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

by Hamish Maxwell-Stewart

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 witnesses—their hands and feet bound—were 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 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 Gates contains 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.

Genres: History, Tasmania, Nonfiction, Australia

324 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2008

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Macquarie Harbour was a convict station renowned for tyranny and misery, a place where only the worst and most irredeemable convicts would be sent. Located on the west coast of Van Dieman's Land (now Tasmania), it was surrounded by wilderness and exposed to the winds of the roaring forties. The entrance to the harbour were known as Hell's Gates, not just for the difficulties ships faced in entering the harbour, but because Macquarie Harbour had earned its reputation as a hell on earth. It was a place that convicts were desperate to escape from, a desperation that would lead them to abscond, risking their life in efforts to cross the inaccessible bush (some even turning to cannibalism to survive), or murder, taking the life of a fellow convict out of the preference for the hangman's noose instead of another day in this hell.

Closing Hell's Gates is a meticulously researched book, focusing on the life of the convict station at Macquarie Harbour. It is a well-written account, able to appeal to a wide range of readers, from the expert to the inexpert. Author Hamish Maxwell-Stewart has clearly put a lot of effort into researching and writing his account and it's one that I would happily recommend for those wanting to research Australia's convict history.

I really, really enjoyed this book if this isn't clear, and this is despite Closing Hell's Gates not being exactly what I thought it was. Going by its title and subtitle, I believed this was about the closure of the Macquarie Harbour convict station, with perhaps a few chapters to give a background to the station. It's hard to be sorry about this – it's like expecting to be given a slice of cake and ending up with the whole cake. It's a fantastic book and Maxwell-Stewart has done a terrific job in bringing his research to life.

[Chas Bayfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow - what a huge amount of research has gone into this book. Maxwell-Stewart conjures up the horror and isolation of Macquarie Harbour and the 'monsters' it created fantastically. I loved the account of Alexander Pearce and the myth busting nature of the accounts. Closing Hells Gates is about people - how those in power behave and how those in their power deal with their subjugation. I loved the ingenuity of the prisoners, even of their ingenuity was to murder a comrade in order to escape the Hell of Macquarie Harbour via the gallows. It was chilling to read how the most violent of inmates were often the ones who had committed the smallest of crimes. At times I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of convict stories contained in this book and I had to re-read several passages in order to understand more fully why they were significant. Despite these lulls I now feel that I am a bit of an expert in early nineteenth century Tasmanian penal servitude! A great work that will no doubt stand the test of time.

[Gary Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Having been to some of this area and studying under Hamish, this book was heavy to read but rich with sense of place and it’s history.

[Magpie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anne bookclub 2023

[Ewen Stapley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read that provided background to the penal colony at Sarah island. Interesting and detailed. Most interesting learned was the phrase ‘under the rose’ means something secret.

[Kate]

I bought this book after visiting Tasmania and spending 10 days on the Franklin and Gordon Rivers in the country that so many of the absconders would have struggled through. I wish I had read the book before going as I would have seen the landscape through slightly different eyes. Coming on for nearly two centuries later, the complete wilderness and isolation is still striking. Closing Hell's Gates really is a great read, full of fascinating accounts of the experiences of a range of convicts. It concentrates on the penal colony and the wilderness, hopping over to Hobart and further afield every so often to give a pretty comprehensive tale of convict life at the same time as telling the stories of so many individuals sentenced to a term at Macquarie Harbour. A very impressive book and one which must have taken years to research so comprehensively. I thoroughly recommend it.

[Calzean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read on the story of the Macquarie Harbour Penal settlement, the officials, the convicts and the environment they lived in. A book to be read carefully to pick up all the nuances and storylines as there are many characters involved. Better than reading a detective story.

[Leticia Caramatti · Rating 2 out of 5]

It didn’t feel like a pleasant read... it felt like over detailed research going on tangents and deep diving into random characters without plot.

[T.S. Flynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poor quality research.