Hobert: Day 2

Me, sitting in the judges chair in the jail court

A Tasmanian seagull, guarding an aircraft carrier in Hobart

Today we saw a convict-built chapel (built in 1831) in downtown Hobart.  Hobart and the rest of Tasmania was populated in the early 19th century by British prisoners and a few free colonists.  This supplied cheap labor and a rapid way to  populate the new colony.  The building that we saw was originally the chapel for the Old Hobart Gaol ("gaol" is the old spelling of jail) and some of the innocent free colonists (most of the rest of the jail doesn't exist any more, but when it did it was unsanitary and infamous for its filthy state).

The chapel floors were at an angle and below the floors were solitary confinement cells, some only big enough to lie down in.  Prisoners would spend up to 4 weeks in those tiny cells as extra punishment.  Two of the three wings of the chapel were renovated in 1859 into separate courts for the jail and the rest of the town.  The third wing remained a chapel with cells in its basement.  While we were in the existing chapel I got to play the old organ.  Attached to the church were the gallows where up until 1963 (when the jail closed) people were being hanged.  It was incredible to learn that people were kept in such inhumane conditions up until about 50 years ago. This last picture shows our tour guide explaining how the gallows worked.

Our guide explained how convicted murderers were hanged