt to summarise the findings of the most significant historical and heritage studies undertaken to date, in order to offer a more comprehensive evaluation of the significance of the place.
1.2 Definition of the Place and Features Hyde Park Barracks is a complex of buildings located at Queen’s Square to the east of Sydney’s Central Business District on the eastern side of Macquarie Street at the corner of Prince Albert Road, Sydney. It is situated within the local government area of the City of Sydney Council, within the Parish of St. John, in the County of Cumberland. Refer to Figures 1.1 and 1.2.
The study area consists only of the land currently managed by Sydney Living Museums and is defined by the curtilage of the place for the World Heritage listing and the National Heritage listing for the place. Refer to Figure 1.4.
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The Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) defines the term “place” as “a building or structure… which may include equipment, furniture, fittings and articles associated or connected with the building or structure”.1
The study area (or place) therefore is defined as the main barracks building and seven associated buildings enclosed within stone perimeter walls, in situ archaeology, a significant assemblage of excavated artefacts, museum displays and an extensive collection of records. Refer to Figure 1.1.
Although not part of the study area for this report, as a World Heritage site and as a requirement of the management arrangements for the place, a buffer zone (of 5.7 ha) exists surrounding the Hyde Park Barracks. Refer to Figure 1.5.
The real property definition of the place is comprised of Lots 45 to 49 DP 47116, part Lot 43 DP 47116 (south of the alignment of the northernmost segment of the northern boundary of Lot 49 DP 47116) and Lot 1 DP 48231. The property covers an area of 0.5 ha. Refer to Figure 1.3.
Figure 1. 1: Site plan showing location of built features within the boundaries of the study area.
1 EPBC Act 1999 p 697
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Figure 1. 2: Location plan of the city of Sydney identifying Hyde Park Barracks site (Source: Google Earth, 2016)
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Figure 1. 3: Location plan of the southern end of Macquarie Street identifying Hyde Park Barracks site (Source: Google Earth, 2016)
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Figure 1. 4: Aerial view of Hyde Park Barracks showing the cadastral definition of the land included in the site boundary: Lots 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 and Part Lot 43 of Deposited Plan 47116. The remainder of Lot 43 encompasses the majority of the Mint complex of buildings to the north. (Source: Six Maps-NSW LPI, 2016)
Figure 1. 5: Plan showing identified World Heritage area and buffer zone for the Hyde Park Barracks (Listing No. 1306-003) (Source: World Heritage Commission, UNESCO http://whc.unesco.org/en/list /1306)
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1.3 Heritage Listings The Hyde Park Barracks was inscribed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List in July 2010 as part of a serial listing for eleven (11) individual sites comprising the Australian Convict Sites.
The place is also listed on the National Heritage List, the NSW State Heritage Register (together with The Mint building) and on the City of Sydney Council’s Local Environmental Plan 2012 (Schedule 5). It is also included on the National Trust Register and the Register of the National Estate. Refer to Appendix 4 for copies of all listings.
1.4 Methodology The form and methodology of this report follows the general guidelines for conservation management plans outlined in J S Kerr, The Conservation Plan, Australia ICOMOS, seventh edition, 2013, the guidelines to the Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance (The Burra Charter) 2013, and the NSW Heritage Branch and Planning NSW’s publication Heritage Manual (July 2002). For a flowchart of this methodology, see Appendix 1.
In addition, as the place is both a World Heritage item and a National Heritage item, this report has been prepared as per the requirements under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Regulations 2000 and the guidelines for heritage management plans outlined in the document “Working Together, Australia’s National Heritage”, Department of Environment and Heritage, 2006. For a flowchart of this methodology, see Appendix 2.
This conservation management plan sets out the framework and mechanisms SLM will use to monitor, protect, conserve and manage the heritage values at Hyde Park Barracks.
1.5 Terms and Abbreviations This report adheres to the use of terms as defined in the Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter (see Appendix 1).
Throughout this report the term “Hyde Park Barracks” is used to refer to the place; that is the entire complex of buildings, site and landscape features, archaeology and the artefact assemblage that comprises the study area.
The following abbreviations have been adopted throughout this report:
CMP Conservation Management Plan HPB Hyde Park Barracks SLM Sydney Living Museums HHT Historic Houses Trust WHL World Heritage List WHC World Heritage Commission
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NHL National Heritage List SHR State Heritage Register EPBC Act Environment, Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999 EPBC Regs. Environment, Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations, 2000
1.6 Exclusions and Limitations This report does not address natural heritage significance of the place.
1.7 Author Identification This report has been produced at Lucas Stapleton Johnson & Partners Pty Ltd and is the compilation of work by the following team:
Lead Consultants Lucas Stapleton Johnson & Partners Pty Ltd Project Leader/Heritage Architect Sean Johnson Project Organiser/Heritage Planner Kate Denny Historian Dr. Bronwyn Hanna Aboriginal Archaeology Mary Dallas Consulting Archaeologists Aboriginal Archaeologist Dr. Paul Irish
European Archaeology Cultural Resources Management Historical Archaeologist Wendy Thorp
Materials Conservation International Conservation Services Project Leader/Conservator Julian Bickersteth Senior Objects Conservator Karina Acton
Client body and review Sydney Living Museums/Historic Houses Trust
1.8 Acknowledgments The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of the following:
Rebecca Guerrero, Ian Innes, Jane Kelso, Elisha Long, Deborah Morrow, Oriana Senese and Dr Fiona Starr, of Sydney Living Museums David Thompson, former project architect, Public Works Department Participants of the Stakeholders Forum and Stakeholders one-on-one consultations (see Appendix 7).
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1.9 Copyright This commissioned report is copyright © Sydney Living Museums 2016. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.
The images and photographs (except those of the authors) used in this report have been reproduced for this report only. Copyright continues to reside with the copyright owners and permission must be sought for their use in any other document or publication.
1.10 Previous Reports Although a vast number of reports have been produced in relation to the history, significance and physical evidence of the Hyde Park Barracks, this report is the first comprehensive conservation management plan prepared for the whole of the site. Regardless, a number of earlier reports have been relied on in the preparation of this CMP:
Royal Mint and Hyde Park Barracks Conservation Guidelines, Meredith Walker and Robert A Moore Architects (May 1990). Hyde Park Barracks Museum Plan, Historic Houses Trust of NSW (September 1990); Hyde Park Barracks Analysis of Physical Fabric, Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners (1990) Hyde Park Barracks, Queen’s Square, Sydney- Conservation Plan for Perimeter Structures Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners Pty Ltd (November 1996). Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, Management Plan, Historic Houses Trust of NSW (February 2010)
1.11 Management Plan Objectives In accordance with Schedule 5A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations, 2000, a management plan must “establish objectives for the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission of the National Heritage values of the place”.2
The objectives of this conservation management plan are to:
Protect, conserve and manage the World heritage values of Hyde Park Barracks Protect, conserve and manage the National heritage values of Hyde Park Barracks; Protect, conserve and manage the State and Local heritage values of Hyde Park Barracks; Interpret and promote all heritage values of Hyde Park Barracks; Take into account the significance of the place as a cultural landscape occupied by Aboriginal people over many thousands of years; Encourage site uses that are compatible with the historical fabric, infrastructure and general environment;
2 EPBC Regs, 2000; Schedule 5A(a)
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Manage use and where there is no adverse impact on the heritage values of the place, manage adaptive re-use of Hyde Park Barracks consistent with the heritage values of the place; Encourage the continuation of community, stakeholder and interested party consultation in the identification and management processes for the place; Use best practice standards, including ongoing technical and community input, and apply best available knowledge and expertise when considering actions likely to have an impact on the heritage values; and Record and document maintenance works, changes to the fabric, changes in the condition of the heritage values and the identification of new values in existing heritage records, as managed by Sydney Living Museums.
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INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
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2 History of the Place 2.1 Introduction
“The story of Hyde Park Barracks crosses major themes in Australian history: European settlement on Aboriginal land, convict labour and reform, changing systems of punishment and notions of justice, immigrant reception, the housing of poor and feeble women, the evolution of the state, expansion of law and social policy, arbitration and the struggle of capital and labour, changing Australian identity, and the growth of the modern city and heritage movement.”1
Figure 2.1: Detail of the earliest known artistic depiction of HPB, c. 1819. This small watercolour is unsigned but attributed to the explorer and artist, George William Evans (1780-1852).2 The view emphasises the grandness of the building in its walled enclosure in an otherwise almost desolate landscape. (Source: State Library New South Wales PX*D 41).
There are a great many brief historical accounts of Hyde Park Barracks (HPB) already produced by historians, consultants, bureaucrats, academics and curators. In 2003 an archaeological research team brought together by La Trobe University counted 150 reports commissioned about the place since the 1970s.3 More have been written since then.
At the same time there is no authoritative history of HPB so far in existence.4 It is not the role of this conservation management plan (CMP) to provide one, although the policies do recommend that a comprehensive monograph on the history of the place be undertaken. Instead, and in order to understand the cultural significance attributed to the place, this CMP assembles and consolidates the established historical understanding of HPB and presents them in a tightly referenced chronological narrative with
1 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Museum Guidebook. 2 http://archival-classic.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=404873 3 Crooke et al. 2003, “Assessment of Historical and Archaeological Resources”, p. 15. 4 This absence is also noted by Davies et al., 2013, “An archaeology of institutional confinement,” p. 9. A “curatorial narrative” describing the convict era of HPB is currently being prepared by Sydney Living Museums curator Fiona Starr for a new interpretation plan and the 2019 bicentennial of HPB— see Starr, forthcoming (not sighted for this CMP).
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images—in order to inform our understanding of the cultural significance attributed to the place. The chronology is written in the present tense to bring coherence to this diversity of sources and to enliven the narrative.
The chronology is preceded by some discussion of the historical context for convict transportation and the establishment of the penal colony in Sydney.
The main references used (in chronological order of their publication) are:
1965: State Planning Authority of N.S.W. Hyde Park Barracks Sydney, Angus and Robertson. Text prepared by Helen Baker (later Helen Proudfoot).
1980: Thorp, Wendy. “Hyde Park Barracks archival report,” unpublished report commissioned by the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.
1990: Moore, Robert and Walker, Meredith. “Hyde Park Barracks: Elements Survey and Options for Interpretation of the Fabric,” unpublished report commissioned by the Historic Houses Trust and “Royal Mint and Hyde Park Barracks Conservation Guidelines,” unpublished report commissioned by the Historic Houses Trust.
1990: Historic Houses Trust New South Wales. “Hyde Park Barracks Museum Plan,” Incorporating analysis and guidelines on conservation, interpretation and management, unpublished report prepared by the Historic Houses Trust New South Wales.
1995: Margaret Simpson, “Hyde Park Barracks,” Old Sydney Buildings, A Social History, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst.
1996: Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners, “Hyde Park Barracks, Queen’s Square, Sydney, Conservation Plan for Perimeter Structures,” unpublished report commissioned by the Historic Houses Trust; section on historic background written by Katrina Proust.
2003: Crook, Penny, Ellmoos, Laila and Murray, Tim, “Assessment of Historical and Archaeological Resources of the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney,” Archaeology of the modern city series Vol. 4, Historic Houses Trust, Sydney. 2006: Crook, Penny and Murray, Tim, “An archaeology of institutional refuge, the material culture of the Hyde Park Barracks 1848-1886,” Archaeology of the Modern City Series, Vol. 12, Historic Houses Trust, Sydney.
2007: Australian Heritage Council, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry, Australian Heritage Database sighted 7 July 2016.
2008: Australian Government. Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Canberra.
2008: UNESCO, “Australian Convict Sites,” World Heritage Listing entry online in 2016 at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1306.
2010: Historic Houses Trust “Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, Management Plan,” unpublished report prepared by the Historic Houses Trust based on a report by Jyoti Somerville and Sheridan Burke of Godden Mackay Logan, Historic Houses Trust, Sydney.
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2012: Sydney Living Museums, “Hyde Park Barracks Museum final script with edits, recording, production notes as at August 2012” unpublished audio guide script report prepared by the Hyde Park Barracks Museum, Sydney.
2013: Davies, Peter, Crook, Penny and Murray, Tim, “An archaeology of institutional confinement, the Hyde Park Barracks 1848-1886,” Studies in Australian Historical Archaeology, Vol. 4, Australian Society for Historical Archaeology, Sydney University Press. 2014: Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook, Sydney Living Museums, Sydney.
2016: Wendy Thorp, “Historical period archaeology,” unpublished report commissioned by Lucas Stapleton Johnson & Partners for the 2016 CMP for Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney.
2.2 Historical Context for the HPB
2.2.1 Prehistory: Aboriginal land
Figure 2.2. A depiction of traditional Aboriginal people fishing and cooking on the shores of Sydney Harbour by visiting Frenchman Charles Leseur, c. 1802. (Source: Peron & Freycinet, 1824. Voyages autour du monde, held State Library NSW)
The Australian continent has been home to Aboriginal people for thousands of generations. Archaeological evidence and early historical observations of the Sydney area show that in pre-contact times, Aboriginal people use tools of ground and flaked stone, bone, shell and bark to make a range of implements with which they exploit the resources of the sea and the land. They make stone artefacts as they camp along the Tank Stream near the site of the HPB, and bury their dead in its sandy banks. They use hatchets of ground stone to cut slabs of bark from trees to make canoes, they climb trees in search of possums or honey and they use shell fish hooks and pronged fishing spears to deadly effect in harvesting the rich
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resources of the harbour bays.5 They live near freshwater streams and springs in sandstone rock shelters or in constructed huts of branches and bark.6
In daily life Aboriginal people live in bands of up to several dozen people, made up of male clan members and their wives (from other clans) and children. These bands retain primary or secondary rights to a wide range of areas, and are often multi-lingual groups. They trade with other groups to obtain materials they require, sometimes over considerable distances. They do not live in permanent settlements, but move across the areas where they have connections, both in search of seasonal foods and resources, and to fulfil ceremonial and familial obligations.7 Sydney Cove is part of the Cadi clan estate, stretching along the southern side of the harbour from the eastern suburbs to just west of the city. Its members are known as Cadigal, and they retain primary rights to the Cadi estate.8
When Europeans arrive in 1788 they disrupt a way of life that had constantly evolved over many millennia with the shifting environment of Sydney. Aboriginal people are used to dealing with change but nothing could prepare them for the appropriation of Aboriginal lands by Europeans with no thought of their enduring custodianship. Initially there is little contact but within months sporadic violence commences. Sometimes it is deliberate as Europeans steal or destroy Aboriginal belongings. Other times it comes from misunderstandings, where each side is unaware of the protocols expected of them. Arthur Phillip (1738- 1814), the first governor of New South Wales (NSW), tries to learn about the people who outnumber him by kidnapping two Aboriginal men in late 1788. One immediately escapes, and the other, Arabanoo, soon sickens and dies. In November 1789 two more men, are kidnapped, Bennelong and Colbee, and Philip finally succeeds in striking up a friendship with Bennelong. Meanwhile a devastating smallpox epidemic sweeps around the harbour, killing many hundreds of Aboriginal people, and leaving no family unaffected. After this time, there is no further recorded violence between the two cultures in Sydney, but Aboriginal people do not shun the town. Rather, as they appear to recognise Sydney as the centre of colonial power, they develop relationships with the succession of colonial governors and frequent the town, getting to know a number of its European inhabitants. Though dispossessed, they continue to assert their connections to the town by camping in and around it.9
The convict punishment system is a good example of the vastly different cultural worlds of Aboriginal people and Europeans that collide in Sydney in the late 18th century. Traditional Aboriginal life is highly regulated with law and custom and strict punishments meted out for transgressions. Often though, these punishments are in the form of single or collective armed combat. Aboriginal people are acutely aware of the power structures within the convict system and the difference between soldier and convict. They seem to find the flogging of convicts incomprehensible. In 1789 for example, First Fleet naval officer Watkin Tench (1758?-1833) tries to explain to Aboriginal man, Arabanoo (d. 1789), why the convict floggings they are witnessing are necessary, but Arabanoo displays “symptoms of disgust and terror only.”10 The inequities in
5 www.sydneybarani.com.au/sites/the-tank-stream/ [accessed 5/7/16]; Attenbrow, 2010b, "Aboriginal Fishing in Port Jackson.” 6 Irish 2016, 7 Irish 2016, 8 The suffix “gal” translates as “people” or “men” of the Cadi estate according to Attenbrow 2010a, Sydney's Aboriginal Past, pp. 22-30, 57. 9 Irish 2016; Karskens 2009, The Colony, Chapters 11-12. 10 Tench 1979, Watkin Tench, p. 145.
