The Point Puer Boys: 'I am afraid no good has been produced'

Part of the Professional Historians Association (Tas.) Lecture Series. Join Alistair Scott as he looks at the often forgotten boys of Point Puer.

The Point Puer boys: ‘I am afraid no good has been produced’

In a letter to his mother in 1847, Lieutenant-Governor Sir William Denison lamented that the Point Puer Boys Establishment had failed to reform the juveniles sent there and that many of the serious crimes in the colony were being committed by former inmates of Point Puer.[1]

Between 1834 and 1849, an estimated 2,300 male juvenile convicts were sent to Point Puer where they were held for up to six years and forced to labour and to produce goods for the colony. Despite its reformist aims, Point Puer failed to prepare its inmates for their later lives and many turned to violent crime after gaining their freedom.

Point Puer is a neglected part of Tasmania’s convict history. While located across the bay from Port Arthur, it does not fit ‘the Port Arthur story’ and the lives and experiences of its inmates are often overlooked. In this talk, Alistair Scott, a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, will discuss his research into the life courses of ‘the Point Puer boys’ – from their early childhoods in Britain to Point Puer and Van Diemen’s Land, and their later lives in the colony.

Alistair Scott has been a journalist, ministerial adviser and senior public servant in Tasmania. He is a former Director of Local Government and General Manager of Natural and Cultural Heritage with the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment.

During the past three years, as part of doctorate in history at the University of Tasmania, he has been researching the lives of male juvenile convicts held at the Point Puer Boys Establishment near Port Arthur during the 1830s and 1840s. He is now writing up his thesis on the life courses of 'the Point Puer boys' who stayed in Tasmania - from their childhoods on the streets of London and in other parts of Britain to their later lives here.

During his presentation, Alistair will discuss the importance of understanding who the Point Puer boys were and how they were treated as convicts, and will shed some light on the results of his research.

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[1] Sir William Denison to Charlotte Denison, 2 April 1847, in Denison, Sir William and Lady, Varieties of Vice-Regal Life (Van Diemen’s Land Section), Richard Davis and Stefan Petrow (eds), (Hobart, 2004), p. 50.

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Image: Plan, Tasman Peninsula- Boys Establishment Point Puer showing the relative position of the new gaol and settlement. Digitised from Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Libraries Tasmania.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, 91 Murray Street, HOBART, Australia