Coins stash uncovered during archaeological excavations in Port Arthur provides rare insight into the illicit life of convicts

Prisoners in the historic town of Port Arthur were not allowed to carry cash. So how did a pile of silver shillings worth about a week’s salary for one of the prison colony overseers end up being buried under the convict’s workshop?

“It’s such an evocative find, it’s so out of place,” said Sylvana Szydzik, conservation project manager for the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority.

“We know convicts sometimes had coins, but it was quite a large amount of money back then.”

The pieces were found during a 10-month archaeological dig of the foundry and blacksmith site conducted by Richard Tuffin and Ms. Szydzik, postdoctoral researcher at the University of New England.

The find joins other finds such as hand-crafted gaming tokens as well as skillfully crafted tobacco pipes and metal products.

Dr Tuffin said the coins were found in the clay floor of the workshop where the copper casting allegedly took place.

The convicts were punished for possession of money, and it is suspected that a cunning inmate stole an officer’s parts and hid them.

“Someone with access to the workshop was able to go to a relatively hidden part of the workshop and put it in the clay and could not come back and retrieve it,” he said. .

“It could have been because they were suspected and denied access to the workshop, or because they were sent to Hobart to be released.”

A coin expert, known as a numismatist, will be hired to analyze the shillings, which date between 1814 and 1844.

Dr Tuffin said it was likely the coins were stolen in the 1850s.

Who had access to the workshops?

About 10 percent of the prison population, which at its peak was 1,200 men, worked in the workshops at all times.

Given that they had access to sharp tools and fire, it wouldn’t have been a job for the most hardened criminals in the colony.

“You find the people who behave better work in the shop and they are men with skills,” Dr. Tuffin said.

“You generally want men you can trust who work in these spaces.”

Many of the convicts were skilled craftsmen before being transported, which is shown in the work, he said.

“The work that’s going on in this place is incredibly skilled, in the 1840s they founded the Port Arthur Bell Chime, which is an incredibly complex process to do,” he said.

The search found hundreds of kilograms of metalworking waste and was even able to determine where the men were believed to have been standing.

“We also found the anvil itself, which was quite interesting,” he said.

“You get a nice connection to the past when you find items like this. “

Port Arthur Black Market

Just like in a modern prison, there was a black market in Port Arthur.

“Back then it was tobacco and gambling,” said Dr. Tuffin.

“We know they made their own currency.”

He said possession of prohibited items such as homemade gambling tokens discovered in a previous search at the penitentiary would have created a hierarchy among convicts.

Dr Tuffin said it was assumed that convicts would not have been allowed to smoke tobacco while working.

But tobacco pipe remains were found throughout the workshop.

“The fact that we find fragments tells us that they are still allowed to smoke at work,” he said.

He said the pipe finds helped to evoke the daily experience of convicts working as blacksmiths while smoking tobacco.

The excavation was the third and final step in a series of excavations spanning nearly a decade and was part of a larger investigation into the forced labor at the site and its evolution over the 47 years of operation. from prison.

A delicate search

The site of the excavation was chosen to help fill in the story of the convict and learn more about the forced labor that the convicts were forced to do.

The workshops were occupied from the 1830s, when transportation began, and were in use until 1877.

They went through several phases, including that of being used for making shoes, as well as for copper and iron work.

To tourists visiting the Port Arthur site, it appears to be just grass among other ruins – but what lies below tells an important story in the history of Australian convicts.

“It was a center of activity, it gives us the opportunity to share this with our visitors,” said Ms. Szydzik.

She said the excavation was a particularly delicate dig as the site was damaged by bushfires in the 1890s.

“It was very difficult technically,” she said.

The finds will now be part of the interpretation of the site for tourists.

Ms Szydzik said experts are always discovering new things about Port Arthur.

“Everyone is always learning more about the history of the place and what happened here,” she said.