Exiled: The Port Arthur Convict Photographs

The Port Arthur convict photographs are a truly remarkable survival from Australia’s colonial past. Taken shortly before the infamous Tasmanian penal settlement closed for good, these images record the faces of men sent to Australia on convict ships between the 1820s and the 1850s. Now, for the first time, they are the subject of a fascinating new book from the National Library of Australia. Through its pages readers will come face to face with some of Australia’s reluctant pioneers and explore their often extraordinary lives.

Using transportation records, trial documents, official correspondence, prison files, local and overseas newspaper reports and eyewitness accounts, the author has pieced together biographies of some of the men – and their female partners – who found themselves transported to the colonies.