Convict Labour

by Freddie Gomez

By 1800 the garrison had been extensively fortified to become the impregnable fortress which consequently led to the enemy abandoning further attempts to recapture Gibraltar.

The garrison had withstood a hundred years of constant attacks - during which fourteen sieges were carried out, some of which lasting over three years - and the military and the population had endured the hardships and privations resulting from the prolonged campaign of hostilities. It was time for a normal way of living to come about. And so it did. But it did not last. On the 15th Sept 1804 - while having only enjoyed a few years of peace - a malignant fever hit the garrison town. It later came to be recognised as Malaria.

The rate at which people succumbed to the disease was alarming; it depleted the authorities capabilities to cope with the situation. So the convicts who had been kept busy carrying out repair works to the fortification walls that had sustained extensive damage during the course of the last sieges and repairing houses damaged by the bombardment and constructing new buildings in the south district (Europa area), were given the task, along with army, to dispose of the corpses that lined the streets or were in homes where no relatives had been left alive.

The epidemic ended three months later, having taken with it the lives of 5,956 people. Most of the records concerning the epidemic were lost during the time the disease lasted, as the keepers of records - priests of different religions - also succumbed to the deadly disease.

[Above]  Queen's Road. Upper Rock South Barracks, after the works that were recently carried out on the building it is not easy to discern the considerable amount of maintenance repair work done to it by convicts and soldiers, under corporal punishment, during the early 1800s.

[Above] Transport Lane, this lane forms part of the first houses built - by convicts - for  the serving soldiers, usually for NCOs (non commission officers).

[Above] No 6 North Pavillion Road. One of the many original entrances and pertaining walls constructed in the south district with convict labour. These constructions were built with either quarried or recycled materials.

[Above] 5th Rosia Battery. The wall adjacent to FHQ was one of the many walls that sustained heavy cannonade and were repaired by convicts. Most of the top of the wall was demolished, which can be seen by the repair works done to the cannon embrasures.

[Above] Rosia Bay. Even though modern alterations have virtually obliterated the original stone jetty, the site remains the same as it was three hundred years ago. It was this site that suffered most during the Spanish sieges on Gibraltar; for it was here that British ships took refuge when reaching Gibraltar. It was also the only site at the time (before the Dockyard existed) where ships were victualled (supplied) and repaired prior to their departure. It's also in this bay that in October 1804 H.M.S. Victory sailed in from the battle of Trafalgar carrying Lord Nelson's body, and where HMS Victory was repaired, made sea worthy and sailed to England.