Closing Hell's Gates The Life and Death of a Convict Station

In October 1827, nine convicts who had endured years of unimaginable cruelty at the hands of the system opted for "state-assisted" escape. Five terrified witnessestheir hands and feet boundwere forced to watch as the chained convicts seized Constable George Rex and drowned him in the tannin-stained waters of the harbour. When the sentence of death was pronounced upon them, the condemned prisoners uttered just one word in reply: Amen. For 12 long years between 1822 and 1834, Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour was the most feared place in Australia. Clinging to the shores of the wild west coast of Tasmania and hemmed in on all sides by rugged uncharted wilderness, the environment itself formed the prison walls that confined the unfortunate convict re-offenders who were sent there. But the conditions were so brutal that many went mad, or chose death or a very uncertain escape into the bush rather than spend their time in this notorious place. Based on detailed accounts from the time,Closing Hell's Gatescontains dozens of personal stories of the harsh and unforgiving life that people were forced to lead, both as convict and overseer, and in so doing reveals some startling insights about human nature when it is pushed to extremes.

Hamish Maxwell-Stewart is an academic expert on convict life in Australia who teaches at the University of Tasmania. He is the author of Chain Letters: Narrating Convict Lives with Lucy Frost for which they won the inaugural Kay Daniels award, and Pack of Thieves?: 52 Port Arthur Lives with Susan Hood. Closing Hell's Gates was the winner of The Margaret Scott Prize, Best Book by a Tasmanian Writer 2008, and was shortlisted for the 2008 Tasmania Book Prize.