‘Provocative in a good way’: John Hirst was a rigorous historian, independent thinker and passionate believer in Australia

Convict gang, Sydney – Augustus Earle (1830) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I first read John Hirst (1942-2016) as an undergraduate in the late 1990s as part of a subject on 19th-century Australian history. We discussed convict history and explored contrasting views about its role and function in the early colonies. What was life as a convict like? Was transportation a cruel punishment or a ticket to a better future? Could we compare the convict system to slavery?

Hirst’s Convict Society and Its Enemies was one of our required readings and I studied it with interest.