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society exemplified by the convict prison system are a world apart from the traditional way of life of Aboriginal people.11
The HPB site is part of this cultural landscape. As the HPB is built and then used for a range of purposes throughout the nineteenth century, Aboriginal people continued to pass alongside its walls on their way into town.12 There are Aboriginal people living in Sydney in the 21st century who are descended from some of those people. Aboriginal associations with the Sydney area have never ceased, sitting alongside or interlaced with the various European uses of the HPB site.13
2.2.2 Forced transportation of convicts from Europe (1600s-1900s) In Europe, the enclosure movement along with the industrial revolution results in large-scale unemployment, social and economic dislocation and a rapid increase in criminal activities by people who have lost their traditional homes and livelihoods. In 19th century Britain, rudimentary local prisons and prison hulks bulge with criminals. While some commentators call for harsh punishments to deter crime, others, influenced by eighteenth century “Age of Enlightenment” thinking, call for criminals to be treated rationally and humanely so they may be reformed.
Figure 2.3: Woodcut depiction of the terrors of convict life, from an anti- transportation booklet c.1841. (Source: Frontispiece from Edwin Lilburn’s Complete Exposure of the Convict System, reproduced in White 1981, Inventing Australia)
11 Irish 2016, text on Aboriginal history and significance for HPB CMP. 12 Irish forthcoming. Hidden In Plain View. 13 Irish 2016, text on Aboriginal history and significance for HPB CMP.
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European powers begin to use transportation of criminals to distant colonies as a system of social and political control to manage these pressures. This represents a major shift in the punishment of crime. 14 Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Russia and Argentina all transport convicted criminals (“convicts”) to penal colonies across the globe. Technical developments in navigation, ship building, cartography and provisions make it possible to move large numbers of people against their will over long distances.15
Transporting convicts is one of the three main forms of forced migration practised by Europeans between the 16th century and the 20th century. The other two are slavery and indentured labour.16 Compared to the estimated 9-11 million Africans taken as slaves to the Americas and Europe between 1500 and 1900, convicts are sent overseas in small numbers—around one convict to every 40 slaves. Nonetheless the transportation of 166,000 convicts to the Australia penal colonies between 1788 and 1868 is considerable, understood to be the largest movement of people under convictism.17 The next largest convict transportation regime is the movement of 70,000-90,000 convicts to French Guiana in South America, 18 and third largest recorded is the 50,000 convicts sent to North America between 1718 and 1775.19
Penal transportation is an important part of world history, a demonstration of the pain and subjugation inflicted on one part of humankind by another. It results in immense suffering both for convicts and for the traditional people in distant lands whose lives, land and culture are undermined by colonisation. The vast majority of convicts have no means to return home when their sentence is complete; it is estimated that 95 per cent never again see their birth country or loved ones. Convict “love tokens,” such as pennies converted by convicts into messages to loved ones, are later described as “tiny gravestones” that record convicts’ distress and the pain of “obliterated loves, hopes and lives.”20 On the other hand, transportation results in a significant reduction in executions of criminals in Europe, and offers some convicts a positive chance to start a new life in another part of the world.21
2.2.3 An overview of the Australian penal system The Australian penal transportation system is described as “the most ambitious and longest-running scheme for the forced migration of criminals in human history.”22 It is also the only instance of penal transportation which leads to the European foundation of a nation.23
In 1770 Captain James Cook is the first European to visit the east coast of Australia—although an estimated 54 European expeditions have previously visited the western and northern coasts, then known as New
14 Brooke and Brandon.2005, Bound for Botany Bay, p. 22 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 79. See also its Appendix B, “Key penology developments in the 18th and 19th centuries,” pp. 240-246. 15 Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 42. 16 Ibid., pp. 6, 72, 74. 17 Segal 1993, An atlas of international migration, p. 54 and Eltis 2002, Coerced and free migration, global perspectives, p. 7, cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 222. 18 Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 100. 19 Ibid., pp. 100, 220, 225. 20 Gretton in Field & Millett 1998, Convicts’ love tokens, pp 39-44 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 80. 21 Brodie et al. 2002, English prisons, an architectural history, English Heritage, pp. 19, 121 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, pp. 80, and p. 89, p. 222. 22 Starr 2015, “An archaeology of improvisation,” p. 38. 23 Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 223.
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Holland.24 Despite the known presence of Aboriginal people, Cook claims the eastern side of the continent as the property of the King of England. Five years later Britain loses the American War of Independence. Since British convicts may no longer be sent to America25 the British authorities began considering other destinations for their rapidly growing prison population. The great south land on the other side of the world from Europe is seen as a place for Britain’s unwanted criminal population, and it may serve also as a new outpost of the British Empire on the Pacific rim. Between 1788 and 1868, Britain sends nearly a thousand sailing ships bearing convicts to these new territories in Australia.
The First Fleet of the British penal colony arrives in New South Wales in January 1788 with 11 ships and more than 700 convicts.26 There is no initial attempt to build prisons for convicts in Sydney—rather the entire continent is understood to be the prison. Convicts are put to work on private and public works including clearing and farming the land or building roads, churches and convict structures. Sometimes they are assigned to a private master, sometimes to a government gang.27 Those assigned to the government are given food rations but expected to find their own accommodation, often resorting to hastily erected humpies and tents.28 The convicts transported in the early years thus experience an unusual mixture of captivity and relative freedom. Males call themselves “government men” rather than prisoners, and have the opportunity to earn income for themselves in the afternoons once their duties to the Crown are done for the day, to pay for accommodation and washing.29 Although the colonists at Sydney Cove are initially ill- equipped and nearly starve in its early years, by the time Governor Macquarie arrives nearly thirty years later the place has become well established if not orderly.
The majority of Australia’s transported convicts are petty criminals by contemporary standards. More than 75 per cent are convicted of theft or for receiving stolen goods and given sentences of seven or 14 years. Typically they have previous offences. A small minority of convicts are transported for physical violence, murder, desertion from the army or piracy. A few are transported for political activities such as “machine breaking” or inciting slaves to rebellion.30
The penal colonies in Australia develop a complex and diverse suite of penal practices to manage, punish and reform convicts. These include: bureaucratic regimes of surveillance, corporal punishment (such as flogging and treadmills), psychological regimes to discipline the mind, the convict gang system, the assignment system, the system of separated male barracks and female factories, the probation system, various classification systems, reformatory measures such as trade training, religious instruction, a system of entitlements and rewards including tickets-of-leave, pardons, land grants and a system of legal rights for convicts.31
Both before departing England and on arrival in Australia, basic facets of a convict’s identity are recorded such as their physical features, criminal history, age, place of birth, marital status, literacy, occupation and religion. In the early years of the penal colony the indent information is sparse but the amount of
24 See an Australian Government webpage discussion of this at: http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian- story/european-discovery-and-colonisation 25 Ibid., pp. 90, 190, 224-5. 26 Flannery 1999, The birth of Sydney cited in Sturgess 2015, “First Fleet.”. 27 Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 45. 28 Dupain 1973, Georgian Architecture, p. 20. 29 Cumberland County Council 1962, ‘Hyde Park Barracks,” p. 6. 30 Nicholas 1998, Convict workers: reinterpreting Australia’s past, pp. 48-51, 59 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, Appendix B: “Penal colonies in Australia” p. 211. 31 Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 223.
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information collected by the authorities grows over time.32 Detailed recording and monitoring is maintained during the convict’s sentence through muster lists, registers, passes, indent lists and court records of offences and punishments. These record systems are used for work allocation, classification, regulation, control, secondary punishment and privileges such as extra rations and land grants.33 Convicts also play a role in surveillance by acting as overseers of other convicts, record keepers and spies.34 Australian convicts are one of the world’s most documented working people of the era.35 The “Convict Records of Australia,” some of which continue to be held at HPB, have been deemed of world heritage significance and included on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2007.36
Figure 2.4: Engraving entitled "A chain gang. Convicts going to work nr. Sidney N. S. Wales" by Edward Backhouse, 1843 (Source: J. Backhouse’s “A narrative of a visit to the Australian colonies,” held National Library Australia, Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK3894)
32 Kelso 2016, “Hyde Park Barracks: Historical chronology of the place,” p. 5. 33 Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, pp. 40, 49. 34 Ibid. 35 Brooke & Brandon 2005, Bound for Botany Bay, p. 218 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 50 36 The UNESCO listing with its nomination can be viewed at: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and- information/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-8/the-convict- records-of-australia/#c186408
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Subjugation and violence are consistent features of the convict system in Australia, although the extent and degree varies across place and time. There are some cases of extreme brutality.37 Subtle and pervasive systems of surveillance work to humiliate, intimidate and control convicts. All convicts are either threatened with, receive or witnessed harsh punishments. Flogging is the main punishment, sometimes given for relatively minor breaches of the rules. Every male and female convict knows they can be flogged for misdemeanours.38 Such violence is characteristic of the times and found in other areas of British and European society. Flogging for relatively minor infractions is common in the British army and navy, for example.
Alongside these terrors, Australia creates relatively good material conditions and economic and legal rights for convicts. Australian convicts have legal rights not always available to convicts in other penal colonies or even to free workers in Britain. Entitlements and rewards designed to encourage rehabilitation include: increased rations, recruitment to responsible positions such as being overseers or clerks, land grants and early pardons. Convicts can make charges against their assigned masters, petition the governor on any matters regarding their detention and sue to protect their property. Those under government service or assignment cannot be punished without a court order, unlike free workers in Britain at this time, who may be given corporal punishment by employers. Most convicts have a higher standard of accommodation, rations, medical services and working conditions than equivalent free workers in Australia and Britain.39 Nicholas and Shergold’s recent analysis of historical records indicates that convicts in NSW are in fact well fed, have a relatively high standard of medical care, are generally healthy, that the lash is used less frequently than previously thought.40
Women convicts also have greater legal protection from ill-treatment by their husbands than free women and can lodge complaints of mistreatment.41 On the other hand, there is a great gender disparity in the Australian penal colonies, with men often out-numbering women as much or more than six to one. Convict women are in serious demand as sexual partners—by convicts, overseers and private masters, and also in danger for this reason, especially because they are without the traditional protection of fathers and husbands. Typically stereotyped as “damned whores,”42 women convicts are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse in private homes.43 Assigned female convicts who fall pregnant are typically returned to female factories to have their babies.44 The opening of HPB as enforced sleeping quarters for male convicts may make Sydney a safer place for many women convicts.
37 Atkinson 1998, The Europeans in Australia, Vol. 1, pp. 134, 258, 262 and Vol. 2, pp. 82-85; Nicholas 1988, Convict workers, pp. 112-113 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 80. 38 Frost et al. 2001, Chain letters, narrating convict lives, pp. 25-26; Shaw 1966, Convicts and the colonies, p. 202; Atkinson 2004, The Europeans in Australia, a history, Vol. 2, p. 84; Brand 2003, Sarah Island penal settlements, p. 53 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 80. 39 Denholm 1979, The colonial Australians, p. 11; Hirst 1983, Convict society and its enemies, pp. 106-132; Braithwaite1999, “Crime in a convict republic,” p. 9; Nicholas 1988, Convict workers, pp. 180-198 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, pp. 85 and 194. 40 Nicholas and. Shergold 1988 ‘Unshackling the Past’, in Nicholas (ed.) Convict Workers, quoted in Starr, 2015, “Convict artefacts from Hyde Park Barracks,” Australian Historical Archaeology, No. 33, p.50. 41 Daniels 1998, Convict women, p. 96 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 85. 42 Summers 1975, Damned Whores and God’s Police; Francis 1994, “History of female prostitution in Australia.” 43 Australian Government, 2008, World Heritage nomination, pp. 81, 194. 44 Ibid., pp. 45, 47
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Religion is an integral part of the penal system in Australia and plays a critical role in the reform of the convict population.45 It is no coincidence that HPB is reflected architecturally in the Anglican St James church positioned opposite on Macquarie Street, or that the Catholic St Mary’s Cathedral is located close nearby. Religious instruction is expected to help the reformation process. Convicts staying at HPB are required to attend religious services on Sundays.46
The overall success of the Australian experiment in developing a law-abiding society on the foundations of a convict settlement informs international penal debates of the time. It has an impact on transportation becoming one of the dominant models for punishing crime in Europe from the late 18th to mid-19th century. The debates about punishment and reform are considered “one of the great social issues of the western world.”47 During this period, philosophical, political and historical writers in Britain, France and Russia study the Australian convict model. The Australian-born offspring of the first generation of convicts, in good health and with a regular mode of working life, are seen as early evidence of the benefits of an enlightened approach.48
When in 1836 the naturalist and author Charles Darwin (1809-1882) visits Australia, he is impressed by its social organisation as well as its natural phenomena: “As a means of making men outwardly honest, of converting vagabonds, most useless in one country, into active citizens of another, and thus giving birth to a new and splendid country, [the Australian penal colony] has succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history.”49
2.2.4 Governor Macquarie’s “Reign”
In late 1809 when Governor Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824) arrives in Sydney, the penal colony is struggling following a military coup (the Rum Rebellion, 1808). Sworn in on New Year's Day 1810, he expresses “the hope that the recent dissensions would now give way to a more becoming harmony among all classes . . . Privately he [was] pleasantly surprised to find the colony thriving and 'in a perfect state of tranquillity'.”50
In his 12 years as governor, Macquarie brings innovative and generally “enlightened” management approaches to New South Wales. Under his rule, convicts are treated relatively humanely, encouraged to discipline themselves and given positive incentives to work rather than punishment. Macquarie seeks to make a handsome town of the dusty penal outpost and founds or re-organises many public institutions including hospitals, orphanages, the police force and the commissariat. He builds hundreds of kilometres of public roads, establishes new towns and proclaims parklands—including Australia’s first public park in 1810, named Hyde Park in tribute to its grander namesake in London.51 He adapts Spanish coins into “holey dollars and dumps” for use as the colony’s first currency and, despite opposition from the British Government, encourages the creation of the colony’s first bank. He develops a public works program
45 Grocott 1980, Convicts clergymen and churches, pp. 166, 201-210 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 85. 46 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Museum Guidebook; Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report”, Vol.1, 1.1. 47 Forster 1996, France and Botany Bay, p. 2 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination, p.90. 48 Hughes 2003, The fatal shore and Forster 1996, France and Botany Bay, p. 4 cited in Australian Government 2008, World Heritage nomination. p. 91. 49 Darwin1836, cited by Australian Government, 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination, p84 50 McLachlan 1967, “Macquarie, Lachlan.” 51 Davies et. al. 2013, “An archaeology of institutional confinement.”
