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After Arthur : Policing in Van Diemen's Land 1837-1846

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After Arthur : Policing in Van Diemen's Land 1837-1846 AFTER ARTHUR: POLICING IN VAN DIEMEN’S LAND 1837 - 1846 Dr Stefan Petrow University of Tasmania, Tas Paper presented at the History of Crime, Policing and Punishment Conference convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology in conjunction with Charles Sturt University and held in Canberra, 9-10 December 1999 Introduction Between 1824 and 1836 Governor George Arthur was the autocratic ruler of Van Diemen’s Land and controlled the colony in large part by a powerful and numerous police force.1 In 1835 there was 1 policeman to every 88.7 people, making Van Diemen’s Land one of the most heavily policed societies in the world. Arthur attributed the island colony’s low crime rate and absence of disorder to the efficiency of his police, many of whom were convicts. While many Vandiemonians welcomed this security, many others, especially in the large towns of Hobart Town and Launceston, accused the felon police of abusing their powers, of making arrests on flimsy excuses, and of corruption. They privileged individual liberties over security for life and property. After Arthur’s departure, the economic and social circumstances of Van Diemen’s Land changed and this had an impact on policing. Firstly, neither of Arthur’s successors, Sir John Franklin and Sir John Eardley Eardley-Wilmot, had Arthur’s autocratic personality and what is more important lacked the administrative ability to make the convict system run like clock work.2 Secondly, from 1 July 1836 the British Government refused to pay for the heavy police costs and required Franklin and Eardley-Wilmot to fund the police and gaols from local funds. This created tension between the two Governors and the Legislative Council and the colonists, and made the funding of the police a controversial issue. Thirdly, there was a change in the management of convicts. Under the assignment system convicts were usually assigned to work for private employers, who provided shelter, food, clothing, and food according to government regulation.3 In response to criticisms that the assignment system was too lenient, the British Government introduced the probation system in 1842. This system worked male convicts in probation gangs scattered throughout the penal colony for at least two years. For another two years a convict received a probation pass, allowing him to work for wages while reporting to the police. If well behaved, he became eligible for a ticket-of-leave and later a conditional pardon. At the same time as the management system changed, the British Government flooded the colony with convicts, including those from New South Wales when transportation ended in 1840. The annual population of convicts increased from 17,661 in 1836 to 30,279 in 1846.4 Especially under Eardley-Wilmot, the probation system seemed to run out of control and convicts were not as disciplined as colonists expected. Bushranging, subdued under Arthur, became a much greater threat. Fourthly, in the 1840s Van Diemen’s Land experienced an economic depression and the large numbers of convicts on release and the increasing numbers of free immigrants found work scarce.5 Large numbers of people, not just convicts, therefore, were in financial need and were forced to steal to survive. Finally, the other major change was the appointment of Francis Burgess as Chief Police Magistrate in September 1843. Burgess had been a successful Chief 1S. Petrow, ‘Policing in a Penal Colony: Governor George Arthur in Van Diemen’s Land 1824-1836’, Law and History Review. 2A.G.L. Shaw, ‘Three Knights: Sir James Stephen, Sir John Franklin, and Sir John Eardley-Wilmot’, Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers and Proceedings, vol. 36, 1989, pp. 141-53. 3A.G.L. Shaw, ‘Sir John Eardley-Wilmot and the Probation System in Tasmania’, Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers and Proceedings, vol. 11, 1963, pp.5-19; A.G.L. Shaw, Convicts and Colonies: A Study of Penal Transportation from Great Britain and Ireland to Australia and Other Parts of the British Empire, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1978, chapters 11-14. 4P.R. Eldershaw, Guide to the Public Records of Tasmania, Section Three: Convict Department Record Group, Hobart: State Library of Tasmania, 1966, p. 64. 5R.M. Hartwell, The Economic Development of Van Diemen’s Land 1820-1850, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1954, ch. 3. 