Life on Norfolk Island

Tough reality of prison life on Norfolk Island

Life on Norfolk Island was hard and often violent. Here is a snap-shot of a prisoner, John Walsh, who lived on Norfolk Island for ten years from 1834 to 1844. Walsh was borne in Dublin County in 1793 and sentenced for rustling in 1823. After a seven-year prison term, he was taken to New South Wales on the Ann and Amelia.

In 1830 he was awarded a holiday ticket (30/345) for the Bathurst area and in 1831 a certificate of freedom (31/282). This is a plea for a treat for the imprisonment of John Walsh: "A man called John Walsh, free from slavery, was discovered at the slaughter of a bullock owned by Major General Stewart.

" There are other objects found in Walsh's house. Walsh's bodily portrayal on the lefthand side of the cover is consistent with the one on the Convict Indent for the Ann and Amelia[4/4009 Reel 2662] and the Indian Islands[X30, Reel 2749]. On August 27, 1834, Walsh was tried in the Sydney Supreme Court and condemned to life on Norfolk Island.

" This third picture is the back of Walsh's application and offers a good snap shot of his cons. This begins with his arriving in New South Wales on the Ann and Amelia in 1825. Walsh's Norfolk Island season begins in the middle of the page. Walsh was in difficulty approximately every 18 month for crimes such as conspiracies, labor negligence, misstatement and hospitalization under pretence of wrong facts.

He not only worked long times with bodily work, but also spends a lot of ironing or twin ironing, lived on food and drink and recovered from flogging. He is a prisoner who has already been described and is repentant. He had almost finished his ten-year prison term when he came back to Sydney for illness (he was suffering from severe diarrhoea).

His freedom certificate (31/282) says that Walsh received a passport at Windsor on August 27, 1844. Passports can be a free or free passport. There was no further evidence of John Walsh in the colonial secretary's papers. From 1788 to 1842, about 80,000 prisoners were carried to New South Wales.

Prisoners were usually sentenced for seven, 14 years or life.