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based on needs identified in an 1810 general survey of buildings he has commissioned upon his arrival.52 Again, despite British reluctance to spend, Macquarie finds ways to fund the erection of about 200 substantial buildings, often within planned urban precincts which have shaped those places to the present day. Macquarie’s surviving buildings remain monuments to his far-sightedness, pragmatism and management skills.53
Macquarie also influences the social organisation of the penal colony by deciding that deserving ex- convicts (“emancipists”) may be readmitted to society. He recognises that this is a different approach from previous years but considers it to be in “the benign Spirit of the Original Establishment.”54 Macquarie is referring to the colony's founder, Governor Phillip, whom he admires and with whom he corresponds. A conscientious Freemason, he is probably also influenced by the anti-slavery campaigns of William Wilberforce (1759–1833), an English politician and philanthropist.55 Macquarie hopes that no people in the world “live better, or have less to complain of, than the convicts, both male and female, in New South Wales, as long as they conduct themselves with Common Propriety.”56 His approach is initially approved in London but arouses indignation among free settlers and military officers in Sydney.57
At the same time, Macquarie authorises the worst intrusions into the lives of Aboriginal people in the Sydney region since the arrival of penal colony. The south-western Sydney region at Appin is a colonial frontier where violence erupts in 1814, leading to a military campaign which culminates in the brutal massacre of at least 14 Aboriginal men, women and children. Macquarie tries to assimilate Aboriginal people by setting up a school for Aboriginal children at Parramatta in 1814. He establishes ill-fated farming settlements for groups of Aboriginal people on Middle Head and Elizabeth Bay. Under his rule in 1820, the newly arrived Catholic priest Father John Joseph Therry (1790-1864) begins visiting Aboriginal communities around Sydney to baptise the children.58 Such measures, and the continued consolidation and intensification of colonial occupation around Sydney, affects Aboriginal people greatly but does not cause them to cease all traditional practices.59
Macquarie’s progressive reforms in Sydney inspire several disaffected colonists to mount a campaign against him in the House of Commons. The British Parliament responds by appointing a judge, John Thomas Bigge (1780-1843), to a commission of inquiry into the affairs of the colony and to examine the effectiveness of transportation as a deterrent to felons. Bigge’s instructions note that transportation should be made “an object of real terror” and any weakening of this by “ill-considered compassion for convicts” should be reported.60 Bigge writes three reports which censure the governor's building programme as wastefully expensive while failing to account for Macquarie’s very real achievements. His analysis is “unfairly prejudicial” towards an administration superior to any previously known in the colony and which, in addition, enjoys popular support among the colony’s inhabitants generally.61 Although the total cost of
52 McLachlan 1967, “Macquarie, Lachlan;” Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 53 Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 54 McLachlan 1967, “Macquarie, Lachlan.” 55 Ibid. 56 Kerr 1984, Design for convicts, p. 58. 57 McLachlan 1967, “Macquarie, Lachlan;” Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” NHL entry. 58 Walker 1821, Letter to Reverend R. Watson, 26 November 1821, State Library of New South Wales, Bonwick Transcript, Box 52, pp. 1040-2. 59 Irish 2016, unpublished report on Aboriginal history and significance for HPB CMP. 60 Bennett 1966, “Bigge, John Thomas;” Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” NHL entry. 61 Bennett 1966, “Bigge, John Thomas.”
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administration doubles during Macquarie’s tenure, the number of prisoners has increased about tenfold. Macquarie actually reduces the average expenditure per convict by about two-thirds.62 At the same time he transforms Sydney from a rough and ready prison outpost into a well-planned town with impressive architecture, respected institutions and well‐behaved citizens.63
Macquarie’s resignation as governor is accepted by his London superiors in 1820. In February 1822 he leaves Sydney under a cloud of disapproval. In England he attempts to vindicate his administration and restore his reputation and by early 1824 he is eventually granted the pension previously promised to him. However, he dies shortly afterwards, on 1 July 1824.64
2.3 Historical Chronology of HPB
Date Event 1803 The first convict barracks are built at Castle Hill The first known convict barracks are built by Governor Philip Gidley King (1758-1808) at the Castle Hill Government Farm (established 1801). They are built of stone, two storeys high and 100 x 24 feet (30 x 7m) in dimension. Following the unsuccessful Vinegar Hill convict uprising of 1804, these barracks are first converted into a barn and later, in 1811, into Australia’s first mental asylum, accommodating 30 inmates. The buildings have since been demolished but their sandstone footings survive. 1810 Hyde Park is reserved and named The HPB complex stands on land early designated as part of the Governor’s Domain. It is just to the north of a “common”—an area of 23 hectares reserved by Governor Phillip in 1796 where anyone can legally gather firewood or graze animals. From the very early days of the colony, this common is a favourite place for sport and recreation. Also early known as the “Exercising Ground,” the “Cricket Ground” and the “Race Course,” in 1810 Governor Macquarie formally names it “Hyde Park” in tribute to its grander namesake in London.65 Hyde Park is also a significant place for Aboriginal people. Until at least the 1810s, and possibly after the construction of HPB, Aboriginal people fight ceremonial contests there to settle transgressions of Aboriginal law. Despite the fact that European law technically applies to Aboriginal people, traditional punishments are tolerated by the British administration in cases involving only Aboriginal people until the 1830s.66
62 McLachlan 1967, “Macquarie, Lachlan.” 63 Ibid. 64 McLachlan 1967, “Macquarie, Lachlan;” Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 65 Davies et. al. 2013, “An archaeology of institutional confinement.” 66 Karskens 2009, The Colony, pp. 443-6; Ford 2010, Settler sovereignty.
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Date Event 1811-1816 Construction of the adjacent General Hospital for convicts (“Rum Hospital”) Governor Macquarie builds a large hospital for the treatment of convicts on Macquarie Street, formally named the “General Hospital” but called the “Rum Hospital” because of its unconventional funding model.67 The north and south wings of the hospital survive to the present day, remnants of the oldest public building in Australia, and are now known respectively as the façade to NSW Parliament House and The Mint. The site selected for HPB is influenced by the location of the Rum Hospital. There will be a close relationship between the two institutions. Sick convicts are frequently transferred from HPB to the hospital; hospital staff are required to attend floggings at HPB, and later, all the assigned convict staff for the hospital are drawn from HPB. 68 After the addition of St James Church (opened 1822), Macquarie's convict institutions work together as a precinct for the accommodation, medical care, administration and spiritual guidance of the convicts.69 It is likely that disturbance of the HPB site begins during the years of constructing the Rum Hospital.70 The southern-most perimeter wall for the hospital forms the northern perimeter wall for HPB and the remaining remnants of this wall constitute the oldest colonial building fabric on the HPB site.71 1814-1820 Macquarie’s need for convict barracks In April 1814 Governor Macquarie proposes the construction of mass accommodation or “barracks”—for the better control of the convicts working for the government in Sydney72 and to remove them from temptation at night. It is also likely that Macquarie hopes to extract more productive labour from his felons.73 Initially Lord Bathurst (1762-1834), the Secretary of State for Colonies, replies from London that this is not so necessary as to justify a grant from England.74 Following the end of the Napoleonic wars (1803-1815) there is rising unemployment in Britain with the de-mobbing of troops. With deteriorating economic and social conditions in Britain and a subsequent rise in crime, the numbers sentenced to transportation increase dramatically.75 Economic historian N.G. Butlin describes this increase in the convict population in Sydney during the Macquarie years: “Between 1814 and 1820, some 11,765 convicts arrived and this presented Macquarie with a huge problem of control and social stability. The population of the colony during the majority of his governorship almost trebled from over 10,096 in 1810 to 29,665 in 1820. Convicts and ex-convicts made
67 Watson 1911, History of Sydney Hospital. 68 Starr 2017, “The Sidney Slaughter House: Medical Care of Convicts at the General 'Rum' Hospital, 1811-1848,” Health & History (forthcoming, not sighted in the writing of this CMP). 69 Starr 2016, Rum Hospital Curatorial Narrative, p. 45. 70 Varman 1994, “Background report West Compound Wall,” p. 5. 71 Ibid., Starr 2015, “General hospital and The Mint curatorial narrative,” p.15; Innes 2016, “Macquarie’s ambitious project.” 72 Australian Government, 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination. p45. 73 Proudfoot 1990, “Brief history of the fabric” p. 27. 74 Kerr 1984, Design for convicts, p. 39. 75 Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry.
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Date Event up over 73 percent of the population, peaking at 79.7 percent in 1820 at which time they represented 94.4 percent of the male workforce.”76 Free settler and free-born populations in Sydney are also increasing and there are rising tensions between the penal and civil sections of the colony. Until this time, government- built and supervised facilities for the lodging of convicts have been limited to a few places of secondary confinement for re-offending convicts, such as the Sydney Goal (c.1800), Parramatta Goal (c.1803) and Windsor Goal (1812).77 In 1817 Macquarie commences building HPB, without waiting for authorisation from Britain. He finally obtains approval in 1818 when Bathurst concedes: “If the object of the Establishment of New South Wales be the Reform of the Population, I am aware that it must fail, unless means are provided for lodging under proper Superintendence and Control those who may be sent there.”78 Macquarie also builds the Carters’ Barracks near the brickfields for convict men and boys (opened 1819), Macquarie Barracks at Parramatta for convict men (1820) and the Parramatta Female Factory and barracks for convict women (1821).
Figure 2.5: Painting attributed to the convict architect of HPB, Francis Greenway, depicting prisoners, possibly including himself (third from right), awaiting transportation at Newgate Prison in London, 1812. (Source: “The mock trial [scene inside Newgate prison],” held State Library New South Wales, ML 1002 , ML 1003 )
76 Butlin 1985, “White Human Capital,” pp. 4, 19. 77 Kerr, J. S, 1984; Design for Convicts, Library of Australian History, p. 21-22 78 Shaw 1977, Convicts and the Colonies, p. 81; Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry.
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Date Event 1816 The Designer of the HPB, Francis Greenway In 1816 Macquarie assigns convict architect Francis Greenway (1777-1837) to design HPB to provide accommodation for 600 male convicts. Although Captain John Gill is responsible for the building as Engineer and Inspector of Public Works, Macquarie mentions that it is designed by Greenway: “a man . . . who came out here a convict in the year l814, and was originally an architect of some eminence in England, and having been strongly recommended to me by the late Governor Phillip, I have availed myself of his skill and scientific knowledge as a Civil Architect.”79 Greenway is born at Mangotsfield near Bristol, England to a family of stonemasons, builders and architects. As a young man he appears to have worked for the leading English architect, John Nash (architect for Buckingham Palace and the Royal Pavilion, Brighton).80 In March 1812 Greenway’s architectural practice in Bristol has been declared bankrupt when he is found guilty of forging the signature of a local solicitor. Although sentenced to death the penalty is changed to transportation for 14 years. Greenway arrives in Sydney and, far from being put to work in a chain gang, immediately opens his own private architectural practice with an office at 84 George Street, declaring that he is open to commissions of all kinds. He is self-confident, temperamental and quick to take offence but he is the first good architect to settle in NSW. 1816 Greenway is Appointed first Civil Architect In March 1816 Macquarie is so pleased with Greenway’s design for a lighthouse at the opening to Sydney Harbour that he appoints Greenway the first acting “Civil Architect” for the colony.81 This is immense power and privilege for a lowly convict.82 This is also the origin of an important institutional position later known as the “Colonial Architect” and the “New South Wales Government Architect,” responsible for the design of thousands of NSW government buildings throughout the nineteenth, twentieth and into the 21st century. This appointment thus founds the oldest continuing architectural practice in Australia and one of the oldest in the world: “Greenway became the first of 23 New South Wales government architects whose collective tenure spans two centuries. While their titles and job descriptions have varied, their role has remained essentially the one [he] pioneered.”83
79 Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 1.1. 80 J. Kerr, 1992 updated 2011, “Francis Howard Greenway,” Design & Art Australia Online, at : https://www.daao.org.au/bio/francis-howard-greenway/biography/ 81 Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 82 Sydney Living Museums 2012, “Audio guide script.” 83 State Library of New South Wales 2016, Imagine a City: 200 Year of Public Architecture in New South Wales State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, pp. 6, 8.
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Figure 2.6: The earliest known plan of HPB, c.1817. Unsigned and undated, it is attributed to Francis Greenway. This plan, held in the State Library of New South Wales “Bonwick Transcripts” is a hand- drawn copy of the original plan held in the UK National Archives.84 (Source: State Library of New South Wales, A 2000/vols. 1-4 )
1810-1821 Macquarie’s Public Works Program For seven years Greenway realises the Governor's public works program, with the first work being the design of the lighthouse on the south head of the entrance to Sydney Harbour. The stonework of the building is finished in December 1817 and Macquarie is so pleased with it that he presents Greenway with conditional emancipation. In 1817 Greenway begins St Matthew's Church, Windsor, considered by some to be his masterpiece. Other works include St James’s Church, Queen’s Square, the Governor’s Stables, Macquarie Street and the Female Factory and Barracks, Parramatta. 1817 Siting and Construction of HPB The site chosen for HPB is the southern end of Macquarie Street on the eastern ridge of Sydney town west of the Governor’s Domain, beside the recently completed General Hospital for convicts (the “Rum Hospital”) and north of Hyde Park. The substantial public buildings constructed by Macquarie along this ridge overlooking the township are some of the largest buildings in the colony. Evidence of the early clearing and burning of native vegetation on the site is found during the archaeological excavations in 1980-81. The holes of cicada larvae are found preserved under the rubble of the original construction period.85 Archaeological evidence
84 Between 1887 and 1902 James Bonwick was authorised by the New South Wales Colonial Secretary, Sir Henry Parkes, to make copies of relevant records held by the British Colonial Office in the UK. See catalogue entry for the Bonwick Transcripts in the Mitchell Library at the State Library of New South Wales. 85 Varman, 1994, “Background report West Compound Wall,” p. 5.
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Date Event furthermore indicates that the site was originally sloping down towards the Domain and has been levelled “by means of using clay to create a platform.”86 HPB site has already been affected by the construction commenced in 1811 of the adjacent General Hospital, which “must have had a profound impact on the Hyde Parks Barracks site.”87 The south compound wall of the south wing of hospital becomes the north wall of the north range of the HPB and is one of only two sections of that historic wall to survive to the 21st century (the other section now being part of the Parliament House precinct ).88 Aboriginal people probably traverse the site in their travels between the Domain/Farm Cove area and Hyde Park until around the time that construction begins c.1817. From this time it is effectively shut off to Aboriginal people. 1817 Commencement of Construction Macquarie records the commencement of construction on 28 March 1817: “The Foundation of the new Barracks, intended for the accommodation of 400 Male Convicts in Hyde Park, was commenced digging this Day! — N.B. The Foundation Stone was laid on 6. Ap.”89 Archaeologist Wendy Thorp notes Greenway’s various comments about the cost of construction of HPB being reduced through the use of convict labour: “Greenway claimed . . . that ‘in carrying into effect these Public Buildings (including Hyde Park Barrack) by Government hands it has not cost Government one half of the sum it would have cost by the lowest contract that could have been obtained and the same buildings five years ago would have cost nearly double what is now calculated by contract.’ He was later to write that ‘Hyde Park Barrack was completed at the expense of feeding and clothing the men which did not exceed £10,000.’"90 This suggests that little money was spent on importing building materials, that the building has been constructed by the convicts themselves from raw materials found locally. Thus its stone is almost certainly hewn from sandstone deposits in the area, its bricks made from clay dug up and fired at the brick pits near the Haymarket, its massive timber beams honed from enormous trees cut at Pennant Hills,91 its flooring boards shaped from local hardwoods and the lime for its mortar and whitewashed walls likely obtained from Aboriginal middens on the harbour shores. A few manufactured materials are imported, such as the window panes and metal elements such as nails and hinges.
86 Thorp 2016, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.4.4. 87 Varman 1994, “Background report West Compound Wall,” p. 5. 88 Ibid., Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners, 2010, New South Wales Parliament House CMP, p. 37; Thorp 1980, “Archaeological and archival report, Parliament House.” 89 Lachlan Macquarie, Diary, 10 April 1816-1 July 1818, ML A773, p. 93. 90 Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 1.2 citing: evidence of Greenway 6/12/1819 in Ritchie, 1971, Evidence of the Bigge Reports, Vol. 2, p. 129, Greenway, “Claims against the government 1815-1826” in Colonial Secretary Bundle 9/2653 and Ellis, 1973, Francis Greenway, p. 117. 91 Hawkins 1994, The convict timber-getters of Pennant Hills.
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Figure 2.7: HPB Museum scale model of HPB, c.1990, picturing the imagined construction of the place in 1818 including courtyards, perimeter walls and pavilions. (Source: contemporary photo of exhibit at HPB Museum, 2016)
1819 Opening of the HPB Governor Macquarie publishes a “Government and General Order” on 1 May 1819 which offers some indication of the routines planned for the convict inhabitants:92 “HIS EXCELLENCY the GOVERNOR has lately caused to be erected in Hyde Park, a spacious well-aired BARRACK , capable of receiving and comfortably accommodating Six Hundred men, secured all round by a lofty Stone Wall, comprehending also within it Lodgings for the Deputy Superintendent, Watch Houses, Cells, Prisons, Kitchens, pantries, Bakeries, Eating or Messing Rooms, with all other Necessaries, including Washing-House and Yard, suitable to the rendering the Situation of those Persons for whom it is designed at once comfortable and comparatively happy.”93 The construction of HPB is sufficiently complete for male convicts to move in on 20 May 1819.94 HPB is designed to foster discipline and self-sufficiency within a framework of regimented discipline and routine.95 HPB provide accommodation only for male convicts, thus beginning the separation of gender which is one of the characteristics of the Australian penal system.96 On 4 June 1819 its opening is celebrated with a welcome by Governor Macquarie to 589 convicts, encouraged to come to stay with the promise of a good dinner, as Macquarie explains in his journal: “Plum pudding and an allowance of punch being allowed to them,
92 Macquarie 1819, “Government & General Order.” 93 Macquarie 1819, ‘Government and General Order,” Sydney Gazette 1 May 1819, online on Trove. 94 Davies et. al. 2013, “An archaeology of institutional confinement.” 95 Australian Government 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination. 96 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures;” Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook.
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Date Event in addition to their regular meal on this auspicious day. I addressed them in a short, plain speech . . . Mrs M. and myself and the friends who accompanied us drank to their health and prosperity. They all appeared very happy and contented and gave us three cheers on our coming away.”97 Soon after the opening of HPB, in 1819, Macquarie notes with satisfaction that there is “not a tenth part of the former Night robberies and Burglaries . . . since the Convicts have been lodged in the New Barracks.”98 Several years later, it has become an established mode of disciplining recalcitrates, evidenced by Macquarie’s instructions to his police to: “apprehend and lodge in the Prisoners' Barracks any of the Convicts in the employ of Government that may be found Gambling, quarrelling, rioting, intoxicated or idling and loitering about the Streets of Sydney on Saturdays, this Day being given to them by His Excellency as a special Indulgence for the purpose of working for their own benefit and not for laying in numbers at the Corners of the different Streets which His Excellency has with regrett observed.”99 1819 The Implications of Governor Macquarie’s Convict Barracks According to historian John Hirst, HPB represent a fundamental shift in the convict system: “Macquarie’s plan is that convicts should now work for the government the whole day— mornings and afternoons—and sleep in the new government institution at night. For the first time in the thirty years of the colony’s history, convicts are to be under constant surveillance, to be locked up at night and their ‘own time’ is to be taken from them. . . . In return for doing a full day’s work for the government, the new rules announced that the ration would be increased by half—to one-and-a-half pounds of flour and one-and-a- half pounds of meat per day, plus vegetables. Though the convicts were to be confined to the barracks and its yard every night of the week, they were to be allowed out on the weekend. Saturday they could have free to work for themselves around the town, and after church Sunday morning—where they were to appear, hands and face washed, shaved, with clothes well brushed and shoes cleaned—they were to be at leisure in the town. After one year in barracks those who had already served three years of their term were guaranteed a ticket-of-leave, which enabled convicts to work on their own account and, with certain restrictions, to live as they pleased. Those who had already served four years without committing crime were allowed to sleep out of barracks as were all married men of good character.”100 Though the opening of HPB and confinement of the convicts at night are generally considered by the free population of Sydney to be excellent moves on the part of the Government, those most closely concerned with the venture, the inmates, have mixed responses. Archaeologist Wendy Thorp quotes a contemporary observer’s opinion: “Some were pleased and these were the Steady and best behaved who looked to it as a place of comfortable lodging and regular diet and still look on it in the same light; there
97 Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 1.1. 98 Macquarie’s diary of 20/7/1819 cited in Cumberland County Council 1962, “Hyde Park Barracks,” p. 6. 99 Cumberland County Council 1962, “Hyde Park Barracks,” p. 8 citing Bigge Appendix, Box 27 Mitchell Library p. 6471. 100 Hirst 2008, Freedom on the Fatal Shore.
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Date Event are others of more dissolute dispositions who regarded it as a place of restraint and still regard it as such.”101
Figure 2.8: Two details from Major James Taylor’s picturesque panorama of Sydney town, c. 1821, depicted as orderly and prosperous at the time of Macquarie’s departure. The detail on the left shows HPB (circled in red) on the eastern ridge of the town next to the three-winged Rum Hospital. The detail on the right shows convicts at work under the guidance of their supervisors. (Source: Detail from Panoramic Views of Port Jackson, State Library of New South Wales V1 / ca. 1821 / 5)
Life inside can be unpleasant at the best of times. The younger and stronger men prey on the older and the infirm and theft is frequent amongst themselves and from the government stores. Escapes are frequently attempted.102 One contemporary commentator writes: “The association of so many depraved and desperate characters in one place is an evil that is complained of even by the convicts themselves . . . Robberies amongst the convicts in the barracks of their clothes and bedding, and concealment of it, are very frequent; and they are encouraged in these practices by the facility with which they cast them over the barrack wall to persons who are ready to receive them on the other side.”103 The Museum’s audio guide script explains how the place becomes more regulated over the years of convict occupation: “Concerns raised in the mid-1830s, over the sexual conduct of men at the Barracks, led to the cutting of spy holes through the walls in various locations, allowing guards and wardsmen to keep a close eye on the convict’s night-time activities.”104
101 Thorp, 1980, 1.1 citing evidence of Druitt, 29 October 1819 in J. Ritchie, Evidence of the Bigge Reports, Vol.1, p. 12. 102 Thorp, 1980, 1.1. 103 Bigge 1922, “Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales,” p.33 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 2.1. 104 Sydney Living Museums 2012, “Audio guide script.”
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Figure 2.9: Detail from 1821 map of Sydney, “A Sketch of the town of Sydney,” showing HPB located between the General Hospital and Hyde Park, also showing the location of St James’ Church, the Catholic chapel, brick kilns and the convict “Garden”. (Source: State Library of New South Wales Z/M4 811.16/1821/1)
1821 Completion and repair Although convicts move into HPB in May/June 1819 the building works are not completed until 1821 when a brick wall is finalised around the kitchen garden east of the barrack.105 The evidence of architect Henry Kitchen (d.1822) to the Commission of Inquiry (refer to below) mentions the entire roof of HPB already undergoing “a complete repair . . . entirely newly shingled.” These are the earliest recorded repairs.106 1822 Contemporary Descriptions of HPB The first Bigge Report describes the layout of the main barracks building: “There are 4 rooms on each floor, and of these 6 are 35 ft by 19 (10.7 x 5.8 m.) and 6 others are 65 ft by 19 (19.8 x 5.8 m.). In each room rows of hammocks are slung to strong wooden rails, supported by upright stanchions fixed to the floor and roofs. 2 ft (0.6 m.) in breadth and 7 ft (2.1 m.) in length are allowed for each hammock; and the 2 rows are separated from each other by a small passage of 3 ft (0.9 m.). 70 men sleep in each of the long rooms and 35 in the small ones. Access to each floor is afforded by 2 staircases, placed in the centre of the building; and the ventilation even in the warmest seasons is well maintained. The doors of the sleeping rooms, and those communicating with the courtyard, are not locked during the night [to give access to the privies]. One wardsman [a convict] is appointed to each room, who is responsible for the conduct of the others. . . Another dormitory is provided in one of the long buildings on the north side of the yard,
105 Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 2.2 106 Ibid.
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Date Event 80 ft in length by 17 (24.4 x 5.2 m.), in which the convicts lately arrived, and those returned into barrack by order or the magistrate are lodged. They sleep on the matrasses that are brought from the convict ships and spread them upon raised and sloping plat forms of wood similar to those used in military guard rooms. The convicts employed in the kitchens and bakehouse are allowed to hang their hammocks there.”107 There are services built into the plan of the complex, such as bakeries, kitchens and pantries which indicate HPB are intended to be at least partly self-sufficient. Convicts are employed in the kitchen and bakehouse.108 There is a vegetable garden to the east allocated for the use of the convicts (see its location marked on Figure 2.8),109 located on four acres [1.6 hectares] “cleared and stumped” with “a gardener's lodge containing two rooms . . . built in the centre. The soil . . . being almost on the declivity of a hill . . . will require a great deal of manure and labour to make it productive.”110 In 1827 there is also reference to “the Establishment of Shoemakers and Taylors [sic] employed at HPB.”111
Figure 2.10: Detail from “View of Sydney when St Mary’s was building”, c.1829 by Frances Leonora Macleay showing the prominent southern perimeter wall with domed pavilions. The perimeter wall is shown running eastward enclosing the rear area of the compound. (Source: State Library of NSW, a1528651)
107 Bigge 1922, “Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales,” citedin Kerr 1984, Design for convicts, pp. 40-41. 108 Ibid., p.21 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 2.1. 109 Ibid.; Macquarie 1819, “Government and General Order.” 110 Bigge Ibid., p .21 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 2.2. 111 Darling to Hay, 6/3/1827. Enclosure 2/2/1827. H.R.A. Series I Vol. XIII., p. 145 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol..1, 2.1.
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Figure 2.11: Lithograph of J. Carmichael’s view from the southern end of Hyde Park in 1829. HPB and The Rum Hospital are in the centre in the distance facing St James’ Church with St Mary’s Chapel on the right. (Source: Held National Library Australia, 135319120-1)
Further Descriptions of the Workings of HPB The perimeter buildings on the northern range, adjoining the General Hospital, are used initially as the Deputy Superintendent’s quarters, a dormitory for convicts, the bakehouse and storerooms.112 New arrivals are processed, graded and accommodated in a separate building here. Cells to confine recalcitrant convicts are located in the corner pavilions.113 The Deputy Superintendent of Convicts has responsibility generally for the good order and daily management of HPB. He is in charge of feeding, housing and clothing the convicts, and for delivering them each work day to the overseers for work on government projects in the town. In his office here he keeps detailed records about these convicts.114 The perimeter buildings on the southern range, facing Hyde Park, are used as a cook house and mess rooms.115 The perimeter buildings on the western range facing Macquarie Street provide constable and clerk’s quarters, later used as a store and office. By 1820 open sheds are built onto the north and south ends of the west wall: these are for
112 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures.” 113 Australian Government, 2008, World Heritage nomination, p. 50. 114 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 34. 115 Ibid.
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Date Event the recreation of the convicts. The convicts are permitted to light fires there during winter evenings, after having eaten.116 The perimeter buildings on the eastern range, fronting the Domain, provide a wash house and privies. There is also a well and later, the entrance to the “flogging yard.”117 In 1822, after Macquarie’s departure, a convict is appointed as an official flogger or “scourger”118 and given accommodation adjoining the Deputy Superintendent's quarters.119 1819 The first large public clock in Australia On the triangular pediment of the central building facing Queen Square is a large clock, set in stone. It is surmounted by a crown and inscribed below with “I, Macquarie Esq., Governor 1817” (a hallmark of Macquarie buildings).120 This is the first large public clock in Australia. The clock is not merely ornamental but part of the building’s regime: it “cast its measured shadow over work allocations;” it “marked out the convicts’ day.”121 Still keeping accurate time and chiming on the hour, this is the oldest continuously working public clock in Australia. The origins of the HPB clock are unknown. It is a powerful clockwork mechanism, capable of driving not just one but several dials, suggesting that it may have been designed for another major public building with multiple clock faces. The mechanism is made in the London foundry of Thomas Mears, stamped 1837, nearly two decades after HPB are built. Experts agree that the highly sophisticated components could have only been built in the London workshops of Benjamin Vuillamy, a clockmaker to British royalty. It is likely HPB are completed in 1819 with a less sophisticated clock, which operates until the Vuillamy mechanism is installed, much later. It is known that Sydney's official “Keeper of the Town Clock,” 48 year old convict James Oatley Snr. (c.1769-1839), is paid £75 “for new Clock at the Prisoners’ Barrack”122 in 1819. The face of the HPB’s clock dial is assembled from copper “sheathing plates,” recycled from ships’ hulls.123 1819-1948 Daily Life at HPB The HPB Museum Guidebook explains the typical convict daily routine: “A bell called the men lodging at the barracks to muster every morning at daybreak (Sundays and holidays excepted). They were delivered to their overseers and searched at the gate before being marched to their daily labours. Men required to work at the barracks and invalids incapable of work remained behind. These men swept the yard and aired and cleaned the central dormitory building, shaking out the bedding and folding the blankets.
116 Varman 1994, “Background report West Compound Wall,” p. 17. 117 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners, 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures.” 118 Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 2.1 119 Bigge 1922, “Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales,” p.35 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 2.1. 120 Cumberland County Council 1962, “Hyde Park Barracks,” p. 6. 121 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook; Tonkin, 2012. 122 Sydney Gazette, 28 August 1819, p. 2. 123 Ibid.
