Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2016L01891:body:0:p49
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2016L01891
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 142621–145548

plot of soil to encourage cultivation and a sense of property rights. A school was set up with
educational resources, and music therapy taught collaboration and discipline. During Maconochie's term
of office, convicts constructed two churches, several officers' houses on Quality Row, and the Double Boat
Shed. The Protestant Chapel housed the convict library. The Catholic Chapel did not survive although the
Commissariat Store (converted to a church in 1874) is fitted out with many features of the two churches.
The cemetery is strongly associated with Maconochie who instituted a policy to allow all convicts (except
rebels) to be given headstones to commemorate their death. Several elaborate convict graves reflect
Maconochie's reforms, such as the graves of convicts killed in violent knife clashes, illustrating the
permitted use of knives at meal times. The result of Maconochie's penal experiment was success in the
form of a productive and orderly convict population with a low re-offending rate.

Thematic elements of criterion (vi) illustrated at the KAVHA site include key elements of penology
development in the modern era, such as the 'separate system'. Global debates and practices of penology
(influenced by Maconochie's ideals) were exemplified on Norfolk Island where Maconochie's radical
system generated intense opposition in Britain and Australia, resulting in his dismissal after only four
years. A British Deputy Commissioner argued that Norfolk Island 'bore no more resemblance to a penal
settlement than a playhouse to a church', to which Maconochie claimed that he 'found the island a
turbulent, brutal hell, and left it a peaceful, well-ordered community.' By the 1850s most elements of the
'mark system' were implemented in Freemantle Prison in Australia, and in England. Maconochie's ideas
are also reflected in the American Prison Association's Declaration and Reformation Principles (1870) and
Britain's introduction of the indeterminate sentence (1850s). It was not until well into the twentieth century
that his idea of prison as a mental hospital would win full acceptance.

The growth of scientific penology following the Enlightenment Age led to the establishment of the
'separate system' at various prisons in America and Europe in the early 1830s, and at Norfolk Island
around 1847. This system of solitary confinement segregated prisoners from each other so they could not
learn new criminal ways. It aimed to force prisoners to reflect on their past and think about ways to
improve it. The New Gaol at Kingston provides physical evidence of this system.

Section 4: Heritage Values

Authorised Version F2016L01891 registered 09/12/2016

Jean Rice Architect | CONTEXT | GML Heritage

4.3 National Heritage Values

The KAVHA site was included on the National Heritage List on 1 August 2007 (Place ID 105962). The
national values of the KAVHA site predominantly relate to its significance