Kingston and Arthurs Vale Historic Area (KAVHA) is an old settlement on the Kingston coastal plains (bounded by hills), southern side of Norfolk Island, consisting of a large group of buildings from the British Empire's convict era (17881855), now considered to be of such cultural significance to Australia and to the World that the area has been formally inscribed onto both the Australian National Heritage List and UNESCO's World Heritage list as amongst:
" .. the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers through the presence and labour of convicts."The Kingston and Arthurs Vale Historic Area (KAVHA), on Norfolk Island, is of outstanding significance to the nation as a convict settlement spanning the era of transportation to eastern Australia between 1788 and 1855. It is also significant as the only site in Australia to display evidence of early Polynesian settlement, and the place where the Pitcairn Island descendants of the Bounty mutineers were re-settled in 1856.
The Kingston and Arthurs Vale Historic Area (KAVHA) is one of 11 places that make up the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage serial listing, inscribed on 31 July 2010. KAVHA was included in the National Heritage List on 1 August 2007.
As a place of secondary punishment, KAVHA developed a reputation as one of the harshest and cruellest of Australia's penal settlements. It was, however, also a place where humanising experiments in penal reform were conducted.
KAVHA is located on the southern side of Norfolk Island, which lies to the east-north-east of Sydney. Set on the Kingston coastal plain and bounded by hills, it comprises a large group of buildings from the convict era, some of which have been modified during the Pitcairn period (from 1856 to the present), substantial ruins and standing structures, archaeological remains, landform and landscape elements. KAVHA's aesthetic qualities have been recognised since the earliest days of the first settlement. It is outstanding for its picturesque setting, historic associations, part ruinous configuration and subsequent lack of development.
Early Polynesian presence
Europeans were not the first people to inhabit Norfolk Island. Stone tools have been found at both Emily and Slaughter bays within KAVHA. Archaeological investigations have revealed evidence of landscape modifications in the Emily Bay area including artefact assemblages and structural remains that have been interpreted as a rudimentary marae, a religious structure characteristic of East Polynesian culture. Radiocarbon dating indicates Polynesian settlement of the area occurred between AD 1200 and AD 1600.
The first European settlement
Discovered by Captain James Cook RN in 1774, Norfolk Island was settled on 6 March 1788, six weeks after the First Fleet landed in Sydney. Cook reported the island had rich soils, tall pines suitable for ships' masts and spars, and native flax that could be used for making canvas. Governor Philip had instructions to settle and secure the island as soon as possible to secure its potential naval supplies.
Arriving on the Supply, Lieutenant Philip Gidley King RN and a party of nine male and six female convicts and seven staff established a settlement named Kingston. Crops were sown in the adjoining valley, Arthurs Vale, and, unlike the experience in Sydney, the Kingston crops flourished. To relieve the food pressures in the infant colony of New South Wales, Governor Philip relocated around one-third Sydney's population to Kingston.
Extensive clearing followed and both convicts and free settlers farmed small holdings of land. The rising land behind Kingston was cleared for surveillance and to ensure there was no cover for escaping convicts. The first settlement's population peaked at in May 1792. By 1804 the free settlers on the island significantly outnumbered the convicts who represented 23 percent of the total population of . On its abandonment in 1814 the settlement's buildings were destroyed.
The second settlement
In response to the report by Commissioner Bigge (1822–23) on the effectiveness of transportation, the Colonial Secretary Lord Bathurst instructed Governor Brisbane in 1824 to re-occupy the island as a 'great hulk or penitentiary' to provide secondary punishment. Secondary punishment was designed to revive the fear of transportation and deter crime in Britain and the colonies, and was a sentence applied to transported convicts who re-offended in the colony.