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Date Event Working hours were sunrise till sunset. During summer, there was one hour for rest from 8am to 9am for men working outdoors. The men were returned in the middle of the day for their main meal, typically fresh and salted meat and bread. After one hour in the mess-room, the bell was again rung and the men were mustered and marched back to work. Overseers ensured the men were returned to the barracks before sunset. Day constables searched them at the gate for stolen or illicit items like liquor. There was recreation in the yard before the night constables came on duty at 8pm and a bell signalled the time for retiring. The men played cards and made cabbage tree hats by oil lamps. There was another muster at 8.30pm and any absentees were listed, then the dormitory lamps were extinguished and the doors carefully locked. The exterior gates were closed at 9pm and secured until daybreak.”124 The dormitories, passages and staircases of HPB are to be swept twice a day and washed once a week, and “all dirt and soil removed at the proper hours.”125
Figure 2.12: Augustus Earle “A government jail gang, Sydney N. S. Wales”, lithograph, 1830. Earle was a professional English artist who visited Australia in the late 1820s and accurately depicted everyday scenes otherwise rarely recorded visually—such as convicts at work, and Aboriginal people living within towns. (Source: Earle 1830, Views in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, London, print held by the National Library Australia, PIC Solander Box A34 #S50-A)
124 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 125 1825 Instructions for the Guidance of the Superintendent and Subordinate Officers, of the Establishment of Convicts in Hyde Park Barracks, R. Howe Government Printer, Sydney, p. 15 quoted in Starr, 2015, “Convict artefacts from Hyde Park Barracks” Australian Historical Archaeology, No. 33, p. 39.
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Date Event 1819-33 Religious institutions established near HPB St James’s Anglican Church, also designed by Greenway, commences being constructed in 1819 as a courthouse. Plans are changed and by January 1822 the first sermon to convicts is preached in the unfinished shell of the building by the Revd. William Cowper (1778-1858).126 The church is consecrated in 1824. By the early 1830sthe Catholic St Mary’s Chapel is located nearby, just south of HPB. The foundation stone for the building is laid in 1821 by Governor Macquarie and the original chapel built by James Dempsey (1768-1838). On Sundays the convicts wash, shave and dress in clean linen before attending Divine Service. They are mustered and inspected by the superintendent before being marched by overseers across the road to church.127 Archaeologist Wendy Thorp quotes from a contemporary description of their religious obligations: “The Clergyman reads prayers and gives a lecture every Wednesday Eveng to such as chose to attend; and on Sundays Divine Service is performed by him when all are obliged to attend. Those in the Government Gangs who sleep in the Town are obliged to attend in the Church at 11 0 clock in the morng. and the Ticket of leave men at 3 in the afternoon.”128
Figure 2.13: Description of flogging with sketch of the HPB “Flogging Yard,” recorded by onlooker Robert Jones in 1823, as presented in his notebook. (Source: “Recollections of 13 Years Residence in Norfolk Island and Van Diemans Land,” held State Library New South Wales, Safe 1/2d )
126 Broadbent, J. & Hughes, J.; 1997, Francis Greenway Architect, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, Glebe, p. 72 127 Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 128 Evidence of civil engineer George Druitt, 29/10/1819 in Ritchie, 1971, Evidence of the Bigge Reports, Vol. 1, cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 1.1.
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Date Event
The HPB “Flogging Yard” Floggings at HPB are frequently administered in the full view of assembled other convicts, lasting from 30 minutes to 2 hours. A sentence of flogging can be handed down for offences against discipline in HPB—drunkenness, gambling, abusive language, disobedience, neglect of work, absconding or desertion, insubordination or disorderly conduct.129 Records suggest that 1000 men are flogged at HPB during 1833 (an average of three per day).130 Medical staff from the adjacent Rum Hospital evidently dislike the duty of being required to attend; however many recipients are then admitted to the hospital.131 An 1830s eyewitness report by Sir Roger Therry describes a grisly scene: “As I passed along the road about eleven o’clock in the morning there issued out of the prisoner’s barracks a party consisting of four men, who bore on their shoulders (two supporting the head and two the feet) a miserable convict, writhing in an agony of pain—his voice piercing the air with terrific screams. Astonished at the sight, I inquired what this meant, and was told it was ‘only a prisoner who had been flogged and who was on his way to hospital!’ It often took the sufferer a week to ten days after one of these lacerations before he was sufficiently recovered to resume his labour; and I soon learned that when I had seen was at that period an ordinary occurrence.”132
Figure 2.14: Lithograph of convict George Vigors, who was Figure 2.15: Photograph of convict Dennis Doherty, HPB’s shoemaker. Vigors endured more than 1100 lashes for 1874. As a gang worker living at Hyde Park Barracks, escape, highway robbery, theft, forgery, and finally was Irish convict Denis Dogherty was repeatedly flogged executed for murder. (Source: “For trial for the murder of the for absconding, assault and disobedience. (Source:
129 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 130 Hyde Park Barracks Museum display sighted 10/6/2016. 131 Watson 1911, History of Sydney Hospital, p. 42. 132 Hyde Park Barracks Museum display sighted 10/6/2016.
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Date Event late Mr Noble (detail) by Thomas A. Newall, held State Library National Library Australia, photographer unknown) NSW) Convict Occupants of the HPB An estimated 50,000 convicts pass through at HPB during its 29 years of operation as convict accommodation between 1819 and 1948.133 As a penal institution HPB has multipurpose roles. Although originally built to accommodate male convicts in government employment in Sydney, it also houses those whose Ticket of Leave has been cancelled or have been returned from assignment, and others on their way elsewhere, or who cannot be assigned. The nature and purpose of HPB evolves as the convict system changes. After Macquarie leaves in early 1822, the system becomes both more punitive and more assignment based, with fewer convicts in government service.134 HPB also houses convicts who are unassignable (invalids, “idiots”) and a fluctuating cast of men returned by colonists, received from gaols and penal settlements at the expiration of their sentences, or retained until arrangements can be made for their disposal, subpoenaed as witnesses before the courts, etc. More convicts pass through once the HPB Court of General Sessions is established in 1830.135 1822 The Bigge Reports and impact on Macquarie Macquarie’s progressive reforms in Sydney inspire several disaffected colonists to mount a campaign against him in the House of Commons. As a result, the judge John Thomas Bigge (1780-1843) is appointed commissioner to enquire into the affairs of the colony and examine the effectiveness of transportation as a deterrent to felons. The Commission of Inquiry is thus undertaken in the context of the penal reform and anti-transportation debates. Bigge’s instructions note transportation should be made “an object of real terror” and any weakening of this by “ill-considered compassion for convicts” in the humanitarian policies of Governor Macquarie should be reported.136 Bigge writes three reports which censure the governor's building programme as wastefully expensive and fail to account for the very real achievements of the Macquarie administration. His analysis is unfairly prejudicial towards an administration superior to any previously known in the colony and which, in addition, enjoys popular support among the colony’s inhabitants generally.137 Although the total cost of administration doubles during Macquarie’s administration the number of prisoners increase about
133 Australian Government 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination, pp. 52, 191; Starr forthcoming. “A colonial crossroads,” is investigating the population of Hyde Park Barracks in the 19th century (not sighted for this CMP). 134 Kelso 2016, “Hyde Park Barracks: historical chronology of the place,” p.2. 135 Ibid. 136 Bennett 1966, “Bigge, John Thomas;” Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 137 Ibid.
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Date Event tenfold, thus Macquarie actually reduces the average expenditure per convict by about two-thirds.138 At the same time he transforms Sydney from a rough and ready prison outpost into a well-planned town with impressive architecture, respected institutions and well‐behaved citizens.139 Although critical of the extent of Macquarie’s building program, Commissioner Bigge commends the design of the HPB: “The style of architecture, in which the body of this building has been designed, is simple and handsome. And the execution of the work is solid, and promises to be durable.”140 Bigge is, however, critical of the extravagance of using skilled convict workers to build a place designed to limit the convicts’ own freedom of work and movement.141 He further recommends that HPB be limited to holding 400 convicts, that a further 100 be accommodated at Parramatta and the rest assigned to private individuals or sent to new settlements.142 1823 The next Civil Architect comments on HPB Architect Standish Lawrence Harris (dates unknown) is appointed Civil Architect to replace Greenway in 1822 by Governor Brisbane. His 1823 report on improvements to buildings in Sydney documents the state of HPB, noting it has “superior . . . materials and workmanship to most of the edifices reported on.” He observes however that the external walls are already dilapidated and required repair, the site’s second recorded major repair. Harris is critical of the plumbing, claiming that the water closets and privies are offensive “for want of proper Sewers round the Building to carry off the Soil.” There is no piped water on site until 1842 when a branch pipe from Busby’s Bore, completed in 1837, is eventually brought to HPB building through the western range143 and no flush systems until 1863. The earliest privies at HPB were designed around deep pits, termed “long- drops.”144 1826 Convict arrival musters take place at HPB Newspaper accounts of the arrival and landing of convicts at Sydney Cove indicate that by 1826 HPB has become the principal place of mustering of new arrivals, who are marched up through the Governor's Domain to be inspected in the courtyard. Previously, convicts had been mustered in the Gaol Yard in George Street.145
138 McLachlan 1967, “Macquarie, Lachlan” cited in Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 139 Ibid. 140 Bigge 1922, “Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales,” p. 22, cited in Cumberland County Council 1962, “Hyde Park Barracks,” p. 5. 141 Emmett & Collins 1994, Hyde Park Barracks, p.19. 142 Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 143 Ibid., 2.2, 4.2 144 Varman 1994, “Background Report, West Compound Wall,” p. 35. 145 Starr forthcoming “A Colonial Crossroads,” draft research paper (not sighted in the writing of this CMP).
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Figure 2.16: Detail from a watercolour depiction of the gentleman’s estate of Rosebank in Woolloomooloo with HPB is pictured in the background. Artist unknown, c.1831-35. (Source: SLM, Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, L2007/183)
Figure 2.17: 1833 Survey map of Sydney shows the ground plan of Figure 2.18: 1837 Detail of Surveyor General’s HPB relative to St James Anglican Church (below) and the Domain sketch map showing the “Flogging Yard” adjacent to the east (above) and the termination of Macquarie Street to the “Prisoner’s Barracks” and the “Colonial before the barracks. (Source: NSW State Records, AO 5543 Architect.” (Source: NSW State Records, courtesy courtesy SLM) SLM)
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Date Event 1830-1848 Court of General Sessions Under Governor Ralph Darling (1825-1831) a magistrate’s bench in Sydney is established and opens at HPB, initially called the Court of General Sessions, later the Court of Petty Sessions. The first meeting results in a list of magistrates who hold court on a weekly rotation: Monday: Dr James Bowman, William Macpherson Tuesday: William Carter, John Manning Wednesday: Captain J.A. Perry, Charles Wilson Thursday: Captain William Dumeresq, William Cordeaux Friday: John Busby, Archibald Innes Saturday: Frederick Hely, Edward Deas Thompson Its purpose is “to conduct trials of convicts in the service of the Crown.”146 The court administers justice and punishment for barracks men and other convicts. Penalties include days in solitary confinement, working in iron gangs, walking on the treadmill at Carters’ Barracks (in the location where Central Railway Station is today) or a maximum of 150 lashes. The court can also extend convicts’ sentences by up to three years with hard labour and transfer men to penal settlements as far away as Norfolk Island or Port Arthur.147 A number of records survive detailing the sittings of this Bench.148 This court is initially located on the most easterly part of the northern range perimeter buildings (Building H).149 The south-west pavilion in the southern range perimeter, facing Hyde Park, is soon used as a store for magistrates’ records and, later, for the court itself (since demolished).150 1830 The Office of the Principal Superintendent of Convicts Although HPB has had a Deputy Superintendent of Convicts to oversee its operations since opening, the Principal Superintendent of Convicts for the entire colony of NSW moves his office to the site in 1830: “Three new offices have been erected in the Hyde Park Barracks for the use of the Principal Superintendent.”151 In 1826 Governor Darling had reorganised the public service and charged the Principal Superintendent of Convicts “with the general Superintendence of the Convicts employed immediately under Government, as regarding their Conduct, Victualling, Clothing, Lodging, and Accommodation in Barracks, or otherwise.” In control of convict administration and matters relating to the conduct and
146 New South Wales State Records (http://search.records.nsw.gov.au/agencies/4188); Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures;” Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 147 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 148 The Archives Office of New South Wales holds some of the magistrates' letters with indexes and summaries of trials at Hyde Park Barracks; see also return of the Principal Superintendent of Convicts 1831, Colonial Secretary’s Bundle 4/7323 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 3.1. 149 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures.” 150 Ibid. 151 Sydney Monitor 6 March 1830, p. 2, courtesy of Fiona Starr.
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Date Event management of convicts, the Principal Superintendent of Convicts’ office is responsible for convict documentation, returns, applications to marry, mustering and inspecting prisoners on arrival, communications with local benches, punishment records, records of runaways, applications for assigned servants, rations for work gangs, an overall register of all the convicts in the colony, and general supervision over all government convicts.152 The office probably occupies rooms on the ground floor of the barracks building. This office is distinct from the Deputy Superintendent’s quarters, which are located in the centre of northern perimeter buildings (Building F).
Figure 2.19: Detail of Robert Russell’s lithograph, “Prisoners’ Barracks, Hyde Park,” 1836. This image shows HPB positioned in a somewhat more established urban context than Evans’ watercolour depiction nearly 20 years earlier. (Source: National Library of Australia)
1831-1841 The Board for the Assignment of Servants The Board comes into operation at HPB at this time, for the next ten years helping assign convicts to settler “masters” and occupies rooms on the ground floor of the barracks building, after initially being located in the north wing of the Rum hospital.153 The Board is replaced by the Commissioner for the Assignment of Convict Servants in June 1836.154 From this time HPB becomes the central point of administration of the private assignment system in New South Wales. Assignment of convicts to private masters evolves into a highly formalised system with legal frameworks and administrative institutions.155 It aims to secure the social control of the convict population, provide cheap labour for public infrastructure and free settlers, and build skills and economic self-
152 Kelso 2016, “Hyde Park Barracks, historical chronology of the place,” citing Government and General Order, 5 January, 1826, Kelso notes: “the Historical Records of Australia, series 1 Vol. 22, pp. 454-64 (Gipps to Stanley, 1 January 1843, with enclosures) gives a good overview of the state of play at the beginning of 1843, and includes a report of all the miscellaneous clerical duties of the Principal Superintendent of Convicts Office—it pretty well covers every aspect of convict life (and death).” 153 See Sydney Herald, 5 December 1831, p. 1, reference courtesy of Jane Kelso. 154 CLSP, 1996 155 Australian Government, 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination, pp. 46, 191.
