Life in Irons: Brisbane’s convict past opens!

The Life in Irons exhibition opens! Life in Irons offers a rare chance to view some of the few remaining official documents from the Brisbane penal colony.

Presented in partnership with Queensland State Archives, these priceless pieces comprise: 5 hand-written registers from 1824-1842 that detail rations and harvests, illnesses and death,  employment and transgressions; the original architectural plans and maps, many prepared by convict George Browne, that show the footprint of the penal settlement prior to the reopening of Brisbane Town as a free settlement in 1842; and the Book of Trials which logs the crimes and punishments meted out within the settlement.