Patriot Realm

Beneath the swaying trees and the green grass of Norfolk Island lies a brutal chapter of colonial history few tourists suspect.

Once dubbed "the most hellish place in the British Empire," this remote outpost in the South Pacific served as a penal settlement so feared that its name alone chilled convicts sent from the Australian mainland.

From its inception as a dumping ground for the "worst of the worst," to its eventual closure amid growing public horror, Norfolk Island was a place where punishment eclipsed rehabilitation, and where paradise masked a legacy of cruelty, resistance, and endurance.

Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia, is situated in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,676 km northeast of Sydney.

The island is of volcanic origin and has a rugged terrain with an average elevation of 110 m above sea level, rising to Mount Bates at 319 m.

It spans roughly 8 km in length and 5 km in width, surrounded by cliffs that make access difficult. The island’s remoteness and lack of a safe, natural harbour contributed to the challenges faced by its early occupants.

The First Settlement (1788–1814)

In January 1788, when the First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson, Governor Arthur Phillip recognized the need for additional sources of food and supplies. To that end, he dispatched Lieutenant Philip Gidley King to establish a settlement on Norfolk Island. King arrived on 6 March 1788 with a small party of 15 convicts and seven free men, including marines and surgeon Thomas Jamison. The settlement, named "Sydney" after the primary colony in New South Wales, grew as additional convicts and soldiers arrived. It was located in what is now Kingston, adjacent to Emily Bay,

When Lieutenant Philip Gidley King and his party first set foot on Norfolk Island in March 1788, they found themselves in a land of dense forests and unforgiving terrain. With no pre-existing infrastructure, the settlers had little choice but to fashion shelter from the materials at hand. At first, tents and rough huts constructed from palm fronds and timber offered meagre protection against the elements. These makeshift structures were vulnerable to storms and the relentless salt-laden winds that swept across the island, exposing their occupants to both discomfort and danger.

As the colony took root, a more durable accommodation emerged. Convicts, resilient and adaptable, were put to work clearing land and felling trees. By 1790, the settlement boasted thatched huts, still crude but offering better protection than the flimsy shelters of the early days. Convicts, living in these modest dwellings, often packed together in conditions far from comfortable, showed remarkable resilience. Overseers and marines, tasked with maintaining order, fared slightly better, their quarters built more carefully and positioned in more favorable locations.

In March 1790, to alleviate food shortages in Sydney, a large group of convicts and marines were transported to Norfolk Island aboard HMS Sirius. However, disaster struck when the ship was wrecked on a reef, stranding its crew and passengers for ten months. By 1792, the population had swelled to over 1,000, including officers, soldiers, convicts, and their families.

The colony’s administration, ever conscious of maintaining hierarchy and discipline, ensured that the commandant and military personnel were afforded better lodgings. The Commandant’s House, standing apart from the convict quarters, was a more substantial timber and stone structure, a symbol of authority amid the rough-hewn settlement. The marines, meanwhile, resided in basic barracks, strategically placed to reflect their function as enforcers of colonial law.

As Norfolk Island became home to a growing number of free settlers, housing expanded beyond the immediate confines of the penal settlement. Small weatherboard houses with thatched or shingled roofs began to appear, built with greater permanence and comfort in mind. These settlers, granted parcels of land to cultivate, constructed homes near their farms, carving out a semblance of domestic stability in an otherwise harsh and unforgiving environment, demonstrating their determination and resilience.

Despite these gradual improvements, life on Norfolk Island remained arduous. The relentless isolation, compounded by supply shortages and the ever-present risk of starvation, meant that even the most well-constructed dwellings could offer little solace against the broader struggles of survival. By the early 1800s, some stone structures had begun to appear, lending an air of permanence to the settlement. Yet this would ultimately prove illusory.

Norfolk Island’s leadership saw frequent changes. Philip Gidley King served as lieutenant governor from 1788 to 1790, followed by Major Robert Ross, and then King again. Later administrators included Captain John Townson and Major Joseph Foveaux. In 1803, the British government decided to abandon the settlement due to its high costs and logistical difficulties. Between 1805 and 1813, most of the inhabitants were relocated, and the island was deserted until 1825, during which time many of the buildings were dismantled, their materials repurposed elsewhere, leaving behind the skeletal remains of a once-thriving outpost. Little remained but burnt-out ruins, overgrown farms, and a few stray animals. The convict outpost was shut down because Britain, wary of French ambitions in the South Pacific during the Napoleonic Wars, ordered that nothing be left to entice future visitors.

The Second Settlement: A Penal Colony of Terror (1825–1855)

While New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land grew, Britain still treated its Australian colonies as dumping grounds for overflowing prisons. The Industrial Revolution had led to rapid population growth, unemployment, and rising crime. Slavery was still legal, only property-owning men could vote, and the poor had few rights. The ruling classes showed little sympathy for the lower orders, believing that long sentences, flogging, execution, and transportation were fitting punishments. Sending convicts to Australia helped relieve Britain’s overcrowded jails and prison ships.

Recognizing Norfolk Island’s isolation as a strategic advantage, the British government reoccupied it in 1825 as a penal colony for the worst offenders: those who had committed further crimes after being transported to Australia. Governor Thomas Brisbane intended the island to be a place of relentless punishment, a prison so harsh that it would deter crime among convicts on the mainland.