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Date Event sufficiency for convicts following their emancipation. Later, the dispersal of convicts away from “evil associations” with other convicts and towns is also an important objective.156 Male convicts in New South Wales typically return to HPB when they require re-assignment. Assignment not only satisfies the demands of private employers, particularly landowners, but also decreases costs for the government.157 Convicts assigned to labour on public works are also administered from HPB. The main types of gangs are road gangs, timber getting gangs, lime burning gangs and public works gangs. Some convicts are sentenced to work in irons in the gangs. Working conditions are physically demanding and the treatment of convicts often brutal. Little effort is made to reform convicts in the gang system, the focus being on hard labour in harsh conditions. Approximately 20-30 per cent of all male convicts work in a road gang at some time during their sentence.158 The convict gang system contributes significantly to the development of infrastructure, expansion into frontier regions and the economic and social integration of the colonies.159 Convicts are thus among the vanguard of colonial appropriation of Aboriginal land across the state. The first half of the nineteenth century includes some of the bloodiest documented encounters on the colonial frontier, including the 1838 massacre of around 30 Aboriginal people at Myall Creek by 11 convict and ex-convict stockmen. Several convict witnesses to the massacre are housed at HPB during the subsequent trial, but are transferred for their safety to the prison on Goat Island, while two of the accused convicts are discharged to HPB after their acquittal.160 Other convicts have friendly relationships with Aboriginal people, such as John Graham (1800?-1837?) who live with Aboriginal people in both Sydney and Moreton Bay.161 It is most likely a place where convicts discuss their encounters with Aboriginal people— violent and otherwise, as they return to HPB before being reassigned. It is a place where attitudes towards Aboriginal people would be developed.162 Aboriginal people continue to use the area around HPB throughout the convict period. Several paintings from the 1830s show groups of Aboriginal people coming up the hill between HPB and St Marys Cathedral from the Domain (see for example Figure 2.14). Historical records show that they were camped in the Domain and used this route to access the city. In 1846 for example, eight Aboriginal people including Cora Gooseberry, her son “King Bungaree” (whose father was the late Bungaree) and her cousin William Warrell passed by HPB on their way into town from the Domain, where they “roamed about the city
156 Brooke & Brandon 2005, Bound for Botany Bay, p. 220 cited in Australian Government, 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination, pp. 47, 191. 157 Kelso 2016, “Hyde Park Barracks: historical chronology of the place,” p.2. 158 Laugesen 2002, Convict words, p. 35 cited in Australian Government, 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination, pp. 47, 191. 159 Australian Government 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination. 160 ‘Supreme Court. Thursday, February 14, 1839’, Sydney Gazette 16/2/1839:3; Jane Kelso email 22/4/16. 161 Hyde Park Barracks Convict Database printout, Aboriginal History folder, Hyde Park Barracks Archives. 162 Irish 2016, text on Aboriginal history and significance for Hyde Park Barracks CMP.
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Date Event during the day, and…often gave exhibitions of boomerang-throwing from Hyde Park.” Other Aboriginal people were present near St James’ Church across the road from HPB in 1852 when they were set upon by a gang of youths. These small fragments show that local Aboriginal people continued to use the space around HPB as part of a broader interaction with the urban space of the town. c.1832 Colonial Architect’s office is located on eastern perimeter The public works section of the colonial government long occupies buildings just outside the eastern range perimeter wall, at the rear of HPB facing the Domain. They are situated here possibly as early as 1824163 and at least from 1832 when the office of the Director of Public Works negotiates plans for turning the area into their Engineer’s Yard. Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis is residing in the Colonial Architect’s quarters behind HPB by 1844 when he gives evidence that he often hears convicts escaping over the walls at night, over his roof. He suggests they are wearing regular clothing, leaving their regulation convict “slop” clothing at the base of the wall, to don again when they return from their nefarious activities.164 A survey shows the architectural offices still there in 1863. Later some of the Public Works Department occupies the site. By the first decade of the twentieth century the area is in use by the Land Titles office.165 1839 Snapshot of staff and convicts In 1839 the staff at HPB consists of the Superintendent of HPB, a clerk to the Superintendent, a barrack overseer, two constables, a watch house keeper, a night constable and two “scourgers” who are all recorded as living within HPB.166 Two gate keepers and the clerk to the Bench are lodged outside. HPB has a focus on prisoners “especially. . . who for their offences are withdrawn from Private Service.” Newly arrived convicts are also placed there temporarily although it is considered unwise to place newcomers “in immediate contact with these old and hardened offenders.”167 1840 Convict fire fighters from HPB are praised On the night of St Patricks Day 1840 (about 3 am) there is a massive fire in Sydney. Mr Tucker, the Clerk of the HPB arrives at the fire with 300 men from HPB all equipped with fire-fighting implements—presumably spades, hoes, brooms etc. The people of Sydney praise their bravery in climbing walls and pulling down burning buildings to stop the fire.168
163 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 52; Thorp 1980, “Archival report,” Vol.1, 5.1 164 Lewis 1844, “Evidence of Mortimer Lewis,” 28 November, Gipps to Stanley, Despatch 248, HRA Series 1, Vol XIV, p. 94, quoted in Starr 2015, “Convict artefacts from Hyde Park Barracks,” Australian Historical Archaeology, No. 33, p. 49. 165 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” pp. 17, 55, A120 166 Return of the Principal Superintendent. of Convicts 1839 Colonial .Secretary’s .Bundle 4/7323, cited in Thorp, 1980, Vol. 1, 3.1. 167 Return of the Principal Superintendent of Convicts 1839, Colonial Secretary’s Bundle 4/7323; Gipps to Glenelg, 8/7/1839, Despatch 102 HRA Series 1, Vol. 20, p. 217 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 3.1. 168 Sydney Monitor 23/3/1840 quoted in Babette Smith, The Luck of the Irish, p. 182
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1840-1848 Convict Charles Cozens’ memoirs In 1839 an English convict named Charles Cozens (dates unknown) is transported to New South Wales arriving in Sydney in 1840 where he is lodged at HPB on several occasions. He publishes an account of his experiences of convict life in 1848 in London. The description of his time in HPB is rare and vivid:169 “a large and gloomy-looking building surrounded with a high wall, having strong folding entrance-doors. . . At the time of Our arrival the different gangs were out at work, and the yard was comparatively empty; but when, at the hour of five in the evening, they returned to their quarters, I really imagined (as troop after troop poured in, in one continuous stream) that they would never cease, and, the before restrained freedom of their tongues being now removed, that the inmates of some gigantic Bedlam had actually broken loose. . . In consequence of the ‘private assignment’ system having at this time been abolished, the numerical strength of the barracks on my arrival amounted to thirteen hundred, exclusive of the addition we brought. The confused and confounding din of so many voices may well be imagined. The copious stream I have before alluded to at length ran out, and the yard was filled with a dense mass of moving forms, of every variety of face and figure. The barrack, indeed, at that period might truly have been assimilated to the box of Pandora, for it certainly contained every evil in human shape—a perfect accumulation of vice and infamy. . . [the] total abolition and extinction [of] that most disgraceful monument of iniquity, Hyde-Park barracks, will be an act of justice and judgement on the part of the citizens of Sidney. Until such is the case, they will form a barrier to freedom, and New South Wales can never plume itself on being an emancipated country.”170
169 Thorp, 1980, “Archival report,” Vol. 1, 4.1. 170 Cozens 1848, Adventures of a guardsman, pp. 111, 116, 117-8, 131
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Figure 2.20: Detail from a lithographic depiction of an Aboriginal family group in Hyde Park in 1836 by artist Russell Roberts. HPB is out of frame to the left. (Source: “Catholic chapel, Hyde Park,” HELD National Library Australia)
1840s Aboriginal Occupants HPB is home, albeit briefly, to several Aboriginal convicts, at least in the 1840s. Murphy (d. 1853), an Aboriginal man convicted of highway robbery in Maitland in 1839, serves his time at Cockatoo Island and stays briefly at HPB in 1843 before being sent back to Maitland. Fowler (no known dates) and Tom (no known dates) are both convicted of violent assaults on Europeans in the Hunter Valley in 1843 and are also transited through HPB in 1846 on their way home after serving time on Norfolk Island.171
171 Harman 2012, Aboriginal convicts, pp. 73, 85-99, 129-130 cited in Irish 2016, text on Aboriginal history and significance for Hyde Park Barracks CMP.
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Figure 2.21: This 1842 watercolour by John Rae (1813-1900) of Hyde Park depicts free settlers at leisure. The convict buildings at the rear including HPB (centre) form an almost incidental backdrop. (Source: State Library of New South Wales)
1840 End of Convict Transportation to NSW
By the 1830s, increasing numbers of free settlers migrating to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) are changing the composition of the population. Influential spokesmen contribute to the growing opposition to the transportation of felons, including newspaper proprietors such as John Fairfax in Sydney and the Reverend John West in Launceston. They argue against convict labour competing with honest, free labourers. They consider convicts to be a source of crime and vice within the colony and a “hated stain” on the free (non-emancipist) middle classes. There are also changing theories in Europe about approaches to crime and punishment.172In 1837, a British parliamentary committee headed by Sir William Molesworth (1810-1855) recommends ending transportation to New South Wales, as soon as practicable.173 On 22 May 1840 an Order- in-Council from the Privy Council is issued, removing New South Wales from the list of places to which convicts may be sent.174 The last convict ship to dock in Sydney as part of the old transportation system is the Eden, which arrives in late 1840.175
Documents from 1840 record the numbers of prisoners resident in HPB and their various occupations. On average 558 men are housed there that year. Their various
172 Australian Government, 2008, Australian Convict Sites World Heritage nomination. 173 “The end of transportation”, Lucy Hughes Turnbull, 2008; http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_end_of_transportation 174 http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/order-ending-transportation-to-nsw/. The original signed Order-in-Council is held by the State Records of NSW. 175 Turnbull, 2008, op. cit.
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Date Event employments range from duties within HPB, such as being wardsmen or overseers, to employment outside the barrack as cooks or tailors, for example.176 1840s Governor Gipps’ nuisance New South Wales Governor George Gipps (1838-1846) is critical of HPB as “a nuisance . . . one which has been the growth of circumstances and one which circumstances must speedily abate.” He considers that “Convicts lodged in this building . . . are in fact the refuse of the Convict system.”177 Whereas the original function of HPB is to provide accommodation for convicts between assignments, in its later years, it “appears to have served [increasingly] as an institute of secondary punishment.”178 In 1843 HPB is still crowded with convicts, despite the 1840 decision to end transportation to New South Wales. Convicts are still serving out their sentences, and in addition, the government is winding down the assignment system. As historian Jane Kelso explains: “The end of assignment had increased the number of convicts retained under government control . . . in 1843 Gipps described HPB as ‘the general depot of Prisoners, who (for whatever reason) cannot be disposed of elsewhere. The number in the Depot has gradually increased to about 600; but of them, perhaps one half would be placed in assignment, were it not that assignment has been abolished.’”179 In the newly formed New South Wales Parliament in October 1843, leave is obtained “to bring a Bill into the Legislative Council to declare HPB and Cockatoo Island to be common Gaols.” The motion is defeated on the grounds of unpopularity, expense and inconvenience.180 In 1844 two murders are associated with HPB. The public outcry following this results in an investigation into the administration of the barrack.181
176 Hyde Park Barracks 1842, Colonial Secretary’s Bundle 4/7323 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 4.1. Thorp also notes an unexpectedly high death rate of convicts, see her Appendix 4. 177 Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 4.1 quoting Governor Gipps report to Lord Stanley 1844 178 Gipps to Stanley 28/11/1844 Despatch 248, HRA Series 1, Vol. XIV, pp84-85 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 4.1. 179 Kelso 2016, “Hyde Park Barracks, historical chronology” citing Gipps to Stanley, 1 January 1843, Historical Records of Australia, Series 1 Vol. 22, p. 457. 180 Gipps to Stanley 28/10/1843 Despatch 175 HRA Series 1, Vol. 23, p. 202 and Stanley to Gipps, 3/9/1843, Despatch 137, HRA Series 1, Vol. 23, p. 97 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 4.1. 181 Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 4.1; I. L. 1935, “Hyde Park Barracks, Many Past Changes,” Sydney Morning Herald, 20 July 1935, p.11.
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Figure 2.22: Detail from painting by Thomas Harvie Lewis (1829-1901), “The old days of merry Cricket Club matches,” c.1870, depicting Hyde Park as a place of leisure. The image depicts a match played in the 1840s, although pained decades later. (Source: State Library of New South Wales DG XV* / Cri / 1)
1848-1849 End of the convict era at HPB Following the end of convict transportation to New South Wales in 1840, the number of convicts in the colony gradually declines as they finish serving out their sentences. In 1848, a few convicts still living at HPB are transferred to Cockatoo Island. The main barracks building is refitted for a variety of new governmental functions. Although in 1848 there is an attempt to re-introduce a limited form of transportation to New South Wales, local opposition is so intense the plan is abandoned. 1848-1887 Female Immigration Depot From 1848 to 1887 the primary new use for the HPB site is as a depot for the reception and temporarily housing of “a new kind of mobile workforce: the single, female migrant.”182 From 1849 to 1855 the Immigration Depot also houses the wives and children of convicts brought to the colony at government expense to be reunited with their husbands and fathers.183 An estimated 40,000 unaccompanied women are temporarily housed at HPB upon their arrival in Australia between 1848 and 1887.184 Most of the women have sailed from Britain and Ireland under government‐run immigration schemes intended to attract
182 Elmoos 2006, “The Hyde Park Barracks, a brief history.” Several historians have incorrectly linked Caroline Chisholm with the Hyde Park Barracks, mistaking the short-lived Immigrants’ Home she established in Bent Street (1841–1842) with the Hyde Park Barracks Immigration Depot. Chisholm is not in Australia between 1846 and 1854 when the depot at the Barracks is established. 183 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 184 Starr 2014, “Statistical research into arrival numbers at the Female Immigration Depot at Hyde Park Barracks,” unpublished research document, Sydney Living Museums.
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Date Event young, industrious and single women to the other side of the world, to remedy a domestic labour shortage and improve the gender imbalance. Some come to reconnect with family or ex‐convict husbands, but many come prepared to take a leap into the unknown, desperate for a better life.185
Figure 2.23: Immigrant sisters Figure 2.24: Kate Sarah and Emily Wood Scott, nee Stein, photographed c.1861. Sarah photographed c1910. waited at the Immigration After enduring Depot at Hyde Park Barracks hurricane-force for three months before her winds during her brother in law arrived from voyage from Tenterfield to collect her, Scotland, she spent during which time, the two days at the contents of her luggage was Immigration Depot stolen. (Source: SLM, before being hired photographer unknown, out as a domestic courtesy Beverley McLean) servant. (Source: SLM, photographer unknown, courtesy
Christine Bryan)
“Unprotected” female assisted immigrants, including women from the poor houses of Britain and Ireland, reside in the dormitories until they are reunited with friends and families, or until their services are hired out.186 It is estimated that about two thirds of women are collected quickly from the Depot either by family members or friends already here or by new acquaintances met through their travels. Only about a third find work through the hiring room. HPB thus operates both as a reception house offering temporary accommodation and as a labour exchange for the town. The women are supervised by a matron until “hiring day” when colonists engage them as domestic servants. The thousands of women who pass through the depot are subject to a strict regimen of domestic duties, moral management and religious instruction. The women are confined for their own protection and ministered to by clergy. 187 It is a regime of control and religious education that is reminiscent of the management of convicts that occurred in the previous decades at HPB.
185 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 186 Emmett & Collins 1994, Hyde Park Barracks, p.5. See also Sydney Living Museums exhibition text for the Immigration Depot exhibition at HPB in 2014. 187 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook.
