The Barrackman in Colonial New South Wales

Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, Australia, was opened by Governor Macquarie in 1819. As an institution it stood at the intersection of new and fashionable discussions about prisons and imprisonment, naval discipline, and the emergence of a diligent and Methodist-influenced culture of clerks. Together they created the meaning of the walls and wards, the fabric of the building. Confinement produced “Barrackmen,” a distinct subculture produced outside the notions of labour and centered on pain. The author accesses the Barracks by examining the Bench Book of 1820–1821, a rare surviving document of the late Macquarie period.