Historical Australian Towns: Norfolk Island, AUS: Convicts and Descendants of The Bounty Mutineers

Norfolk Island, which is about 12 by 5 km in size, is located in the South Pacific Ocean, about 1000 kilometres east of the mainland Australian coast (and about 1500 km northeast from Sydney), is an external Australian territory with a marine subtropical climate.

With a landscape of rolling green hills and a rugged coastline, Norfolk Island is the remnant of a volcano that was active about 2–3 million years ago.

Polynesian Peoples

Polynesians from the Solomon Islands left those shores about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago and settled on western islands, such as Wallis and Futuna, Samoa, and Tonga. After a few hundred years of visiting and settling on many of the islands of Oceania, there was a Long Pause, which delayed the Polynesians from reaching Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand and Norfolk Island.

Polynesian people travelling on large canoes with sails reached Norfolk Island somewhere between the 13th and 15th centuries.

Excavations from Emily Bay and Cemetery Bay, Norfolk Island, have revealed the remains of a house, a fireplace, stone chips where tools were made, and shell and animal remains. However, when Europeans arrived at Norfolk Island in 1788, the island was deserted, and the Polynesian people were long gone.

Convict Conudrum

Until 1782, the British had been transporting many of their convicts to the American colonies. The American War of Independence, however, brought an end to the British using America as a convict dumping ground.

Suggestions were made to establish penal colonies at other sites, from Africa to Honduras. It was the naturalist and explorer, Sir Joseph Banks and others, who recommended Botany Bay (Australia) as a site for a penal colony.

Sir Joseph Banks had travelled with James Cook on the Endeavour in 1768-1771 and previously described Australia as "Upon the whole New Holland, tho in every respect the most barren countrey I have seen,......"

1774: Captain James Cook

The first European known to have sighted Norfolk Island was Captain James Cook on the 10th of October 1774, on his second voyage to the South Pacific, on HMS Resolution.

The island was uninhabited when Cook landed on the northwest corner and spent the morning observing the tall pine trees and flax growing over the island.

Cook thought that the tall, straight trees on the island might be suitable for making ship's masts, and the flax could be used for the manufacture of sails. Cook selected samples of both plants to take back to Britain. He also declared the island to be a “paradise on earth”.

I took possession of this isle ... and named it Norfolk Isle in honour of that noble family
—Captain Cook’s Journal, Vol. 2, HMS Resolution, 11 October 1774.

Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946),

HMS Resolution (1771), the vessel of Captain James Cook in his explorations (model)

1775

Early in 1775, the Resolution was sailing through the South Atlantic Ocean when a mast on the ship needed to be replaced. Some of the pine timber cut at Norfolk Island was selected for the job and then rejected by carpenters. It was later discovered that the Norfolk Island Pine was not resilient enough for naval use, and that European flax was a different plant from the one that Cook had named flax on Norfolk Island.

1788

The French La Pérouse expedition, with ships, Boussole and Astrolabe, anchored off the northern side of Norfolk Island on 13 January 1788. After sailing around the island but being unable to land, La Pérouse declared the island "fit (only) for angels and eagles".

The arrival of these French vessels at Botany Bay, only days after Captain Arthur Phillip set foot there with the First Fleet, hastened the settlement of the penal colony at New South Wales, as France was Britain's main rival.

The La Pérouse expedition left Botany Bay on 10 March 1788 and was never seen again.

L'Astrolabe et la Boussole 786 pendant l'expedition La Perouse

The First Penal Settlement

Only five weeks after the British established the settlement at Sydney Cove, Lieutenant Governor King, aboard HMS Supply, with a group of convicts (9 males and 6 females) and seven free settlers, landed on Norfolk Island.

The ship had arrived at the island five days earlier, but because rocks surrounded the island so completely, it had been almost impossible to land. However, on 6 March 1788, the Union Jack was planted at what is now Kingston, with a group of convicts who were deemed to be the "best of the bad lot".

King found banana plants, axe heads and the remains of canoes: evidence that humans had once lived on the island.

Lieutenant King wrote in his first report: "The trees are so bound together by a kind of supplejack that penetrating into the interior parts of the island was very difficult."

View of the Town Sydney on Norfolk IslandAuthor / CreatorKing, Philip, Gidley 1758-1808. State Library of Victoria

The Norfolk Island settlement was called "Sydney" and several springs of fresh water were found. Then, in October 1788, Governor Phillip sent eighteen months' of stores and provisions, along with 42 more people on the Golden Grove, to Norfolk Island.

