![]() Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of convicts sent to Norfolk Island had committed non-violent property offences, and the average length of detention there was three years. However, a 2011 study, using a database of 6,458 Norfolk Island convicts, has demonstrated that the reality was somewhat different: More than half were detained on Norfolk Island without ever receiving a colonial conviction, and only 15% had been reprieved from a death sentence. The convicts detained have long been assumed to be hardcore recidivists, or 'doubly-convicted capital respites' – that is, men transported to Australia who committed fresh crimes in the colony for which they were sentenced to death, but were spared the gallows on condition of life on Norfolk Island. ![]() Its remoteness, previously seen as a disadvantage, was now viewed as an asset for the detention of recalcitrant male prisoners. ![]() In 1824, the British government instructed the Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Brisbane, to reoccupy Norfolk Island as a place to send "the worst description of convicts". From February 1814 until June 1825, the island was uninhabited. A small party remained to slaughter stock and destroy all buildings, so that there would be no inducement for anyone, especially from other European powers, to visit and lay claim to the place. The first group of people left in February 1805, and by 1808, only about 200 remained, forming a small settlement until the remnants were removed in 1813. Īs early as 1794, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales Francis Grose suggested its closure as a penal settlement, as it was too remote and difficult for shipping and too costly to maintain. Next year, he obtained and cultivated a grant of 60 acres (24 ha) on the island. ![]() Robert Watson, harbourmaster, arrived with the First Fleet as quartermaster of HMS Sirius, and was still serving in that capacity when the ship was wrecked at Norfolk Island in 1790. During the first year of the settlement, which was also called "Sydney" like its parent, more convicts and soldiers were sent to the island from New South Wales. When the First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson in January 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip ordered Lieutenant Philip Gidley King to lead a party of 15 convicts and seven free men to take control of Norfolk Island, and prepare for its commercial development. At the time, practically all the hemp and flax required by the Royal Navy for cordage and sailcloth was imported from Russia. The decision to settle Norfolk Island was taken after Empress Catherine II of Russia restricted the sale of hemp. In 1786, it included Norfolk Island as an auxiliary settlement, as proposed by John Call, in its plan for colonisation of the Colony of New South Wales. Several stopgap measures proved ineffective, and the government announced in December 1785 that it would send convicts to parts of what is now known as Australia. Sir John Call argued the advantages of Norfolk Island in that it was uninhabited and that New Zealand flax grew there.Īfter the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 halted penal transportation to the Thirteen Colonies, British prisons started to overcrowd. He named it after Mary Howard, Duchess of Norfolk. The first European known to have sighted and landed on the island was Captain James Cook, on 10 October 1774, on his second voyage to the South Pacific on HMS Resolution. The pine is a key export for Norfolk Island, being a popular ornamental tree in Australia (where two related species grow), and also worldwide. Native to the island, the evergreen Norfolk Island pine is a symbol of the island and is pictured on its flag. In 1914, the UK handed Norfolk Island over to Australia to administer as an external territory. On 8 June 1856, permanent civilian residence on the island began when descendants of the Bounty mutineers were relocated from Pitcairn Island. The island served as a convict penal settlement from 6 March 1788 until, except for an 11-year hiatus between 15 February 1814 and 6 June 1825, when it lay abandoned. The first known settlers in Norfolk Island were East Polynesians but they had already departed when Great Britain settled it as part of its 1788 settlement of Australia. Norfolk Island is the main island in a group comprising the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island, situated in the Pacific Ocean between Australia and New Zealand approximately 692 km (430 mi) south of New Caledonia.
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