Covering the period from 1839 until 1853, the Journal begins as a preparation for a memoir and becomes more personalised as tragic events in his family life overtook him. Later Boyd was to become the first Civil Commandant of Port Arthur and the Tasman Peninsula between 1853 and 1871.

Chest belonging to H. O’Reilly. Soldier Bernard Henry O’Reilly was stationed at the Eaglehawk Neck, Dog Line in March, 1849. The chest is believed to be of military manufacture.

Architectural crowns that were formerly part of the Military Barracks building at the Port Arthur settlement. The Barracks where dismantled as part of the conditions of sale at the end of the convict period and these Crowns spent a significant part of their life as garden ornaments in a Hobart suburb before being returned to the site in 1998.

This wedge was found at the Port Arthur Historic Site. Weighing in the vicinity of eighteen kilograms this artefact graphically demonstrates the heavy nature of the labour the convicts were subjected to. The fractures running along the wedge with the smoothing of the top testifies to the constancy of their drudgery.