The Indiscipline of Reading

Abstract

This chapter deals with the experiences and perceptions of reading within the nineteenth-century criminal system, with particular emphasis on Australian-bound transportees. It shows how attempts on the part of the authorities often fell short of their expectations, as prisoners themselves asserted their insubordination through acts of reading and writing. In particularly harsh regimes such a Norfolk Island, literacy and reading became sources of conflict among the authorities. Many took a prohibitive view of reading provision while others, like Thomas Maconachie, took a liberal attitude towards the encouragement of literacy. From transportation earlier in the period, a certain number of transportation prisoners were highly educated and often skilled in other ways. The final wave of transportation in the 1860s coincided with increased Fenian unrest in Ireland. Political prisoners in particular included a high proportion of well qualified individuals, some of them popular celebrities. Their highly literate use of reading and writing earned them the name of ‘Specials’.