PENAL SETTLEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1938, Page 8

PENAL SETTLEMENT

TURNED INTO PLEASURE RESORT AUSTRALIA’S ST HELENA. Writing in the March issue of "Discovery.” a contributor furnishes an interesting account of St Helena in the South Pacific Ocean. Few islands, he says, have been the scene of as .many thrilling happenings as this St Helena which, after GO years as a notable penal settlement, is being converted into a pleasure resort. Situated about five miles off the eastern coast of Queensland, the island has an area of approximately 1000 acres. Having been annexed to the State of Queensland it was in 1864 proclaimed a penal settlement. At one time St Helena held over 300 convicts, and although the island is no longer a prison, many of the convicts’ bodies lie beneath crudely-carved tombstones in the island’s "mystery graveyard.’ which contains hundreds of plain crosses of stone marked only by numbers. There are no names, for the authorities considered that the kindest thing was to bury the bodies without giving any indication of their real identities. Today the Brisbane City Council is busy converting St Helena into a pleasure resort, and the island is destined to blcome one of the most popular holiday and residential islands off the Australia'n coast.