2 Commissioner of Police in Birmingham and imported his ideas on the ‘new science’ of policing, especially the prevention and detection of crime and the training of police, to Van Diemen’s Land.6 During the 1830s ideas for reforming the police were heatedly debated and Burgess injected new perspectives into a locally devised policing system.7 In response to these changes, an anti-transportation movement emerged and railed against convict immorality.8 Widespread homosexuality, crime, and even cannibalism were attributed to convicts, demonstrating that the probation system did not reform, merely hardened. In reality, these claims were extreme. At double that of England, the crime rate was high, but in a convict colony might well have been much higher. Homosexuality existed and cannibalism might have occurred, but anti-transportationists magnified their allegations for political purposes, as Sturma has shown New South Wales colonists did in 1844.9 By building an atmosphere of crisis, the anti-transportationists in Van Diemen’s Land extracted major concessions from the British Government. In 1846 transportation was suspended indefinitely and the British paid two thirds of the cost of police and gaols.10 Against this background, the changes to Arthur’s policing system will be examined. Themes will include the debate over who should pay for the police, the pay and conditions of police, their appointment and dismissal, how police work affected the public perception of the police, and how the police dealt with threats to order, crime, and morals. To charges that the police were too authoritarian were added allegations that the police were too inefficient to deal with threats to person, property, and morals, especially under Eardley-Wilmot. Colonial and Imperial Politics When he arrived in the colony, Governor Franklin found the police in a ‘very efficient state’.11 The system was ‘excellent’ and managed in a ‘very able manner’ by Chief Police Magistrate Forster. With the spread of population to remote areas, Franklin had to appoint new Assistant Police Magistrates and police, for example at Morven, Avoca, and Spring Bay. The Secretary of State, Lord Glenelg supported increases in the police of Van Diemen’s Land to ‘the full extent which its resources may permit’.12 Successive Secretaries of State adopted this policy. The cost of the police for 1838 was estimated at £24,836 2s. 6d. Many colonists felt unhappy about paying the escalating police costs to control the increasing number of British criminals. Every time the police estimates were debated in the Legislative Council, the unofficial members supported the vote only in the belief that, after paying for emigrants, the revenue from land sales and rents would cover police and gaol expenses.13 But 6M. Weaver, ‘The New Science of Policing: Crime and the Birmingham Police Force, 1839-1842’, Albion, vol. 26 (2), 1994, pp. 289-308. 7For the proposals for police reform in England see D. Philips and R.D. Storch, Policing Provincial England, 1829-1856: The Politics of Reform, London: Leicester University Press, 1999. 8W.P. Morrell, British Colonial Policy in the Age of Peel and Russell, Oxford, 1930, pp. 387-426; L. Robson, A History of Tasmania: Van Diemen’s Land From The Earliest Times to 1855, Volume 1, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1983, pp. 491, 497-9. 9M. Sturma, Vice in a Vicious Society: Crime and Convicts in Mid-Nineteenth Century New South Wales, St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1983, chapter 3. 10Shaw, Convicts and Colonies, ch. 15; Morrell, British Colonial Policy, p. 391. 11AJCP CO 280/79, reel 278, p. 107, D.89, Franklin to Glenelg, 10 August 1837. 12AJCP CO 280/79, reel 278, p. 107, D.89, Glenelg to Spearman, 28 April 1838. 13AJCP CO 280/94, reel 476, p. 419, D.45, Franklin to Glenelg, 17 May 1838, Montagu to Gregory and Boyes, 2 May 1838; K. Fitzpatrick, Sir John Franklin in Tasmania, 1837-1843, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1949, pp. 99-100, 215-17. 3 in May 1838, Franklin, facing a budget deficit, told the Colonial Office that revenue from land was falling and he did not expect to be able to pay the expenses of emigration, let alone the police. He was compelled to transfer £5000 from the Military Chest to the Colonial Chest to meet the expenses of police and gaols. He hoped not to have to repeat this action, but his problems were many. Colonial prosperity had declined with the fall in the price of wool on the English market, banks limited their discounts, and settlers felt disinclined to speculate in purchasing Crown lands. Even if prosperity did return, sales of Crown land would not produce much revenue because ‘most of the valuable tracts of land’ had been granted or sold and a recent distribution of 25,000 acres to applicants for secondary grants diminished the amount of land available. The emigration of farmers and stock to Port Phillip further diminished his revenue and deprived the colony of potential land buyers. Franklin busily collected outstanding proceeds from the sales and rents of Crown land, but suggested two ways of making good his budget deficit.14 One was for the Commissariat to pay for police and gaols and the expenses of emigration. The other suggestion was to pay for police and gaols out of the land revenue, but to make up any deficiencies from the Commissariat. Franklin conceded that the British Treasury Lords would not consent to pay the total police costs, but if they paid two thirds of the cost, then the Legislative Council would vote for the remaining one third.
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