Crank Mill.
Crank Mill.
On Tuesday October 5th 1847 the Colonial Times and Tasmanian newspaper reported the following in regard to the Crank Mill at Norfolk.
"This Mill, said to be a device of the
philanthropic Maconochie - an engine, of torture worthy the Holy Inquisition is so repulsive in its operations that we are tempted to give a passing glance at it and its horrors.
It is (or was) worked by a hundred felons, after the fashion of the chain pumps of a man-of-war, but the resistance offered
was incalculably more exhausting :- this setting in motion the machinery for grinding maize-that merely discharging the water from the hold.
The picture of a line-of-battle ship's gun decks during the heat of action is tolerably startling, but it is but a mere watercolour sketch compared with the
demoniacal portraiture presented in the working room of Norfolk Island's Crank Mill".
Built in 1827 at the Kingston Pier as Commissariat Granary it was transformed just 10 years later as the Crank Mill with the purpose of “punishment of men in irons”.
It would serve more than just punishment for the unfortunate beings were tortured beyond belief.
On a daily basis 100 convicts were herded into the crank mill where under their cruel overseers they were forced to rotate the heavy capstan and two massively oversized metal grinding stones which milled to corn.
It would serve as a place of punishment until 1855.
Today the Crank Mill is heritage listed and is located in the Kingston and Arthurs Vale Historic Area (KAVHA) Kingston.
If you listen carefully you can be forgiven for thinking that you can still hear the haunting cries of convicts as they suffered inhumanity at the hands of their fellow man.
Kingston.
Norfolk Island.
Crank Mill.
Crank Mill.
On Tuesday October 5th 1847 the Colonial Times and Tasmanian newspaper reported the following in regard to the Crank Mill at Norfolk.
"This Mill, said to be a device of the
philanthropic Maconochie - an engine, of torture worthy the Holy Inquisition is so repulsive in its operations that we are tempted to give a passing glance at it and its horrors.
It is (or was) worked by a hundred felons, after the fashion of the chain pumps of a man-of-war, but the resistance offered
was incalculably more exhausting :- this setting in motion the machinery for grinding maize-that merely discharging the water from the hold.
The picture of a line-of-battle ship's gun decks during the heat of action is tolerably startling, but it is but a mere watercolour sketch compared with the
demoniacal portraiture presented in the working room of Norfolk Island's Crank Mill".
Built in 1827 at the Kingston Pier as Commissariat Granary it was transformed just 10 years later as the Crank Mill with the purpose of “punishment of men in irons”.
It would serve more than just punishment for the unfortunate beings were tortured beyond belief.
On a daily basis 100 convicts were herded into the crank mill where under their cruel overseers they were forced to rotate the heavy capstan and two massively oversized metal grinding stones which milled to corn.
It would serve as a place of punishment until 1855.
Today the Crank Mill is heritage listed and is located in the Kingston and Arthurs Vale Historic Area (KAVHA) Kingston.
If you listen carefully you can be forgiven for thinking that you can still hear the haunting cries of convicts as they suffered inhumanity at the hands of their fellow man.
Kingston.
Norfolk Island.