In 1789, Lieutenant King prevented a mutiny by some convicts who had planned to take him and other officers prisoner. They had planned to escape on the next boat to arrive at the island.

Philip Gidley King, British naval officer and Governor of New South Wales.

Wrecked: 1790s

In March 1790, more people were sent to Norfolk Island abroad the Sirius, as it was believed that the fertile soil and bird and fish life would provide ample food. Sydney Cove's food supplies had dwindled as they waited for store-ships from England.

However, the Sirius was wrecked and some of the food stores were lost. Fears of starvation loomed as 270 extra people joined those already living on Norfolk Island.

It was soon discovered that if fires were lit at dusk, a bird, a type of petrel, would “drop down out of the air as fast as the people can take them up and kill them”. They named the petrel the "bird of providence", taking 2000–3000 birds every night for two months.

It soon became apparent that there were many difficulties at the Norfolk Island settlement. Such as the lack of a natural, safe harbour, the realisation that the Norfolk Pine was not suitable for masts and that processing the New Zealand flax would not be easy. Farming of vegetables also did not prove very successful due to salty winds, rats, caterpillars and parrots.

The melancholy loss of HMS Sirius off Norfolk Island March 19th 1790 - George Raper, National Library of Australia

Convict Mistress

During his time on Norfolk Island, Philip Gidley King had two children with his convict mistress, Anne Innet. The children were named Norfolk and Sydney. Ann eventually married another man, and King arranged for his two sons to be educated in England. They later became officers in the Royal Navy.

By 1792, more than 1000 people were living on Norfolk Island. But in 1794, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, Francis Grose, expressed the view that the penal settlement at Norfolk Island should close as it was too remote, difficult for shipping and too costly to maintain.

So, the decision to close the penal settlement was made. The first group of convicts was sent to Van Diemen's Land in 1805, and the last group in 1814.

Irish Revolutionary

The Irish revolutionary, Michael Dwyer, was deported to New South Wales where he was received 100 acres (40.5 ha) of uncleared land fronting Cabramatta Creek, adjacent to grants to his Irish comrades Hugh "Vesty" Byrne, John Mernagh, Arthur Devlin and Martin Burke.

In February 1807, Governor Bligh arrested several of the group and on 11 May, Dwyer was tried for sedition. Although acquitted, Dwyer was sent to Norfolk Island, then transferred to Van Diemen’s Land when the Norfolk Island settlement closed down.

Michael Dwyer (1772–1825) was an insurgent captain in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, leading the United Irish forces in battles in Wexford and Wicklow, Following the defeat and dispersal of the rebel hosts, in July 1798, Dwyer withdrew into the Wicklow Mountains, and to his native Glen of Imaal, where he sustained a guerrilla campaign against British Crown forces.

First penal Settlement Ends

The Second Penal Settlement: 1825

In 1825, Norfolk Island opened a second penal settlement for the worst convicts, who, because of the island's isolation and difficulty of access, would "forever to be excluded from all hope of return".

These convicts refused to be moulded by the convict system, and no amount of flogging could tame them. Even the threat of death was no deterrent to them. These were dangerous men, and no women or free settlers were allowed on the island at this time. The second penal settlement was also a brutalising system: The "ne plus ultra of convict degradation". (most extreme example of its kind)

Many of these convicts welcomed death, as Norfolk Island was such a soul-destroying place. They even developed a system of drawing straws to decide who would commit suicide so that others would have the chance to be shipped back to Sydney to be tried for murder. This provided, at least, a chance of escape.

Death mask of William Westwood, who was transported as a convict to Australia in 1837. He spent 9 years serving time across places such as Hyde Park Barracks, Cockatoo Island, Port Arthur and Norfolk Island. He was responsible for leading a mutiny that killed an overseer and three constables on Norfolk Island. He was hanged on 13 October 1846. Canberra Museum and Gallery

Rebellion: 1826

One uprising occurred aboard the brig, Wellington, bound for Norfolk Island, with sixty-six convicts who overpowered guards and the ship’s crew on 21st December 1826.

After gaining power, the convicts changed course toward New Zealand. But as they arrived in the Bay of Islands, they were overpowered by the crew of a whaler.

The convicts were sent back to Sydney, where the ring leaders were tried in a court of law and subsequently executed. The other convicts were sent back to Norfolk Island.

