Abstract
In 1840, Alexander Maconochie was appointed as the superintendent of Norfolk Island, a penal settlement 1,400 kilometres east of colonial New South Wales. He had been appointed to carry out an experiment on his ‘mark system’ that sought to make reformation the primary function of state punishment. Soon after arriving on the island, Maconochie organised a party for the convicts to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. This chapter focuses on the New South Wales press’s hostile coverage of Maconochie’s regime, particularly focusing on the birthday party. To explain this hostility, and the ultimate failure of Maconochie’s experiment, the chapter highlights the conflict between Maconochie’s reformative aspirations and the New South Wales’s elites need for a penal law focused on protecting property and maintaining the social hierarchy through the terror of deterrence.
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Moore, J.M. (2023). “Dancing and Discipline, Frolics and Felonies, Punch and Punishment, Rum and Reform”: Queen Victoria’s Birthday Party, Norfolk Island Penal Station, 25 May 1840. In: Fuggle, S., Forsdick, C., Massing, K. (eds) Framing the Penal Colony. Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19396-5_3
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