Convict gaming tokens

1819–1848

These bone, ceramic, and wooden gaming tokens were found by archaeologists at Hyde Park Barracks beneath the floors, and appear to have been hand-carved by convicts from rubbish scraps and animal bones saved from their meals. Gambling with coins was common among convicts, but how were these gaming tokens used? Perhaps they were counters for chess, draughts, Nine Men’s Morris, or tic-tac-toe, or another sort of game where these pieces represented individual players. Maybe they were tokens used in swindler’s sleight of hand tricks such as the shell game, or in pitch-and-toss games where the counters stood in for pennies. Gambling was banned at the Barracks and punishable by a stint in the solitary confinement cells, but still seems to have been a popular pastime. In the convict ‘flash’ slang language, the term cleaned out referred to a gambler who lost the money he staked in the game. One convict, William Ockenden liked to make money by gambling - listen to what the judge said about him in court:

I made a sweep one night of eight or nine pounds which was staked … but I have been told they often played for twenty pounds … the game was up the minute they saw me, and they cut into their hammocks, then they put out the light, and I had to look sharp and depend upon my own.

Deputy Superintendent Timothy Lane, Select Committee on Security of Life and Property 1844.8

More artefacts

Convict Sydney, Level 1, Hyde Park Barracks Museum
Convict Sydney

Objects

These convict-era objects and archaeological artefacts found at Hyde Park Barracks and The Mint (Rum Hospital) are among the rarest and most personal artefacts to have survived from Australia’s early convict period

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Convict Sydney

Bible & Prayer Book

The name and the date 1837 written inside the covers tell us they once belonged to an English brass founder named Thomas Bagnall

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Convict Sydney

Jaw harp

This iron jaw harp was found by archaeologists at Hyde Park Barracks alongside other convict-era objects

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Convict Sydney

Clock-winding crank

This sturdy crank was used for many years to wind the Hyde Park Barracks clock

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Convict Sydney

Hack barrow

Convict brickmakers working at the Brickfields (now Haymarket) used hack barrows like this one, stacking 20 or 30 wet bricks on the timber palings along the top, for transporting them from the moulding table to the ‘hack’ yard for drying

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Convict Sydney

Cupping glasses & scarificator

These cupping glasses are of the type that was used in the treatment of convict patients at the General ‘Rum’ Hospital

Taylor panorama (left detail)
Convict Sydney

What was convict assignment?

‘Assignment’ meant that a convict worked for a private landowner

Composite image of a clay pipe with a broken bowl, viewed from both sides
Convict Sydney

Clay tobacco pipe

There were 1500 fragments of convict-era clay tobacco pipes recovered by archaeologists from Hyde Park Barracks

Composite image of a cauldron. One view from the front the other above.
Convict Sydney

Cooking cauldron

The watery stew eaten by convicts at Hyde Park Barracks was boiled in giant communal cast iron pots

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Convict Sydney

Clay tobacco pipes, repaired

Known as steamers to the convicts, these tobacco pipes have been repaired with resin and twine where their fragile stems broke

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Convict Sydney

Clay Tobacco Pipe

This tobacco pipe with its bowl in the shape of a man’s head was recovered by archaeologists at Hyde Park Barracks