The brutality of Norfolk Island is illustrated by the experiences of Laurence Frayne from Dublin, Ireland. He was sent to New South Wales in 1826, from where he tried to repeatedly escape. He was then sent to Norfolk Island, where he was given 300 lashes for calling lieutenant-governor James Thomas Morisset a “bastard”.

The lashes were given in lots of 100. The first 100 were administered, and then, after the wounds were beginning to heal, the next 100 lashes were applied and so on.

A group of convicts were sent to Sydney by Morisset to give evidence at a trial. Judge Sir Roger Therry wrote:

"Their sunken glazed eyes, deadly pale faces, hollow fleshless cheeks and once manly limbs shrivelled and withered up as if by premature old age, created horror among those in court. There was not one of the six who had not undergone from time to time, a thousand lashes each and more. They looked less like human beings than the shadows of gnomes who had risen from their sepulchral abode. What man was or ever could be reclaimed under such a system as this?"

Cells were also built during this second penal settlement, to exclude light and sound, for the purpose of solitary confinement. Many men who endured this form of punishment lost their sanity and their reason.

The convict Micheal Burns received 2210 lashes, and for close to two years, was locked up. He spent much of the time in solitary confinement, with three months in total darkness and at least six months of those two years on a diet of bread and water.

In its thirty years of operation, only the Scottish naval officer, Alexander Maconochie, who became the governor of the prison island in 1840, restored some dignity to prisoners and attempted rehabilitation. James Morisset, however, in his time as commandant, was noted for his extensive use of the cat o' nine tails.

Norfolk Island gained a well-earned reputation as a "hell on earth". It was a place that was brutalising and where uprisings and mutiny by convicts were not uncommon.

cat o' nine tails

1850s

The second penal colony closed in 1854.

The Third Settlement, The Pitcairn Islanders: 1856

By the 1850s, those still living on Pitcairn Island were finding it too small and increasingly unable to support their growing population. So, the elders of the island wrote to Queen Victoria to ask for help. Her response was to offer them Norfolk Island.

Most Pitcairn Islanders are descendants of the nine mutineers of the HMS Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian. This renegade group landed on the uninhabited Pitcairn Island in 1790, with six Polynesian men, twelve Polynesian women and an infant girl.

Unfortunately, unfairness led to bloodshed on the island, as Fletcher Christian divided the land into nine parts, one for each of the Europeans, along with a woman each. The Polynesians were left with no land and three women between them. It is believed that the Polynesians got their revenge by murdering all the Europeans, except, John Adams. (the stories of Adams are changeable)

In 1855, Queen Victoria granted Norfolk Island to the Pitcairn Islanders.

The 194 people of the Pitcairn Island community left for Norfolk Island on the 3rd of May 1856, in the Morayshire. The journey took five weeks.

The Pitcairn Islanders were amazed by the strange animals, like cattle and horses, which they had never seen before, as they were with the grand buildings and English gardens. But 18 months after their arrival, 17 members of the Young family sailed back to Pitcairn, followed by another four families in 1864.

Ellen Quintal, Anne Naomi Nobbs and Jane Nobbs, [Pitcairn Islanders, circa 1857, National Library of Australia

Pitcairn Islanders, 1857 ... Christian, Dinah Quintal, [seated middle row:] Rebecca Evans, Ellen Quintal, Anne Naomi Nobbs, Jemima Young ... , [standing left:] George Parkyn [?] Christian, [sitting on floor] Victoria Quintal, Sarah". National Library of Australia

1860s

The Pitcairners established farming and whaling industries on the island.

Portrait of George Adams (son of mutineer John Adams), his wife and Quintal taken at Norfolk Island circa 1860. National Library of Australia

1870s

Crowd including Melanesians and Pitcairn Islanders gathered for the laying of the foundation stone for St. Barnabas Chapel, Norfolk Island, 22 November 1875, National Library of Australia

1880s

Court house and school (the old commandants house & barracks). Norfolk Island, Australia, circa 1884

Government House Norfolk Island, Australia, circa 1885. British Library

1890s

1896: Self Government of Norfolk Island cancelled and placed under NSW jurisdiction.

