As many as 50,000 transported convicts passed through Hyde Park Barracks between 1819 and 1848.
For the first 30 years of the colony, convicts had extraordinary freedom. There was no jail or barracks to house them, so they had to find their own lodgings in the town. Governor Macquarie established this barracks in order to control the convicts' working and living arrangements. The building itself is a monument to his aspirations to improve the penal colony and transform it into a thriving new society.
Conditions in Britain led to a huge increase in the number of convicts sent to the colony after 1815. Some 14,000 new convicts arrived in just five years, and the barracks played a significant role in housing, sorting and assigning them. Built to hold 600 men, at times it housed up to 1300.
Many traces of convict lives remain. Inked into shipping ledgers and court records are minute personal details of men, women and children - their scars and tattoos, names and aliases, crimes and sentences. Treasured keepsakes tell of love, pain and distance. But there are other stories too - of opportunity, new lives and family. Most convicts served out their sentences and blended into society as 'free' citizens.