Timber and ships
Port Arthur began in 1830 as a timber station. Its dockyard, working from 1834 to 1848, built large decked vessels and well over a hundred small boats, giving selected convicts a trade they could use after release.
From flour mill to Penitentiary
The great building by the water was begun in 1842 as a flour mill and granary. The mill failed, and between 1854 and 1857 it was converted into the Penitentiary, with 136 cells on the lower floors and a dormitory above for about 480 men.
Punishment of the mind
In the Separate Prison, begun in 1848, men were kept in isolation and silence in the belief that reflection would reform them. It shows how ideas about punishment were changing in the mid-19th century, and the hardship they brought.
