Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L00053:schedule:5:p14
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L00053
Segment Type: schedule
Provision Reference: sch 5 (pt 14/42)
Character Range: 524220–526988

from Britain. Those convicted in New South Wales of transportable offences were sent to Cockatoo Island. The experiment was abandoned in 1844 and all doubly convicted prisoners under sentence of transportation on Cockatoo Island were sent to Norfolk Island. As the remaining convict population of the colony decreased rapidly in the 1840s, the population on Cockatoo Island did likewise, to 85 by 1847. By this time there were no prisoners trustworthy enough to serve as overseers, an integral part of the system. In total, about 1 440 prisoners had been brought to Cockatoo Island from Norfolk Island, the majority of whom had their sentences commuted. Their conduct, Governor Gipps reported, 'both on the Island and after their release from it, has been such as fully to vindicate the Act, indeed to prove in a remarkable degree the policy no less than the mercy of it.' (GOA CMP: 2005:21).
In October 1847 Earl Grey sent instructions for as many prisoners as possible to be given tickets of leave or conditional pardons, to relieve the government of the expense of their upkeep. Those who could not be released on such terms would be sent to Van Diemen's Land. Once again, insufficient accommodation for this in Van Diemen's Land resulted in the use of Cockatoo Island. Norfolk Island would be used for convicts still serving their original sentences and requiring strict coercion, while secondary offenders and those sentenced to punishment, deprived of their tickets of leave or returned from private service, would be placed on Cockatoo Island (2005 CMP: 21).
As Cockatoo Island changed from a British penal establishment to a colonial one, the number of civil officers employed in its administration increased. From 1839 to 1847 the island was run by the Superintendent and his assistant, with security maintained by the military guard and prison labour under the Engineer's Department. All other tasks necessary to run the penal establishment, including the supervision of labour, were carried out by prisoners (2005 CMP: 26).
A dry dock to serve the British Navy
As the population of the colony grew; Governor Gipps among others hoped that Port Jackson might become a naval station for the British Fleet. Cockatoo Island was a sheltered, easily accessible but safe and defensible location surrounded by deep water with a workforce that had been sentenced to hard labour, and identified by Governor Gipps as a the best place in Sydney Harbour for a naval establishment (GAO CMP:2005:p22). Although not sanctioned until 1847, Governor Gipps directed convicts to begin clearing and preparing the island for construction of a dry dock in 1845 (Birmingham: 1984: 20). Convicts removed large sandstone rock cliffs with an average height of 45 feet (15 metres), just