Stamp Story, No. 20 CONVICTS’ RIOT

Press, Volume C, Issue 29500, 29 April 1961, Page 8

Stamp Story, No. 20 CONVICTS’ RIOT

IBj, KEN ANTHONY! rpHE design tells one of the most gruesome stamp stories of all. Norfolk Island, the Australian dependency in the Pacific. was uninhabited when Captain Cook discovered it in 1774—but within a few years it was transformed into a convict settlement. Its history was one of harsh brutality in the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th. Today, Norfolk Island Is a tourists’ paradise. It has all the blessings of an ideal climate; it has no income tax. But this design—issued in 1953—takes us back for more than 100 years. It shows Bloody Bridge, the scene of a prison revolt when a group

of enraged convicts killed a; warder and buried his body I in the structure of the bridge. The convicts were finally evacuated in 1855, and in 1856 the island was settled by a party of nearly 200 people from Pitcairn, descendents of the Bounty mutineers. Most of the recent inhabitants of Norfolk Island are descended from these settlers.

Although Norfolk Island acquired its own distinctive stamps only in 1947. the first postmaster was appointed in 1832. In 1853 it was decided to introduce Tasmanian stamps into Norfolk Island. Then, while the first supply was being taken there, a group of convicts on board the ship mutinied and escaped. taking the stamps with them!

A further stock of stamps was later sent to the island; but today there is only one known example of a Tasmanian stamp used in Norfolk Island.

In later years the stamps, first of New South Wales and then of Australia, were used in the island. Five years ago. the centenary of the arrival of the Pitcairn settlers was made the subject of a special issue. (Central Press Services Ltd., Al! rights reserved).