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'The whip is a very contagious kind of thing': flogging and humanitarian reform in penal Australia

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 19:09 authored by Edmonds, P, Hamish Maxwell-StewartHamish Maxwell-Stewart
This paper traces humanitarian debates over corporal punishment and the use of the lash in the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century, with particular attention to Quakers James Backhouse and George Washington Walker’s interventions in penal discipline in colonial Van Diemen’s Land. It examine the ways that corporal punishment of convicts and Aboriginal peoples was framed through abolitionist eyes and explores in detail specific objections to the lash, including ideas around suffering, abstract vengeance and pain. The paper considers the move to other punishment strategies such as silent and solitary confinement, promoted in place of the lash. As we show, the evidence provided by the travelling investigative Quakers did much to inform the 1837 Select Committee on Transportation chaired by William Molesworth. The same report is also credited with reducing the rate of flogging in the penal colonies. However, while the Molesworth Committee is regarded as a decisive turning point in the history of Britain’s deployment of convict labour, we argue that a shift in punishment strategies was already well underway before the late 1830s. Using new data on punishments awarded, we demonstrate that in Van Diemen’s Land the demise of the lash had begun well before the Molesworth Committee met. We conclude by arguing that the association between the great humanitarian moment and the demise of flagellation so often associated Molesworth, was more complex and less direct than is often supposed.

Funding

Australian Research Council

Roar Film Pty Ltd

History

Publication title

Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History

Volume

17

Article number

613283

Number

613283

Pagination

1-16

ISSN

1532-5768

Department/School

School of Humanities

Publisher

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Place of publication

United States

Rights statement

Copyright © 2016 The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article first appeared in Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History, Volume 17, Issue 1, Spring, 2016, pages 1-16.

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