Convicts and prisons
Cockatoo Island "surrounded by deep water, and yet under the very eye of Authority"
Cockatoo Island was established as a convict prison in 1839. The convicts were guarded by British troops, the 'Redcoats'. It was a place for 'hard labour' where, shackled in iron chains, the prisoners quarried sandstone.
The convicts built their own gaol, and forged their own prison bars. Much of this still survives, as well as buildings for the prison staff. Below the plateau, convicts also constructed the Fitzroy Dock, and it's associated Steam Workshop.
Cockatoo's convict precinct survived because after the prison closed in 1869, the buildings continued to be used; as an industrial school for girls, and again as a prison from 1880 to 1909, but also as offices needed for Cockatoo's later roles as an imperial dockyard, and 20th century shipyard.
Cockatoo Island was part of an extensive Australian convict system that stretched geographically from Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean, to Fremantle in Western Australia.
In 2010 Cockatoo Island and ten other surviving elements of this system were inscribed on the World Heritage List, being described as 'an extraordinary example of global ideas and developments associated with the punishment and reform of the criminal elements of humanity during the Age of Enlightenment and the modern era.'
Learn more about Cockatoo Island's Convict Buildings
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Military Guardhouse |
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Mess Hall |  |
Isolation Cells |
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Lumber Yard and Free Overseer's Quarters |  |
Grain Silos |  |
Ormsby's Cottage |
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Biloela House |  |
Fitzroy Dock |  |
Steam Workshop |
