| Notes |
- JOHN PECK was the eldest of Joshua and Mary's children, being born on Norfolk Island in 1792. On May 27 1822 John married Susannah Courtney, a 28yo convict woman who arrived in Australia aboard the Friendship. At some stage Susannah absconded and played no further part in John's life.
John Peck was tried at Hobart 3rd June 1824 for receiving sheep stolen by John Anderson from John Jones at Big Lagoon near Jericho and acquitted, but he was convicted of a similar charge a few months later and sentenced to 14 years at Macquarie Harbour where his brother William would have been at the same time.
Macquarie HarbourÂ’s penal settlement, Sarah Island (or Settlement Island) is found in the far south west corner of Macquarie Harbour, on the west coast of Tasmania, within sight of the world renowned Gordon River. This isolated island was a penal settlement between 1822 and 1833, established before the more well-known Port Arthur, as a place of 'secondary' punishment, an attempt to control the uncontrollable.
Sarah Island gained a reputation as a place of unspeakable horrors and a living hell.
Altogether about 1200 men and women were sentenced or sent to Sarah Island. Most of them had committed further offences while serving their original sentences. Others came as 'remittance men', skilled tradesmen who worked at the Settlement in exchange for remission of their sentence.
They were supervised by military detachments of several regiments (up to 90 soldiers at one time), and by a variety of Civilian Officers, Supervisors and Constables, many of whom were ex-convicts. Ships' crews were regular visitors, tradesmen were co-opted and often bribed to work at the Settlement, there were women and children, some convicts working as servants, some wives of soldiers and officials, some wives and children of convicts.
The Muster in 1828 was a total of 531, including about 380 convicts, 95 military, 14 women and 27 children.
The early work of the Settlement was timber-cutting and hauling, work that could be done largely by chain gangs. But shipping out the valued Huon Pine proved more of a problem than expected: one solution was to build ships at the Settlement to transport the timber. Soon Sarah Island was more than just a prison. It was also an industrial village: gardeners, timber cutters, sawyers, boatmen, tanners, boot makers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, carpenters, boat builders and shipwrights, fencers, bakers, cooks, medical orderlies, quarrymen and stonemasons, brick makers, lime-burners, coal miners, clerks, accountants, artists and draughtsmen.
There are few obvious ruins on the Island today. Most of the buildings were of timber construction which has been removed or rotted. Some deliberate damage many years ago by those who wanted the island's history forgotten and the activity of souvenir collectors late last century have depleted the brick and stone structures.
John Peck survived the extreme conditions of Sarah Island and died in 1872 at the age of 80. He is buried in the family vault at St. Leonards.
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1792 - 1872 (80 years)
