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Unshackled – Hobart Penitentiary offers four experiences for one ticket price:
Convict Memorial: a digital history experience allowing visitors to trace the lives of each of the 75,000 convicts transported to Tasmania 1803-1853
Pandemonium: a dynamic widescreen presentation of Tasmania’s convict years 1803-1853, shown in the prison chapel
Rogues’ Gallery: a series of portraits of colourful convict characters
Site tour: a guided tour of one of Australia’s richest convict sites, wrought by convict labour for convicts, moving through courtrooms, subterranean tunnels, cells, the gallows and the prison exercise yard.
The Hobart Penitentiary began in 1821 as the Hobart Prison Barracks, built as accommodation for convicts employed in Government public works. In 1834 the surviving Penitentiary Chapel was completed.
75,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen’s Land between 1803 and 1853. Of these 62,500 were male convicts. After 1821 all male convicts were processed here before being given labour assignments across the island.
In 1857-1860 convicts still under sentence were employed in converting two wings of the former Penitentiary Chapel as courtrooms. One wing remained as the prison chapel for the Penitentiary, then known as the Hobart Gaol. The Hobart Town gallows were relocated to the site with thirty-two people executed at the site 1857- 1946. The Gaol was demolished in 1963 while the courts remained at the site until 1983.
We acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal people and their enduring custodianship of lutruwita / Tasmania. We honour 40,000 years of uninterrupted care, protection and belonging to these islands, before the invasion and colonisation of European settlement. As a destination that welcomes visitors to these lands, we acknowledge our responsibility to represent to our visitors, Tasmania’s deep and complex history, fully, respectfully and truthfully.
We acknowledge the Aboriginal people who continue to care for this country today. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present. We honour their stories, songs, art, and culture, and their aspirations for the future of their people and these lands. We respectfully ask that tourism be a part of that future.
Tasmanian Travel and Information Centre
16-20 Davey St, Hobart TAS 7000
(03) 6238 4222
bookings@hobarttravelcentre.com.au
hobarttravelcentre.com.au