Isle of the Dead is an island, about 1 hectare (2.5 acres) in area, adjacent to Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia. It is historically significant since it retains an Aboriginal coastal shell midden, one of the first recorded sea-level benchmarks, and one of the few preserved Australian convict-period burial grounds. The Isle of the Dead occupies part of the Port Arthur Historic Site, is part of Australian Convict Sites and is listed as a World Heritage Property because it represents convictism in the era of British colonisation. Before European settlement, Aboriginal people gathered food on the island. From 1833 the island was used as a cemetery for convicts and free people of the Port Arthur penal settlement. The Isle of the Dead was the destination for all who died inside the prison camps. Of the 1,000 estimated graves recorded to exist there, only 180, those of prison staff and military personnel, were marked. The cemetery was closed following the demise of the Port Arthur settlement in 1877 and the island was sold as private land. It was reacquired and managed by the Tasmanian government from the early twentieth century. Over the last century tourism has grown with improved services and infrastructure. Increased conservation initiatives have been undertaken to preserve the island and its relics, resulting in the island being declared a cultural heritage property and protected under Australian state and federal laws. It is also listed under UNESCO's world heritage sites.
Location Isle of the Dead is an approximately 10,000 square metres (1 hectare) island within Carnarvon Bay at the northern tip of Point Puer on the Southern Tasman Peninsula in the Island State of Tasmania, Australia. It is approximately 98 kilometres (61 miles) southeast of the state capital, Hobart. Driving from Hobart, via the Tasman Highway /A3, the Arthur Highway /A9 to Port Arthur Historic Site takes around 80 minutes. Isle of the Dead is approximately 700 metres (0.43 miles) from Point Puer. It is 1.2 km (3/4 of a mile) from Mason Cove. It is only accessible by boat and Port Arthur Historic Site offers guided ferry tours to the island.
Aboriginal shell midden Original inhabitants of this area were the Pydairrerme people, a band of the Oyster Bay tribe. Prior to the 1830s, local Aboriginal people used the island to gather shellfish and camp. Isle of the Dead retains a large midden. The midden contains shells and the remains of campfires (charcoal and ash), evidence of past Aboriginal people visiting the isle to gather shellfish and molluscs such as abalone and mussels. It is located under an overhanging cliff and rock platform, which was used for shelter. This midden is defined as an Aboriginal relic and is protected under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1975.
Naming the Isle With the arrival of settler colonialism, the isle was called Opossum Island in 1827. It was named after Captain John Welsh's sloop Opossum while seeking shelter nearby when surveying the harbours on the Tasman Peninsula. Reverend John Allen Manton, an English Wesleyan missionary, arrived in February 1833 as first chaplain for the Port Arthur settlement. He wrote in a religious pamphlet that he selected this isle for a cemetery, as it was close to the colony, "a secure and undisturbed resting-place" and renamed "Isle of the Dead" for its purpose as a burial place. The isle was recorded as "Dead Island" in a hydrographic survey undertaken from the surveying ship HMS Dart in 1893 and published as Admiralty chart 1475. The Island was also known as "Isle des Morts" and "Dead Men's Isle".
Cemetery for penal colony
Penal settlement usage The isle was used as a cemetery for the penal settlement of Port Arthur from September 1833 to 1877. This included the Point Puer boys' prison, which operated from January 1834 until 1849. There were also a small number of burials from the military posting at Eaglehawk Neck and from the Coal Mines (Coal Mines Historic Site), which operated from 1833 to 1848. The colony experienced population decline following the closure of Point Puer boys' prison in 1849, the end of convict transportation to Tasmania in 1853, and the departure of the military in 1863. The cemetery continued to be used for destitute, aged and infirm men, mainly convicts and ex convicts, residing in Port Arthur's welfare institutions, the hospital, Paupers' (invalid) Depot (established in 1864) and Lunatic Asylum (established in 1867) until they were closed in 1877.
Burial designation The cemetery was divided into designated sections. Convicts were buried on the lower, southern end of the island. No headstones or markings were placed on convict graves, as they were not allowed. Alfred Mawle, a tour guide for Port Arthur from about 1899 to 1939, described that convict graves were marked with small metal numbers, which went missing in the 1920s.
Free people were located on the northern western corner of the island and their graves were generally marked with footstones, headstones and tombstones cut by convict stonemasons. Approximately eighty-one headstones and five footstones, dated from 1831 to 1877, were identified and inscriptions recorded in the late 1970s. Of these, four belonged to former convicts who were free at the time of their deaths and nine were erected as memorials to convicts after the closure of the penal colony. It is estimated that less than 10% of all the burials on the Isle of Dead were formally marked.
Number of burials Approximately 1,000 people have been buried on the Isle of the Dead. The actual number of people buried on the island is unknown because of the destruction of many official records, incomplete burial records and lack of records for free people located at Port Arthur and the outstations. Estimates of the number buried is based on geophysical studies, remaining burial and death records and the limited size of the convict burial section on the isle. Historical estimates have been variable. The Hobart Town Courier published 43 burials on the isle in 1836. The Tasmanian reported 1,500 graves in 1872. 1,500 graves were recorded again on an "Isle of the Dead" tourist postcard in 1909. In 1907 an Australian Town and Country Journal article about convict burials across the Tasman Peninsula cited 1,700 convict burials on the isle.
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