To the east of Australia, in the southern Pacific Ocean, there is a small island called Norfolk. Nowadays, it belongs to Australia, but in the first half of the 19th century, Norfolk was an English penal colony where the most dangerous criminals from England and Australia were sent. Norfolk is a small island, covering only 34.6 square kilometers. The highest point on the island is Mount Bates (319 meters). The whole island is covered with fields and pastures, and its population is just over 2,000 people. Norfolk was discovered by the famous English navigator J. Cook in 1774, and from 1788, the island was used as a place of exile for convicts from England. In 1814, the colony was abandoned as too costly, but in 1825, the prison was rebuilt, and it became a place for dangerous criminal and political convicts. Even minor offenses could get you sent from England to Norfolk. For thirty years, Norfolk became a penal colony with a strict regime of imprisonment. Finally, the penal colony on the island was closed in 1854, but the prison buildings have been carefully preserved on the island and have become a tourist attraction.

The history of Norfolk as a place for penal servitude began with the opening of Australia. In 1787, the British government began sending transports with convicts to Australia to colonize the new territory in order to free the metropolitan prisons from criminals. But among the exiles were hardened recidivists whom the Australian administration, trying to get rid of them, began to send to nearby islands. Already the next year, in 1788, "under the command of King, a special transport was sent to Norfolk Island; although, according to King's report, he had to endure a difficult struggle with the forces of nature and the inaccessibility of the coast, the idea of occupying more possible points was not abandoned, and the colonial administration pursued it".

In 1814, the colony was abandoned as too expensive, but in 1825 the prison was rebuilt and intended for the most hardened criminals. The Governor of New South Wales, Ralph Darling, said, "My goal is to make this settlement a place of the strictest punishment, close to death." The prisoners worked in quarries and on a mill, where they manually operated heavy millstones. They were forced to wear heavy shackles and were mercilessly beaten for the slightest infractions. The island, which could have remained a peaceful Pacific paradise, became the harshest penal colony for 30 years, until 1854. Several times, the convicts unsuccessfully staged rebellions. In 1856, some of the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island, descendants of the mutineers of the ship "Bounty," were resettled on Norfolk Island. In memory of this event, the most important local holiday, Bounty Day, has been celebrated annually on June 8th on Norfolk Island.

A peculiar feature of the penal colony on the remote island was double recidivism. Convict exiles from England were sent to Australia and Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania). Upon arrival, they committed crimes again, were criminally prosecuted, received sentences, and were sent to punitive deportations. One of such deportations was to Norfolk Island. Another place of detention on Tasmania was the Port Arthur peninsula with the eponymous town. The most severely convicted colonists were sent here; the worst always remained in chains. Work was mandatory, but proper supervision of it could not be established. Disorder and riots often occurred here, ending in gunfire. The "ring" of the worst inmates held both prisoners and the administration in fear, as the latter could never fully enforce discipline here. Every prisoner, besides the common meal, could freely purchase provisions and go to the kitchen to prepare it. These culinary activities, accompanied by disputes, horseplay, and gluttony, significantly reduced working hours, but had become so entrenched that the administration had to tolerate them. Mutual corruption among the inmates was complete. They were housed in three locations on the island: Kingston, the main one, Longridge, and Cascades. They were kept in barracks and worked in agriculture or other tasks on the island during the day.

In 1824, the British government instructed the governor of New South Wales, Thomas Brisbane, to occupy Norfolk Island as a place to send "convicts of the worst description." Its remoteness, previously considered a disadvantage, was now seen as an advantage for the incarceration of "twice-convicted" men who had committed new crimes since arriving in New South Wales. Brisbane assured his superiors that "the criminal who is sent there is forever deprived of all hope of returning." He viewed Norfolk Island as the "nec plus ultra of convict degradation." Detained convicts were long considered hardened recidivists, or "twice-convicted to death," that is, people transported to Australia who committed new colonial crimes for which they were sentenced to death and were spared the gallows on condition of lifetime imprisonment on Norfolk Island. However, a recent study using a database of 6,458 convicts on Norfolk Island showed that reality was somewhat different: more than half were incarcerated on Norfolk Island without receiving a colonial court conviction, and only 15% were released from the death penalty. In addition, the vast majority of convicts sent to Norfolk Island committed non-violent property crimes, the average duration of imprisonment was three years, and the scale of punishments imposed on inmates was significantly lower than expected.