Group of Pitcairn Islanders, Norfolk Island, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1919), Saturday 3 April 1897

Kingston, Norfolk Island, circa 1898. Powerhouse Museum

Bloody Bridge, Norfolk Island, Australia, 1898, Powerhouse Museum

1900s

Commonwealth of Australia established. However, Nofolk Island not mentioned and its status is undefined

Pine Avenue, Norfolk Island, Australia, 1900, Powerhouse Museum

Old Gaol at Kingston, Norfolk Island - very early 1900s, Kaye. The 1829 Government House is positioned prominently on Dove Hill with commanding views of the military precinct, colonial administration, convict quarters, working areas, farmland and the pier

Main Street, Norfolk Island, Australia, - very early 1900s, Kaye

PECULIAR ROCK FORMATION. (Norfolk Island) Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), Wednesday 6 December 1905

Government House, Norfolk Island, Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), Wednesday 6 December 1905

The Patterson Memorial Chapel, Norfolk Island, Dated: by 11/05/1908, Melanesian mission chapel. Kaye

People congregating at a cricket match on Norfolk Island, Australia, circa 1908, NSW State Archives

Landing Place, Sydney Bay, Norfolk Island, Australia - circa 1910. Kaye

This house was know locally the Earl of Limerick's House, Located on Headstone Road. It became the home of a family from Pitcairn Island, Thomas Buffett and his wife Louisa nee Quintal. The house was locally known as the “Earl of Limerick’s House” because an Earl was supposed to have been born there. The house was demolished during the construction of the Airport during WWII

A cow, hens, ducks, two sheds or houses and trees, Norfolk Island, Frank Hurley, circa 1910. National Library of Australia

The main language on Norfolk Island today is English, but some Norfolk Islanders speak the local language Norf'k, which is a mix of Tahitian and Old English, from the Bounty descendants. For example, a house called Kaa sii da Roof (can‘t see the roof‘) on Cascade Road, Norfolk Island, is named in the Norf'k dialect.

Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 3 December 1913

1. landing mails at Norfolk Island. 2. Entrance to gaol, Norfolk Island, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 3 December 1913

Norfolk Island, ruins of old prison, Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 - 1947), Saturday 19 July 1913

WWI

Britain transferred Norfolk Island to Australia in 1914.

Norfolk , Island soldier, who returned wounded, and has now volunteered to join the Sportsmen's unit. Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 10 June 1917

Thomas Francis Buffett (1893 - 1966). World War 1, Australian Light Horse Regiment.

Guest House - Norfolk Island, 1917, Frank Walker Collection, Royal Australian Historical Society

Coastal scene, Norfolk Island [RAHS/Frank Walker Collection], circa 1917

1920s

DIRECT DESCENDANTS OF THE RINGLEADERS OF THE BOUNTY MUTINY. These ladies — Mrs. and Miss Christian — are charming and hospitable Norfolkians. Their hands, are resting on tablets, made of wood from Die decks of the old Bounty; on these tablets the Ten Commandments were carved by one of the mutineers over 100 yearsago. Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 12 January 1921

Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 12 January 1921

Packing fruit on Norfolk Island, Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), Saturday 14 May 1921

Casks of lemon and lemon juice ready to be exported to Australia. Over £15,000 worth was despatched to Australia last from Norfolk Island, October. Observer (Adelaide, SA : 1905 - 1931), Saturday 29 January 1921

1930s

Sydney tourists at Norfolk Island, Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Friday 30 December 1932

The Gannets of Norfolk Island, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 20 November 1935

Mrs. J. B. Bruce, of the "Norfolk IslandTimes" (circulation, 300 copies weekly) Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Thursday 9 May 1935

AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE. — For names in group see above right.LEFT: Standing at the left of the group is Mr. Patrick Christian, one of the two surviving members of the original Pitcairn settlers of 1856. Next to him is Mr. McLachlan, President of the Norfolk Island Advisory Council. Then come Major-General Rosenthal, Administrator of the island, and on the extreme right Mr. Essington King, a great-grandson of Lieutenant King, one time Governor of New South Wales. Seated (left) are Mrs. Brancker Nobbs, a great-granddaughter of Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, and Lady Rosenthal.Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 23 March 1938

Children of Norfolk Island, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 23 March 1938

1940s and WWII

During World War II, the island became an important airbase and refuelling depot.

A small New Zealand Army unit (about 1500) of infantry and artillery was garrisoned at Norfolk Island between October 1942 and February 1944. The island was considered strategically important due to the cable station there that linked Australia and New Zealand.