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Figure 2.26: Photographic portrait of an Irish female orphan Figure 2.25: later in life: Photographic portrait of Margaret Hurley, an Irish female orphan c. 1890s. (Source: later in life: Mary Kenny, SLM, c. 1890s (Source: SLM. photographer photographer unknown, unknown, courtesy courtesy Narelle Shirley Patricia Simons) Williams)
1848-1852 Irish Female Orphans The initial wave of women migrants to stay at HPB is composed includes a special group of people who have become known as the Irish female orphans who arrive between 1848 and 1852.188 The Irish female orphans are sent to Australia under the Earl Grey scheme as teenage girls who have lost one or both parents during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s.189 Of the 4114 Irish female orphans to migrate to the Australian colonies under this scheme, 2253 stay at HPB.190 The arrival of the first 200 orphan girls on 6 October 1848 launches the building’s new role.191 The museum’s audio guide explains the context for this migration: “Ireland’s bitter famine of the 1840s, known as the Great Hunger, or ‘An Gorta Mor’, caused untold misery, death and destitution, leaving a lasting pain and sorrow for generations to come. From an initial population of 8 million, around 1 million people perished while over a million others fled their homeland in search of new lives, mostly in America, Canada and Australia. For thousands of young Irish women orphaned by the famine, the Barracks was their first home in the colony ‐ giving them shelter and comfort and the chance of a new beginning.”192 Irishwoman Eliza Capps (dates unknown) is appointed the first matron of the Immigration Depot and remains in the role until c.1854 when she leaves to establish a private servants' registry office.193 As matron, Capps is responsible for the care and placement of the orphan girls.194
188 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 189 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. Boukouvalas 2013, “A ‘metamorphosis of perspectives on the past:’” Great Irish Famine webpage. 190 Fiona Starr, Sydney Living Museums curator for Hyde Park Barracks, email communication with LSJ, 18 July 2016. Starr explains that the figure has been calculated from the shipping lists that record the number of girls on each orphan ship that arrived in Sydney. 191 Australian Heritage Council 2007, “Hyde Park Barracks,” National Heritage Listing entry. 192 Sydney Living Museums 2012, “Audio guide script.” 193 Bishop 2015, Minding her own Business.
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Date Event 1848 Building works for the Immigration depot When considering HPB as accommodation for female immigrants, the Immigration Agent, Francis Lewis Shaw Merewether (1811-1899) informed the Colonial Secretary in 1848 that nearly the whole of the main building and the whole of the outbuildings on the southern side would be suitable. The Immigration Depot eventually vacated the southern range between 1861 and 1870, but resumed some 190 feet of the building, probably as a store, in 1871.195 Works are undertaken to adapt the complex to its new use under the supervision of Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis (1796-1879) including removing convict accommodation furnishings such as hammocks. The Sydney Morning Herald states that the new arrangements in the central barrack places the Immigration Agent's offices on the ground floor while the upper floors are used to house orphans.196 Governor FitzRoy comments on his funding of the building works: “These buildings with the few alterations which I have caused to be made in their arrangement will now afford ample and most comfortable accommodation for any number of emigrants . . . male and female orphans . . . The expense of the alterations required mounting to £791 3 1.”197
194 Her appointment is mentioned in a letter from the Agent for Immigration, Francis Merewether, to the Colonial Secretary, 18 December 1848, Col Sec Correspondence, SRNSW 48/14045, 4/2802.1. Her activities are also noted in the Daily Reports from 1849 held at State Records. 195 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 47 196 Sydney Morning Herald 30/9/1848 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 4.2. 197 Fitzroy to Gray 1/12/1848 Despatch 257 HRA Series 1, Vol. 26, p. 718 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 4.2.
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Figure 2.27: A 1879 newspaper illustration in two parts: first, depicting Sydney matrons gathering at HPB to choose their servants from the immigrant women, and second, the immigrant girls bidding each other farewell. A detailed description of the Women’s Immigration Depot accompanies the two illustrations. (Source: “Hiring immigrants Hyde Park Depot”, Australian Town & Country Journal 19/7/1879)
1848-1887 NSW Bureaucracy enters HPB compound With the change of use from a convict barracks to Immigration depot also comes a range of other government agencies and departments that initially take over the northern and eastern perimeter buildings. However, by the early to mid-1850s, a steady increase of new buildings are constructed within the northern courtyard area as well as other structures such as privies, washhouses, drains and fences to separate the disparate uses on site. 1848-1856 Government Printers Office The New South Wales Government Printing Office is located at HPB from 1848-1856.198 Established under Governor Gipps in 1840, this department is devoted exclusively to government works. Previously Gipps had found private printers unreliable. The office produces all parliamentary papers, including proceedings of the Legislative Council, reports of Commissions of Inquiry and the Government Gazette. It prints official documents and forms for many sections of government. Publications range from broadsides ("Wanted" posters), tickets of leave, miners' right certificates and invitations to social events at Government House.199
198 Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2. 199 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” pp. 37-38.
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Date Event Its premises are in the northern range of perimeter buildings adjoining the hospital wall (Buildings D and E).200 A fence is erected to divide this from the Immigration Barrack, the latter probably being a “260 feet of stonewall 11 feet high.”201 1851-? The Department of the Agent for Church and School Estates The agent is a remnant of the Clergy and School Land Corporation, established in 1826 to receive one seventh in value and extent of all lands in each county in New South Wales and responsible for payment of salaries of clergy and schoolmasters, and for building maintenance. After the corporation is dissolved in 1833, the Agent is appointed to supervise the sale and lease of its lands. His duties are largely receiving money from renting and depasturing stock on church lands. With responsible government in 1856 the agent is administered through the new department of the Colonial Treasurer.202 The Department is located in the northern perimeter buildings (exact Building unknown).203 1856-1860 The Department of the Inspector of Distilleries. The office of an inspector of the colony's distilleries has existed since 1838 under the Colonial Spirits Distillation Act. This legislation authorises and regulates the warehousing under bond and the exportation free of duty of spirits distilled in the colony. It controls the location and operation of distilleries, the issue of licences for distilling, the registering of premises and seizure of illicit spirits. The office is included in the Colonial Treasurer's administration.204 The office of the Department of the Inspector of Distilleries was very likely in the Vaccine Institution building in the northern courtyard (since demolished). 1856-1859 The Court of Requests 1856-1859. The Third Charter of Justice in 1823 gave the Governor power to set up Courts of Requests with authority to deal with small civil claims and suits involving sums of less than 10 pounds, and not involving title to land. Similar courts had been operating in England since Tudor times, and were very effective in providing legal remedies to poor litigants. They had simple procedures with no appeals, and, as the Sydney Gazette wrote in 1825, proved to be "a highly beneficial establishment bestowed on this colony" for handling the lower level civil jurisdiction. The Court of Requests for Sydney originally was located in the King Street Supreme Court building (across the road behind St James’ Church in Queen’s Square). In 1856 it occupied part of the old Government Printing Office, when that part of the northern range was still single storey (Building E). However, its stay in HPB was short, lasting only a couple of years before the new District Court replaced it. 205
200 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures;” Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook; Heritage Council of New South Wales, 1981, updated 1997. State Heritage Register listing entry for “Hyde Park Barracks.” 201 Sydney Morning Herald 30/9/1848 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 4.2. 202 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 64. 203 Ibid., Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 6.1; Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2. 204 Ibid., p. 63. 205 Ibid.
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Date Event 1856-1857 The Stamp Office 1856-1857. In 1850 Charles Kay printed the first postage stamp in New South Wales on the site of the Post Office in Martin Place. At that time the Government Printing Office was not involved. However, for a very short time in 1856- 1857 postage stamps were printed at HPB during a government inquiry into the running of the Government Printing Office. In January 1857 the printing of postage stamps became the responsibility of the Government Printing Office, and this operation moved to the new premises on Bent and Phillip Streets. The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences has one of the original presses used at HPB and, among other things, a master dye related to the office's brief stay at HPB. The Museum's Vickery Collection includes stamps printed in 1856. 206 1857-1886 The Vaccine Institution The institution’s role, as articulated in the NSW Parliament 1846, is to maximise vaccination practices in the colony and maintain appropriate supplies of vaccine, especially against Small Pox. The first successful vaccination against smallpox in New South Wales takes place in May 1804 using vaccine imported from England. Surgeon John Savage's zeal in establishing inoculations in the British settlements abroad is praised internationally. Since 1828 small pox vaccinations have been conducted at the Sydney Infirmary adjacent to HPB (now The Mint). In 1857 the NSW Department of Lands and Public Works agrees to provide the Vaccination Institute with "three rooms on the ground floor of the building lately occupied by the Inspector of Stamps at the old Government Printing Office"207 (Building E). Here, the superintendent vaccinates children or adults who call at prescribed times of the week in fine weather, free of charge. The institution is later relocated to buildings located in the northern courtyard (since demolished). 1858-1978 The District Court The Sydney District Court208 or Metropolitan District Court209 is established at HPB in 1858, its first sitting held on “May 9, 1859 with Justice Alfred Cheeke (1810-1876) on the Bench.”210 Still an important legal institution today, it was founded at HPB and resided here for over a century, until 1978. Cases in the District Court mostly involve the recovery of small amounts of money, property disputes, defamation, and breaches of contract, as well as crimes and misdemeanours not punishable with death; all providing much work for barristers and solicitors filing in and out of the HPB compound.211 The District Court from its earliest days attends to the largest volume of litigation in the
206 Ibid. 207 Clive Lucas. Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” pp. 29, 59-61. 208 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 209 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures.” 210 Campbell 1936 “Hyde Park Barracks,” RAHSJ, Vol. 22, p207 cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 5.1. 211 Holt 1976, A Court Rises, p. :59 cited in Davies et. al. 2013, “An archaeology of institutional confinement.”
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Date Event state. Trial by jury is available for some matters; and women are permitted to sit on juries from 1947. The workload of the Metropolitan District Court provides a useful indicator of events in the state. For example, the court addresses the consequences of financial disaster and unemployment consequent upon drought or flood. During the 1930s a judge comments on the unsuitable design of his courtroom in HPB: "The acoustic properties of this court are absolutely shocking. I should think if we went into a stable at Government House we should find them better than in this court…..It was built for a barracks in the old days.”212
Figure 2.28: Detail from 1863 plan of HPB showing the location of the District Court in the northern range and a new building in the northern courtyard housing the Vaccine Institution. The Immigration Depot is shown located in the main barracks building with sequestered courtyard space for the “Aged Females.” The Rifle Volunteers are shown in the southern range, and Carpenters and Joiners in the old flogging yard with Colonial Architect’s Office to their south-east. (Source: John Armstrong 1863 “Plan of the sites of the Immigration Depot, District Court, Vaccine Institution, Colonial Architects Offices &c. with the land attached thereto in the Parish of St James City of Sydney,” Department of Lands)
Various legislation empowered Judges of the District Court to sit from time to time as judges of other special courts. These included: Probate Court and Offices 1893-1915213 Estates Office 1897-1914214
212 Holt 1976, A Court Rises, p. 186 cited in Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” pp. 40-41. 213 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Hyde Park Barracks, conservation plan for perimeter structure;” Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2.
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Date Event Court of Review 1901-1938215 Court of Marine Enquiry 1901-1979216 Land Appeal Court 1904-1910217 Located in the buildings on the northern perimeter (Buildings C to H), the District Court also takes over the site where the Vaccine Institution had formerly stood in 1888 (in the northern courtyard), when a three-storey structure is built for courts and offices. The building is connected to the main barracks on the upper two levels, and to the northern range by a bridge on the first floor. Alterations are made to this three-storey building in 1953 to provide accommodation for members of the jury and the legal profession on the second floor. This entire structure is demolished in 1979.218 In 1921, in a general up-grading of accommodation for the District Court in the northern range, the building programme extended around the north-east pavilion where rooms for two judges in a two-storey extension were built on the eastern wall (Building H). These rooms had a cloak room and WC attached which extended into the yard. The District Court of NSW is now located in the Dowling Centre, Sydney, named for Justice Dowling, the second judge presiding over the Metropolitan District Court at the HPB (1861-1889). 1860-1870 The New South Wales Volunteer Rifle Corps Although the British Government had authorised the establishment of a Volunteer Rifle Corps and volunteer Yeomanry Cavalry in late 1851, the 1st Regiment of New South Wales Rifles is short-lived, disbanded by 1860. Soon afterwards, fear of war with the French and the transfer of Imperial troops to New Zealand prompts renewed interest in volunteering. On 31 August 1860 proclamations are issued calling for enrolments “for the defence of the country.” This new Volunteer Corps sees the creation of the “New South Wales Volunteer Rifles (and Artillery).” In 1870 when all British regiments in the colony are withdrawn, the NSW Volunteer Rifle Corps vacates HPB.219 The old kitchen in the southern range is considered suitable for an armoury, and the small rooms adjacent and west of the kitchen are used for an office and quarters for the sergeant in charge of the armoury. It gradually takes over the entire southern range (now demolished). Facilities included a brigade office, armoury and lodge, armourer’s shop and band room. It is not initially separated from the main building, but a separate entrance is created mid-1861 and a high fence erected to segregate volunteers from the other occupants of the site. Gas lighting is installed to allow evening drills and practice.220
214 Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2. 215 Ibid. 216 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures.” 217 Ibid.; Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2. 218 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” pp. 16, 20-21. 219 Kelso 2007, “Citizen soldiers;” Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook; Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 6.1. 220 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 48.
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Figure 2.29 and Figure 2.30: Two watercolour views of HPB by Samuel Elyard, dated 1866. (Source: State Library of NSW) 1862-1886 Asylum for Infirm and Destitute Women In 1862, the top floor of the main barracks building is turned into the first NSW Government-run asylum for destitute women. The women are also given their own enclosed courtyard area adjacent to the eastern perimeter wall. More than 150 women are transferred from the overcrowded Benevolent Asylum in Haymarket (on the site of present-day Central Railway Station), which had been established by Governor Macquarie in 1821. Sir Charles Cowper (1807-1875) is the Colonial Secretary primarily responsible for establishing the Hyde Park Asylum, although this major achievement is overlooked by his biographer.221 It is not a lunatic asylum but a refuge for infirm and destitute women. As well as elderly women, there are young women aged in their twenties and thirties who are physically disabled and terminal patients from the nearby Sydney Infirmary. The asylum at times contains up to 300 women, many of whom stay in HPB for years.222 Lucy Applewhaite-Hicks (1833-1909) is a long-serving matron of the Immigration Depot, responsible for both the depot and the asylum over many years. A mother of 14 children of her own, Hicks lives at HPB along with her first husband John Applewhaite and many of their children. The front two rooms of Level 2 is the likely location of Mrs Hicks’ quarters.223 Together with her eldest daughter Mary, who works as sub matron, Lucy handles the paperwork, the ordering of food, stores and medicines, the cutting of fabrics and the daily needs of hundreds of inmates and travellers whilst attending to the constant demands of a large family.224 Following the death of her husband in 1869, Lucy also effectively takes on his role as “Master of the Asylum.”
221 Powell 1977 Patrician democrat Charles Cowper cited in Davies et al., 2013, “An archaeology of institutional confinement.” 222 Sydney Living Museums 2012, Audio guide script; Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 223 Elmoos 2006, “The Hyde Park Barracks, a brief history.” 224 Starr, 2016 “Staff of HPB;” Sydney Living Museums 2012, “Audio guide script.”
