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( Energiewende I )

Maconochie’s mark system – with its emphasis on connecting convicts into small social groups to support their mutual reform and encouraging individuals to work for their individual and collective best interests – starkly contrasted with Norfolk Island’s history of extreme physical punishment and exile for prisoners considered irredeemable¹. In 1827, Governor Darling declared his intention for the Norfolk Island settlement to represent ‘the place of extreme punishment, short of Death².’

[OUR NEW PARAGRAPH I] ☛

Harsh labour, physical punishment and moral desperation marked by homosexual relations between prisoners characterised the image of the island prison in the public imagination. This fearsome reputation, encouraged by the penal administration and furthered in the colonial and metropolitan press, [HAUNTED] those convict letter-writers whom Backhouse and Walker had published. Convict revolts were not unusual on the island, and they were punished by flogging [AND MASS EXECUTIONS]. It was a challenging site for Maconochie to test his theories (indeed, he tried unsuccessfully to be granted a different [EXPERIMENTAL] location). The varied success of Maconochie’s system in practice has been well documented by convict historians, political scientists and sociologists³. The varied success of Maconochie’s system in practice has been well documented by convict historians, political scientists and sociologists³. Norfolk Island was a [HIGHLY CONCENTRATED LABORATORY] of reform: Maconochie described his [MACHINERY] there as raw and based on freshly formed theories⁴. From the Norfolk Island [MACHINE], streams of textual accounts poured forth written by Maconochie himself, by various religious personnel appointed to the island, by official visitors and the colonial press, and, distinctively, by convicts themselves. Knowledge was used to [PRODUCE] the (moral) prisoner, [rather than merely extracting knowledge about prisoners in the statistical schemas that otherwise typified convict administration].

[OUR NEW PARAGRAPH II] ☛

[Maconochie’s education schemes brought print culture into the prison and in so doing shifted the usual flow of knowledge between colonial and [METROPOLITAN] elites. When they reached the public domain, these narratives challenged the tenor of the debate about transportation, imprisonment and reform].

¹Carey, Empire of Hell, 165 ²Darling, Letter to Hay, p104-5 ³ Huh?! ⁴Maconochie, Norfolk Island

With all of ours thanks to Australian scholar Annette Johnstone, the University of Queensland, .. making colonial knowledge 1770 t0 1870, Cambridge University Press 2023\ John, economy, thematics, immunology, child development, neurocognitive health and global educational reform, the #auspol state of South Australia 1956 – 2025 Wednesday 17th Dec 2025