The new prison, constructed upon the island’s reoccupation, consisted of crude wooden huts that were soon replaced by more substantial stone structures. The limestone was quarried and transported by the convicts, using sleds or dragging on logs, reminiscent of Stonehenge. It was this second prison, built in the 1830s under Governor George Arthur, that became infamous for its brutality. Designed explicitly to crush the spirit of its inmates, the prison completed in 1835, housed 973 prisoners in a three-story central building where they slept in hammocks lined up in rows. Some had individual wooden cubicles. The site also included chapels, rooms for overseers, guardhouses, offices, storage areas, workshops, and a courtroom—all enclosed by a towering 16-foot stone wall.

While some convicts eventually built new lives, those serving long sentences or defying authority faced harsh conditions. Escape attempts, further crimes, or bad behavior could mean flogging, execution, or transfer to remote penal settlements. Van Diemen’s Land had penal settlements in Macquarie Harbour, Maria Island, and Port Arthur, while New South Wales had Newcastle, Moreton Bay, and Port Macquarie. From 1825 to 1856, Norfolk Island was reopened as the ultimate penal hell for the worst offenders.

Governor Brisbane declared in 1824 that convicts sent there had no hope of return, and his successor, Governor Darling, reinforced its role as a place of extreme punishment. Commandants, mostly military men, ruled with brutality. Prisoners endured starvation, humiliation, chains, leg irons, and frequent flogging. Daily life meant back-breaking labor, strict discipline, and severe punishment for minor infractions: being too slow, smiling, or possessing tobacco. Murders, suicides, mutinies, and informer networks were common.

One exception was Captain Alexander Maconochie, Commandant from 1840 to 1844, who sought to reform the system. He rewarded good behavior, encouraged education, and allowed prisoners to grow their own food. His approach was deemed too lenient, and he was replaced by Major Childs, who reinstated harsh discipline for another decade.

Over the years, there were several insurrections and subsequent hangings by the convicts. The final violent uprising occurred in July 1846. It was triggered by harsh new rules imposed by Major Childs. His policies stripped prisoners of privileges, including the right to cook their own food. When their cooking pots were confiscated, tensions erupted into open rebellion.

The convicts, many of whom were hardened criminals with little regard for authority, were already resentful. Under the previous Commandant, Maconochie, they had small garden plots, shorter work hours, and occasional holidays for good behavior. Childs, however, reversed these policies, increasing labor hours and rationing food. By June 1846, he banned personal cooking, forcing all food to be prepared in the prison’s central kitchen.

As the prisoners assembled for breakfast on the morning of July 1, a confrontation erupted over the missing cooking pots. Led by William Westwood, a former bushranger, a mob stormed the barracks, retrieved their utensils, and began cooking over open fires. The situation quickly escalated. Suddenly, cries encouraging violence rang out, and the mob turned on the prison guards. Several officers were brutally murdered, including an overseer who was stabbed repeatedly with a large carving fork.

As the convicts sought further revenge, the military intervened. Soldiers arrived just as the rioters attempted to blend back into the general prison population. Order was restored, and about sixty men were identified as suspects and locked up.

Childs was replaced as Commandant by the even more sadistic non-military John Price, who remained until 1853. Over the following months, trials were held, leading to the execution of twelve men, including Westwood. A thirteenth prisoner was later hanged for his role in the murders.

The event, known as the “Cooking Pot Riot,” was one of the bloodiest uprisings in Australia's convict history. The executed men were dumped into a pit outside the cemetery with the excavated soil shovelled on top of the bodies, a site still known today as “Murderers’ Mound.

For the Term of His Natural Life, written in 1874 by Marcus Clarke, who had carried out painstaking research, was fiction based on fact. John Price was portrayed as Maurice Frere and described as:

... brutal, vindictive and domineering ... So long as the island is quiet, he cares not whether the men live or die ... The floggings are hideously frequent. On flogging mornings I have seen the ground where the men stood at the triangles saturated with blood ... The men go to their work without a murmur, and slink to their dormitories like whipped hounds to kennel. The gaols and solitary cells are crowded with prisoners, and each day sees fresh sentences for fresh crimes. It is a crime here to do anything but live.

Price was beaten to death by convicts at Port Arthur, Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) in 1857.

Public attitudes were shifting. The abolition of slavery in 1833 and the rise of the Chartist movement, which sought voting rights for all men, led to calls for fairer treatment of convicts. By 1840, transportation to New South Wales ended, though it continued elsewhere. As Australia’s gold rush brought prosperity, free settlers no longer wanted the stain of convictism. With rising costs and growing opposition, transportation to Van Diemen’s Land stopped in 1853, and Norfolk Island’s penal colony closed in 1855. Western Australia, the last recipient of convicts, ended transportation in 1868. Over 80 years, 164,000 convicts had been sent to Australia.

The prison was demolished mainly in the late 1800s, with its stones being used to construct Saint Barnabas Church and for foundations for government buildings. Today, little remains of the house of horrors.

Resettlement by the Pitcairn Islanders (1856–Present)

On 8 June 1856, the island saw a new wave of settlers: 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions. Accustomed to isolation, these new inhabitants adapted quickly to their new home, repurposing the former penal buildings for housing and establishing farming and whaling industries. While some eventually returned to Pitcairn, most remained, and the island’s population stabilized.

In 1867, the Church of England’s Melanesian Mission relocated to Norfolk Island, using it as a base for training missionaries. Saint Barnabas Church, completed in 1882 in memory of Bishop John Coleridge Patteson, became a significant religious landmark. However, by 1920, the mission moved its operations to the Solomon Islands.

Conclusion

Norfolk Island is beautiful and peaceful today, with no public transport, cows grazing on the sides of the road, and poultry running wild through the foliage. It is difficult to reconcile this with the evil of the 1800s.