Last days of the barracks
By the 1840s Sydney was a lively 'free' society but one increasingly embarrassed about its penal origins. No new convicts were being sent to New South Wales, so the Hyde Park Barracks came to house the 'dregs' of a system - the last of the colony's transportees, broken men and incorrigibles who hadn't yet completed their sentences or begun to move on with their lives. These remaining men showed little promise of reform.
On fashionable Macquarie Street, the barracks and its inmates grew increasingly unpopular. The sounds of floggings and the sight of chain gangs clanking up King Street were distasteful and distressing to respectable citizens and an unfortunate reminder of the colony's penal origins. Worse were reports of crimes committed in the town by barracks inmates. When a sensational murder trial involving barracks men was reported in the Sydney press in 1844, paranoia reached a peak, and many called for the Prisoner Barracks to be shut.
Extensive parliamentary debate followed this trial and a Select Committee of Enquiry into the Security of Life and Property in Sydney identified the twin evils of poor discipline and the influx of Norfolk Island expirees to the barracks. In 1849 the last convicts were removed from the barracks and incarcerated on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour.
On fashionable Macquarie Street, the barracks and its inmates grew increasingly unpopular. The sounds of floggings and the sight of chain gangs clanking up King Street were distasteful and distressing to respectable citizens and an unfortunate reminder of the colony's penal origins. Worse were reports of crimes committed in the town by barracks inmates. When a sensational murder trial involving barracks men was reported in the Sydney press in 1844, paranoia reached a peak, and many called for the Prisoner Barracks to be shut.
Extensive parliamentary debate followed this trial and a Select Committee of Enquiry into the Security of Life and Property in Sydney identified the twin evils of poor discipline and the influx of Norfolk Island expirees to the barracks. In 1849 the last convicts were removed from the barracks and incarcerated on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour.