An odd name for a website granted, but this was the apt description Mark Twain made when he visited Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land in 1895:

And it was in this paradise that the yellow-liveried convicts were landed, and the Corps-bandits quartered, and the wanton slaughter of the kangaroo-chasing black innocents consummated on the autumn day in May, in the brutish old time. It was all out of keeping with the place, a sort of bringing of heaven and hell together.

From Mark Twain: Following the Equator - A Journey Around the World; Reprint Published by Courier Dover Publications, 1989 [p. 281]

This site is devoted to that "brutish old time", to exploring the lives of our ancestors and their comrades as they eked out a living in the most difficult of circumstances. Like most modern Australians we abhor the excesses and intolerance of the time, and hope we can establish a place where their descendants can recreate their stories, their largely honourable lives, and correct some long standing errors. If you can assist please Contact Us and join the fray, if not then we hope you can find something to maintain your interest while you peruse the site.