Find out how convicts learnt to make do with the uncomfortable shoe rations given to them by the British Government. The video is performed and narrated by Brad Manera, Curator of the Hyde Park Barracks Museum.
0:10-0:22 Describes how the shoes were straight lasted, requiring the convicts to make some modifications if they were to be bearable as footwear.
0:33-0:56 Some convicts scraped together offcuts of material to make socks but for those who could not manage this, a toe rag would be wound around for comfort.
Original source available here.
Further discussion of the daily lives of convicts at the Hyde Park Barracks is available here.
Convict Sydney: The Opening of a New Exhibition
A conversation between Inara Walden, curator at the Hyde Park Barracks, and Simon Marnie on the 12 Septemner 2010. The discussion centres on the opening of a new exhibition titled Convict Sydney. The audio may be accessed here.
00:22 Announces the recent enlisting of Hyde Park Barracks onto the UNESCO World Heritage List
00:36 The curator discusses the philosophy of the Historic Houses Trust towards the representation of the site with overlayed meaning.
1:16 The conversation turns to the first room in the exhibition that was intended to invoke the atmosphere that convicts would have experienced in their transportation by ship to Australia.
2:20 Convicts described as having numerous skills that they applied in Sydney
3:30 The convict diet is described.
4:37 A model of a portable prison is discussed.
5:40 A paddle-wheel treadmill is described. The treadmill was a punishment for more severe crimes committed by convicts during their incarceration. The treadmill also grinded grain for their meals.
8:33 The conversation turns to the political landscape of the early colony
9:30 An early panorama painting is described
A Photographic Tour of the Barracks
Compiled by the Historic Houses Trust the following video is a photographic tour of the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney. The video's original source can be accessed here.
Image tour of Hyde Park Barracks Museum from Historic Houses Trust on Vimeo.
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Snapshots of the Museum by the cycling archaeologist