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Figure 2.31: Possibly a portrait of one of the long-serving matrons of the Immigration Depot, Lucy Applewhaite-Hicks, c. 1870. (Source: ‘Mrs Hicks’, American & Australasian Photographic Company, State Library NSW, ON 4 Box 15 no.984, courtesy SLM )
“These poor creatures,” as the Matron Hicks refers to them, live a spare and regimented existence, looking after themselves and costing the state very little for their maintenance.225 The only paid servant is the head laundress. Able-bodied inmates contribute to the cleaning, cooking and laundry. The women are renowned for their sewing and mending skills and make most of their own clothes worn. Sewing and repairing clothes and bed linen helps with the economy of the institution. At times occupants complain about unwholesome and decrepit conditions. Rats are active in the wards; their nests yield a unique archaeological collection when excavated 100 years later. Other artefacts fall between the floorboards or are hidden there by women for safekeeping.226 The presence of the asylum for the care of aged and infirm women on the top floor places physical demands on the old building and many modifications are required over the next two decades.227 The asylum is completely segregated from the immigration depot on Level 2 and has its own entrance and fenced recreation yard.228 In the early 1860s, the roof of the main building requires repairs. It is stated that “some portions of the roof of the main Building of HPB are in so dilapidated a state as to admit the rain freely and render the upper apartments of the Depot quite uninhabitable during bad weather.”229 Aboriginal women are among the inmates of the earlier Benevolent Asylum but only one woman is known to reside in the HPB asylum. There are likely others, but few records of this period in HPB have survived. Minnie Perks (c. 1858-1877) is a young, blind Aboriginal
225 Sydney Living Museums 2012, “Audio guide script.” 226 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 227 Elmoos 2006, “The Hyde Park Barracks, a brief history.” 228 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 229 Immigration agent to Colonial Architect 30/4/1860 Colonial Architects Bundle 2/642B cited in Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 6.2.
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Date Event woman from Newcastle placed in the Sydney Infirmary in 1873. After a year of authorities trying to work out where she can go next, she is transferred to HPB asylum in 1874.230 She lives there for three years until her death in 1877.231 There are no further known details about her life in the asylum. Historian Joy Hughes demonstrates that that the asylum phase is almost “invisible” historically. There is a lack of readily accessible primary documents, with almost none of the Hyde Park Asylum’s official records, including admission and discharge registers, ration returns, store books, letter books and other papers, having survived. Unlike its predecessor, the Benevolent Asylum, the Hyde Park institution is largely free of complaint and thus does not attract adverse newspaper attention. Primary historical material is scattered through archives from the Colonial Secretary, the Government Architect and the Public Works Department. Hughes’ research thesis uses these to describe the Hyde Park Asylum in relation to the development of state policy on charity and welfare.232 Her work offers valuable revision to the usual HPB focus on convicts and immigrants, and illuminates in particular the life of Matron Lucy Hicks.233 In February 1886, following a decision to re-purpose the HPB, the inmates are transferred to the newly built Newington Asylum near Auburn.234 This is based in the former home of John Blaxland at Silverwater on the Parramatta River.235 1864-1907 Coroner’s Office Although Governor Phillip was authorised to appoint coroners, justices of the peace seem to have conducted the relevant inquiries until 1810 when the artist J.W. Lewin (1770-1819) is appointed by Governor Macquarie as Sydney’s first official coroner.236 By 1856 there are 29 coroners across NSW reporting to the central office at HPB. Infamous cases investigated by the Coroner’s Office when located at HPB include inquiries into fires at the Garden Palace in 1882 and St Mary’s Cathedral in 1865. From 1887 the coroner occupies five rooms in the southern range facing Hyde Park including a court, office, clerks' office, jury's retiring room and a lobby to be used as a waiting room for witnesses. 237 In 1907 the City Coroner moved to George Street North in anticipation of the demolition of the southern range in 1909. 1879-1951 Master In Lunacy As a result of the Equity Court's (see below) jurisdiction over the property of lunatics, the Master in Equity also held the position of Master in Lunacy from 1879. This position was created after the passing of the Lunacy Act of 1878 and was established at HPB in association with the Asylum.
230 Hughes 2004, Hyde Park Asylum for Infirm and Destitute Women, pp. 117-19. 231 Davies et al. 2013, An Archaeology of Institutional Confinement: p. 34. 232 Hughes 2004, “Hyde Park Asylum for Infirm and Destitute Women.” 233 Ibid., p. 1 cited by Davies et al., 2013, “An archaeology of institutional confinement.” 234 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook. 235 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 68. 236 Golder, 1991, High & Responsible Office, p. 117. 237 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” pp. 50-51.
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Date Event The first Master in Lunacy was Arthur Todd Holroyd (1879-1885). His function was to undertake the general care, protection and management or supervision of the estates of all insane persons and patients in New South Wales. In 1958 the title Master in Lunacy was changed to that of Master of the Protective Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The Master in Lunacy was on the top level of the Main Barracks Building until 1951. 1880s Proposal to demolish HPB A proposal to replace HPB with a new building to house a public library is floated. Colonial Architect James Barnet (1827-1904) provides designs for a replacement building based on the style of the British Museum, but nothing further comes of this first serious proposal to demolish HPB.238 1887 Chancery Square The date 1887 is seen as the commencement of the third major phase of HPB’ history: the judicial period, when HPB becomes a central location for the NSW government departments under the Minister for Justice.239 By this time all non-law related institutions and offices have moved out. In 1897 the area, including HPB, is renamed “Chancery Square” in honour of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and the courts are soon using this as their official address.240 The name is changed back to “Queen's Square” in the mid- 20th century, probably inspired by the 1888 statue of Queen Victoria located there.241
238 Chanin 2011, The life and times of David Scott Mitchell cited in Davies et al. 2013 An Archaeology of Institutional Confinement . 239 Clive Lucas Stapleton Partners 1996 “Conservation Plan for Perimeter Structures”, p. 73; Sydney Living Museums Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook, Sydney Living Museums, 2014. 240 Clive Lucas. Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 49. 241 Street et al 1993 Unwritten law, reminiscences of Chancery Square No.1, cited in Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 33.
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Date Event
Figure 2.32: Ground floorplan showing proposed alterations to the barracks, 1887 by Government Architect James Barnet including addition of Equity Court building at rear of the barracks building. The plan also det6ails subdivision of interior spaces and it is at this time that the southern staircase is removed. (Source: State Archives, AO1720 courtesy SLM)
During the last part of the nineteenth century as the judiciary and government offices takes over HPB complex, in a continuation of the pattern of development already established in the 1850s, new buildings spring up in a confused pattern wherever space is available. The documentary evidence for the functional and architectural development of HPB in this period becomes sparse. There are occasional plans, drawings and photographs as well as Sands Directory offering an annual snapshot of the inhabitants but further research is required particularly through newspapers, to illuminate this period.242 Numerous partitions are added and taken away from the barracks building during this period. 1887? Weights & Measures Office and Curator of Intestate Estates A plan dated June 1887 shows proposed alterations at HPB to convert the southern range into a temporary Coroner's court and other offices. The plan indicates accommodation for the Patents Office, Coroner's department, Weights and Measures, Curator of Intestate
242 Thorp 1980, “Hyde Park Barracks Archival report,” Vol.1, 7.1; Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook.
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Date Event Estates and Copyright Office. However, there is little evidence to support the presence of Weights and Measures Office and the Curator of Intestate Estates in the southern range. 243 1888-1894, Registrar of Patents Office and library.244 1907-1908, The NSW Patent Law Amendment Act 1887 created the office of Examiner of Patents in 1913-1916 NSW, whose role was to issue Letters Patent for the protection of any invention or improvement to the arts or manufactures.245 The office was located on the western end of the southern range. The Records and Library remained in HPB after the southern range was demolished in 1909 in the new southern buildings. 1888-1914 Bankruptcy Court Bankruptcy and insolvency are state matters between 1824 and 1901 when they are transferred to Commonwealth jurisdiction following federation. Bankruptcy law is designed to allow persons to stay out of jail when unable to pay their debts. It provides a way of satisfying creditors and a system for debtors to make a fresh start in their financial affairs. A Bankruptcy Court operates at HPB from 1888 to 1914, presided over by a Supreme Court judge. A threat in common parlance in the early 20th century, “to see someone up at the end of King Street,” meant to deal with someone in the Bankruptcy Court in HPB.246 In 1889 the Government Architect draws up plans for a new two-storey structure at rear of the Main Barracks Building with two court rooms and offices for the Equity Court (see below) and Bankruptcy Court. In 1917 the same area is occupied by the Equity Court No 1 and Industrial Court No 1. Sometime after 1921 it is connected to the courts in the eastern range by a bridge, the same way in which the main building is connected to the northern range. This structure is demolished in 1979.247 1888-1914 Equity Court and Offices.248 From 1823 until 1972 the Equity Court administers a separate and distinct system of law from the common law within the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The jurisdiction of the New South Wales Equity Court followed that of the Chancery Court in England (at least until 1875 when the English systems of law and equity were combined.) Its jurisdiction was wide and included jurisdiction over the following areas: trusts; the doctrine of the married woman's separate property; the whole law of mortgages; doctrines governing the priorities of estates and interests; deceased estates; guardianship of infants; and management of the property of lunatics. In addition, it offered relief against the rigidity of the common law in cases of misrepresentation,
243 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Hyde Park Barracks, conservation plan for perimeter structure;” p. 49 244 Ibid., Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2. 245 NSW Department of Justice handbook, 1893, p. 88-89, cited in Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures;” p.51. 246 Ibid., p. 70; Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2. 247 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures.” 248 Ibid.; Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2.
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Date Event mistake, fraud and undue influence, and was influential in the formative years of company law.249 The Equity Court sat in the Supreme Court building in King Street from 1824 to 1888, when the Court and its offices occupied HPB. The Master in Equity moved from HPB in 1915 to premises in Elizabeth Street, and the Court followed two years later. 1888-1894 Registrar of Copyright’s Office.250 The Copyright Act 1879 introduced provisions based on English law at that time, giving wide protection to literary, dramatic, visual, design and musical works. From 1888 the office occupied a pavilion in the south-eastern corner of the southern range (since demolished). 1889-1901, Clerk of the Peace251 1917-1933 The first Clerk of the Peace is appointed in 1817 and when Quarter Sessions are instituted in New South Wales in 1825, the Clerk of the Peace acts as its Crown Prosecutor. In 1870 a Clerk of the Peace for the whole colony is appointed and is responsible for prosecutions in criminal matters. The role is in effect the de facto Registrar of the Supreme Court in its criminal jurisdiction, as well as being the Registrar of Quarter Sessions (the District Court sitting in its criminal jurisdiction). The Clerk of the Peace carries out most of the duties of a registry such as listing cases and issuing notices, however the role and duties of the Clerk of the Peace change considerably over time, developing into an important office of the courts. In 1987 the Office of the Clerk of the Peace is abolished, and replaced by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.252 The Clerk of Peace at HPB is located within a later addition building located in the southern courtyard (since demolished).
1894 Realignment of Prince Albert Road Prince Albert Road is realigned to accommodate increased traffic and the south west pavilion and the western portion of the southern range of buildings are removed. 1908-1977 Industrial Arbitration Courts and Offices (various) With the creation of the Australian arbitration system in the early 20th century, the courts in HPB become a major site of the struggle for workplace reform in New South Wales. Landmark decisions handed down here include provision for the basic living wage in
249 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Hyde Park Barracks, conservation plan for perimeter structure;” pp. 69-70. 250 Ibid. 251 Ibid.; Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2. 252 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures,” p. 67.
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Date Event 1927 and equal pay for women under state awards (although rejected when first heard in 1921, this is granted in 1973).253 Various courts and offices are established and located throughout HPB complex:254 Industrial Disputes Office 1908-1911. Industrial Court 1910-1928. Industrial Registrar’s Office 1911-1914. Industrial Arbitration Court 1912-1927. Industrial Commission of NSW 1927-1977 In 1927 the Industrial Arbitration Court is replaced by the Industrial Commission of NSW, which sits at HPB until 1977. It is comprised of three judges with the status of Supreme Court Judges. It plays a major part in the development of trade unionism in NSW. In 1943 an additional two-storey accommodation for the Industrial Court was built along the remainder of the eastern perimeter wall (Building I).255
Figure 2.33: Photo of Electrical Trades Union group outside HPB Figure 2.34: 1973 news clipping showing women in on 28 October 1964.(Source: Photo by the Australian NSW demonstrating for equal wages. (Source: SLM Photographic Agency, held State Library NSW256) HPB Museum display) 1908-1913 Registrar General’s building Constructed between 1908 and 1913 to the south east of HPB, the Registrar General’s building, designed by the Government Architect’s Office under Walter Liberty Vernon (1846-1914) is a three storey building in neo-Gothic style.257 To accommodate the new building, the remainder of the southern range is demolished. In their place, a conglomeration of small structures with iron roofs appeared in the southern courtyard, and gradually concealed the ground-level view of the main barracks building. All these
253 Sydney Living Museums 2014, Hyde Park Barracks Museum Guidebook; Crook et al. 2003, “Assessment of historical and archaeological resources,” p.13. 254 Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners 1996, “Conservation plan for perimeter structures;” Thorp 2106, “Historic period archaeology,” 3.2. 255 Ibid. 256 Online at: http://acmssearch.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/itemDetailPaged.cgi?itemID=97769 257 Heritage Council of New South Wales, 1981, updated 1997, State Heritage Register listing entry for “Hyde Park Barracks.”
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Date Event buildings were demolished from 1979. 1909 Remodelling of Queen’s Square and Prince Albert Street A proposal from the Royal Commission for the Improvement of Sydney and its Suburbs (1908-09) to remodel Queens Square involves demolishing HPB to make way but is not implemented. 1915-1917 Wheat Acquisition Board A long drought between 1911 and 1915 results in bad years for agricultural production in New South Wales. The Government passes legislation to meet the threat of insufficient wheat supplies during the war, Wheat Acquisition Act 1914. It provides for compulsory acquisition, compensation, sale and distribution and for varying or cancelling contracts for sale and delivery of wheat.258 1920s to Debates about demolishing the “ludicrous” HPB 1950s Proposals to demolish HPB as a derelict building continue to emerge in the middle decades and are countered by calls for it to be protected as an important historical relic. Planning historian Rob Freestone later describes this as “the most notable preservation cause celebre of the interwar years in Sydney.” He notes various statements from key players in Sydney including architect Emil Sodersten (1899-1961) who feels “that traffic preservation should take precedence over preservation.” 259 Florence Taylor (1879-1961), editor of Building magazine, considers HPB “disreputable . . . If there is one building in the city that is more unworthy and ludicrous than all the rest it is that one.”260 In 1926 the demolition of HPB and The Mint is proposed to make way for a new Anglican cathedral, in exchange for the site of St Andrews’ Cathedral next to Town Hall, however the plan never eventuates.261 In 1936 the City of Sydney’s “Macquarie Street Replanning Committee” condemns HPB and recommends it be demolished. A “contributing comment” in The Home magazine agrees that the HPB precinct is “saturated with memories of convicts and the Rum Corps, and of those early days of Australia’s history which are best forgotten.”262
258 Ibid., p. 66. 259 Freestone 1999, “Early historic preservation in Australia,” p. 85. 260 Building, October 1943, p. 17 261 Kelso 2016, comments. 262 The Home 1 April 1937, Hyde Park Barracks Museum exhibit. Published on 1 April 1937, there is a possibility that this comment is tongue-in-cheek.
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