Port Arthur

Port Arthur in Tasmania was a penal station from 1830 to 1877, where over 1000 people died. The authority that runs the historic site offers ghost tours built on stories told since 1870.

The Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority says the penal settlement began in 1830 as a small station for timber and quickly became important to the colonies. Selected convicts were taught shipbuilding there, a trade meant to serve them once they were free. A 2020 University of New England report by Richard Tuffin, written with the authority, says the workshops were central to running the station. It calls Port Arthur a major centre for holding convicts in Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, from 1830 to 1877. Wikipedia records that on 28 April 1996 a massacre took place at the historic site at Port Arthur.

Wikipedia says stories of the prisoners and the ghost stories that circulated made the remaining prison ruins popular with visitors. Two novels about Port Arthur convicts helped: Caroline Leakey's The Broad Arrow (1859) and Marcus Clarke's For the Term of His Natural Life (1874).

The authority's ghost tours draw on the convict era. It says that in its 47 years as a penal settlement, over 1000 people lost their lives there, and on its ghost tour page it says some people believe those who died there in that time never left, that recorded ghost stories have been linked to the site since 1870, and that many visitors have since added their own accounts.