His successor, Governor Ralph Darling, was even harsher than Brisbane, wanting "every man to be in chains, that an example might be held up to deter others from the commission of crimes" and to "preserve [Norfolk Island] as a place of the most severe punishment, short of death." Governor Arthur on Van Diemen's Land also believed that "when prisoners are sent to Norfolk Island, they should by no means be allowed to return. Their transportation thither should be looked upon as the ultimatum of punishment, unconnected with death alone." The penal institution on Norfolk Island was not viewed as a place for the rehabilitation of convicts.

Accounts passed down from generation to generation indicate the creation of "Hell in Paradise." The widely held and popular view of the severity of penal institutions, including Norfolk Island, comes from Marcus Clarke's novel "For the Term of His Natural Life," which apparently draws on the works and memories of witnesses. However, while Clarke conducted primary research, he selected the most sensational examples from among the possibilities.

After the convict rebellion of 1834, Father William Ullathorne, the Vicar-General of Sydney, visited Norfolk Island to comfort the rebels who were to be executed. He found it "the most heart-rending scene I ever witnessed." Being duty-bound to inform the convicts who received a reprieve and who were to die, he was struck by the "literal fact that every man who heard of his reprieve wept bitterly, and that every man who heard of his death sentence fell on his knees with dry eyes and thanked God."

In the report of magistrate Robert Pringle Stuart for the year 1846, it was mentioned that there was a shortage and low quality of food, inadequate housing, torture and incessant flogging, disobedience of prisoners, and corruption among the wardens. Bishop Robert Wilson visited Norfolk Island three times from Van Diemen's Land. After his first visit in 1846, he reported to the House of Lords, which for the first time became aware of the heinous acts committed under the British flag and attempted to rectify this evil. Wilson returned in 1849 and found that many reforms had been implemented. However, rumors of resumed atrocities brought him back in 1852, and the result of this visit was an exposé in which the atrocities were listed and the system that gave one person absolute power over so many people in this remote place was accused. Only a handful of convicts left any written testimony, and their descriptions (quoted by Hazzard and Hughes) of living and working conditions, food and housing, and especially punishments for seemingly minor offenses, are invariably horrifying, describing a settlement devoid of any human decency under the iron rule of tyrannical autocratic commandants. However, these conclusions were drawn based on a number of overly used (mostly published) sources that were not verified or questioned during detailed archival research. Such work is currently underway, which, for example, has called into question the sensational version of Norfolk Island's past, demonstrating that the widely held belief that convicts on Norfolk Island made "pacts of murder and suicide," that is, drew lots to choose a killer and a victim, wishing to "escape" from Norfolk Island, is a myth.

The actions of some commandants, such as Morisset and especially Price, seem excessively harsh. All but one of them were military men, brought up in a system where discipline was severe. In addition, the commandants relied on a large number of military guards, civilian overseers, former convict constables, and informers among the prisoners who provided them with intelligence and carried out their orders.

Only Alexander Maconochie, it seems, came to the conclusion that cruelty breeds disobedience, as was demonstrated by the uprisings of 1826, 1834 and 1846, and he attempted to apply his theories of penal reform, which provided for both rewards and punishments. His methods were criticized as too lenient, and he was replaced, which returned the settlement to its former harsh rule. However, recent research has also shown that the level of punishment under Maconochie's regime was much higher than was believed, as the average number of lashings for floggings was 93, higher under Maconochie than at any other time in the history of the second penal settlement. The second penal settlement began to be wound down by the British government after 1847, and the last convicts were transported to Tasmania in May 1855. It was abandoned because transportation to Van Diemen's Land ceased in 1853 and was replaced by penal servitude in the United Kingdom. Norfolk Island entered the history of the English convict penal system as one of the most horrific places of confinement. According to Engels, "it is hard to imagine more cruel and low punishments, applied with systematic consistency to destroy the victims of the law physically, spiritually and morally and to crush them below the level of cattle. A deported criminal falls into such a abyss of demoralization and disgusting brutishness that even the best nature must succumb within six months; whoever is willing to read eyewitness accounts of New South Wales or Norfolk Island will agree with me that everything said above still does not compare to the reality." To this day, there is a cemetery on one of the islands near Norfolk with numerous nameless graves of deceased convicts.

Sources:

Lavrentiev M.V. Norfolk Island - English penal colony in the first half of the 19th century.