Norfolk Islanders granted Australian citizenship

This cannon is a relic of the Bounty, Norfolk Island, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Wednesday 10 April 1946

THE DUCHESS DANCES. Informal picture of the Duchess of Gloucester dancing with Mr. Stanley Buffett at the Rawson Hall, Norfolk Island, during her recent visit there with her husband, the Governor-General. Mr. Buffett is a descendant of original Bounty mutineers. Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Saturday 13 April 1946

"Bounty -Day", Norfolk Island, Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), Saturday 7 June 1947

HISTORIC KINGSTON, second oldest town in Australia, was settled in 1788, a few weeks later than Sydney, became a prison for dangerous convicts. In 1856 descendants of the Bounty mutineers who had overpopulated Pitcairn Island settled oh Norfolk Island. Many buildings still in use at Kingston were built by convicts more than 100 years ago. William Charles Wentworth, explorer-statesman, was born in house at left. Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 7 December 1947

Crops on Norfolk Island, Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 7 December 1947

One of the wireless-air gunners was C. C. R. Nobbs, a native of Norfolk Island.

1970s

In 1979, Norfolk Island became Australia’s first non-mainland territory to be granted limited self-rule and a legislative assembly was established.

The flag of Norfolk Island was approved by the Norfolk Island Council on 6 June 1979.

Author, Colleen McCullough moved to Norfolk Island in 1979 and married Fletcher Christian descendant Ric Robinson in 1984.

1980s

The flag of Norfolk Island was adopted on January the 17th in 1980.

2000s

The introduction of the GST resulted in Norfolk Island basically losing its duty-free status, which impacted the economy. Previously, a tax haven had existed for locals and visitors.

The global financial crisis severely impacted Norfolk Island and its government became officially insolvent. The Australian Government bailouts of about $30 million were aimed at keeping Norfolk Island afloat.

Many on Norfolk Island believed that the island was not part of Australia, while the Australian Government believes it is an external territory.

In 2007 The United Nations added the language spoken by Norfolk Islanders to its list of the world's languages in danger of disappearing. Known locally as "talking Norfolk", the language is a mixture of Olde English and Tahitian and can be traced back to the Bounty mutineers.

In 2015 self-government on Norfolk Island was abolished and transferred into a council as part of New South Wales law.

Author, Colleen McCullough died on 29 January 2015, at the age of 77, in the Norfolk Island Hospital.

The Convict Precinct

Government House on Norfolk Island is one of the earliest and most intact buildings of its type remaining in Australia.

Old Military Barracks, the Commissariat Store and the New Military Barracks, dating from the 1830s, is the most substantial military barracks complex in Australia.

The Commissariat Store is one of the most outstanding, remaining colonial military commissariat stores in Australia.

The military barracks buildings from the nineteenth century are impressive.

Nine houses, which were quarters for military and civil officers.

Ruins of the hospital.

Remains of the blacksmith's shop (1846), lumber yard, water mill, the crankmill (1827-38), the remains of the only known human-powered crankmill built in Australia before 1850, the salt house (1847), the windmill base (1842-43), lime kilns; the landing pier (1839-47) and sea wall, two of the earliest remaining large scale engineering works in Australia.

Extensive convict-built roads, water channels and bridges.

The most important local holiday is Bounty Day, celebrated on 8 June, in memory of the arrival of the Pitcairn Islanders in 1856.

Around Norfolk Island

Government House on Norfolk Island, Australia, was built in 1829

Part of Military Barracks and Officer Quarters, Norfolk Island, Australia, (1829–34)

Entrance to the Old Military Barracks (1829–1834), Norfolk Island, Australia

The windmill base, Norfolk Island, Australia (1842-43)

Kingston heritage area from Queen Elizabeth lookout, Norfolk Island, Australia

Kingston heritage area, Norfolk Island, Australia, bert knottenbeld

Kingston heritage area, Norfolk Island, Australia, thinboyfatter

Norfolk Island Cemetery, Australia, denisbin

Kingston heritage area, Norfolk Island, Australia, bert knottenbeld

One of the oldest houses built by the Pitcairn Islanders (first free settlers who were all direct descendants from the mutineers on the Bounty), Norfolk Island, Australia

No. 10 Quality Row house was built in 1844, at the height of the brutal Second Settlement. It has been restored to the period of its first inhabitant Thomas Seller, Foreman of the Works, Norfolk Island, Australia

Salt House ruins on the headland between Emily and Slaughter Bays. The salt factory had two boilers, a pump and an evaporating pan. Salt water was pumped in, heated to evaporation point and the resulting salt was used to preserve meat, Norfolk Island, Australia

This building contained the Crank Mill. A team of convicts would turn the two huge grindstones., while the overseer watched from a gallery high up in the wall, Norfolk Island, Australia