Stealing curled hair

Today our Aussie history class led us to meet at the CBD in order to see the Hyde Park Barracks. The Barracks were the main facility where male convicts in Sydney’s early years slept and worked --- essentially a compound much like a prison. However, the detention centers often found themselves to be a little bit free-er in Sydney because of the fact that in Australia, if you wanted to escape your sentence, your choices were either to flee to the Outback desert, where you can pick your poison in 25 shades of black, or you can try to swim … until you drown …. because you are on a colossal island …. far away from ….. everything.

This is Paul. He’s in a hip hop class along with the rest of us who are trying to attain swagger.

One of the most interesting rooms in the museum was one that displayed a roster of all the inmates who had come through the barracks: their age, their crime, and the length of their sentence. People could be sent from Europe for one of three time periods: 7 years, 14 years, or Life. Some interesting crimes pictured below: Stealing handkerchiefs, and stealing curled hair. : )

Also pictured below is the room of hammocks in which the convicts slept. Further down you’ll find another list, of sorts. This list is the specific record from one man’s time at the Hyde Park Barracks, detailing his punishments for misbehavior at the prison; things such as 100 lashes for Obscene Language and 5 days in Solitary Confinement for being “Drunk, etc.” (I think we are left to fill in our own interpretation of what the “etc.” might mean ….)  

Let me know if you have any specific questions about Australia’s history – it has been very fascinating to learn about.