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Australia

Macquarie Harbour Penal Station

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Verified 29 May 2026
Fresh · 0d ago

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

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How to send mail, money, and visit Macquarie Harbour Penal Station

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Photograph of Macquarie Harbour Penal Station

Gallery

From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).

  • Bakehouse on Sarah Island.jpg

    Photo by Scott Davis via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

  • Frenchmans from sarah.jpg

    Photo by {{JarrahTree}} via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5 au)

  • Penitentiary on Sarah Island.jpg

    Photo by Scott Davis via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

  • Penitentiary ruin on Sarah Island.jpg

    Photo by Scott Davis via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

  • Sara Island Gaol.jpg

    Photo by Dr Rocks from Canberra, Australia via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

  • Sarah Island Tasmania (31699460113).jpg

    Photo by Steven Penton from Bakers Beach, Tasmania Australia via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

  • Sarah Island, Tasmania (31666157644).jpg

    Photo by Steven Penton from Bakers Beach, Tasmania Australia via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

  • Sarah Island.jpg

    Photo by PelionClimber via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Background

The Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, a former British colonial penal settlement, established on Sarah Island, Macquarie Harbour, in the former Penal colony of Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, operated between 1822 and 1833. The settlement housed male convicts, with a small number of women housed on a nearby island. During its 11 years of operation, the penal colony achieved a reputation as one of the harshest penal settlements in the Australian colonies. The former penal station is located on the eight-hectare (twenty-acre) Sarah Island that now operates as a historic site under the direction of the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

1822

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

Government of the United Kingdom

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

1822

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

Insufficient data
We don't have enough public data on this facility to score it. Have something to add? Send us a correction.

Data completeness

20%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources