IN a new video, novelist and videographer Angus Thornett puts a fresh slant on the history of Willow Court and the historical and sociological underpinnings of the town of New Norfolk since 1807.
Thornett, as he does in some three dozen videos he posts to YouTube about mostly ignored and forgotten aspects of Tasmanian history, sketches a different view of colonial power that left – and continues to leave – its mark on the physical and psychological makeup of Tasmania.
In his latest video, Thornett turns his attentions to Willow Court, its origins and twisted history at the height of Britain’s evolution as the world’s dominant power.
He draws the parallel between the landing of convicts in Port Arthur in 1830 and the cessation of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.
“Contrary to what historical texts say, the convict transportation had almost nothing to do with law and order,” he says. “The English were prosecuting their own underclasses at home and using them to extract free labour in Van Diemen’s Land.”
Tasmania – and Port Arthur in particular – was ideal for this new notion, a jail on a sealable peninsula on a small island that itself was separated from the continent of Australia, which was an impossible 15,000 kilometres away from England.
It was a prison within a prison within a prison.
“Viewing Willow Court as a souvenir from the last decades of legalised slavery gives the place a different meaning.”
Thornett argues, as have a number of notable historians, that the Barracks, the central building of Willow Court, predates Port Arthur, and as the work of Tasmania’s pre-eminent architect John Lee Archer, remains an aesthetic masterpiece.
“The Barracks Building should be included on the same World Heritage listing as Port Arthur and the Female Factory, and thus afforded the same protections,” he makes clear. “
For the visitor, he says, the site is not just extraordinary, but “probably best man-made attraction in Tasmania. And it’s free to visit”.
In the video, Thornett is somewhat pessimistic about Willow Court’s future.
“Overall, the location will probably continue to fall further into ruin. On a long enough timeline all buildings, no matter what you do to save them, will return to dust. Nothing is permanent.”