THE MODEL CONVICT PRISON OF P0RT ARTHUR TASMANIA -ORIGIN AND HISTORY

The ruins of Port Arthur stand as a testimony to the years when it operated as a place of convict imprisonment.This is a history of the connection between the British policy of transportation and the treatment of convicts who ended up in the settlement of Port Arthur on the isolated Tasman Peninsula. It is part of Australia’s colonial history. It is part of England’s history of Empire. Take your students to the Port Arthur site. By map and visual resources recover the days of the convict work groups. Quietly enter the Model Prison and understand why several of the inmates from the “dumb cells” ended up in the Asylum. With the end of the policy of transportation the convict settlements in Australia lost their basic supply - the convicts. Port Arthur was abandoned and closed. Today it remains as a tourist attraction using the surviving elements of its convict settlement as a well presented reminder of its past. The attachments given in colour and black and white are designed to provide students with a summary record. They can be used as hand outs for in-class or home activity or the pages can be screened and used for in class discussion to aid the fill-in requirements.
Port Arthur is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.