The Norfolk Island Penal Station, the Panopticon, and Alexander Maconochie’s and Jeremy Bentham’s Theories of Punishment

Abstract

Returning to Scotland Maconochie stated that he "for six years, led an idle life"though was sufficiently active to produce works on the colonization of the north Pacific, and a substantial work of political geography on the Pacific more generally. 21 In 1822 he married Mary Hutton Browne and turned his hand to farming at North Queensferry, but when this proved unprofitable he and his family relocated to London, where he was soon among old naval friends including Sir John Barrow, Sir John Franklin, and some of the founders of the Geographical Society of London. 22 Maconochie was appointed as secretary of the Society at its inaugural meeting on 16 July 1830, and on 16 November 1833 was chosen as the inaugural Professor of Geography at the recently-founded University of London. 23 Maconochie's academic career was, however, short-lived: in April 1836 Sir John Franklin was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land, and Maconochie accepted the offer to become Franklin's private secretary. 24 Maconochie accordingly resigned his professorship on 22 August 1836 and set sail for Hobart Town with his family, having agreed beforehand to produce a report for the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline on the convict system in Van Diemen's Land. This report proved so damning of the system, and its apparent impact on Van Diemonian society, that Maconochie was forced to leave Franklin's service. 25