- by Karen Pittar
- 7 March 2019
A selection of convict tokens is on show in the Museum's Landmarks gallery.
Imagine being sent across the globe, leaving behind your family and friends with no possibility of contact – ever. How would you farewell them? What would you leave behind as a memento?
For convicts waiting to be transported from England to Australia, an engraved token was a personal way of saying goodbye – a message of love and anguish.
These tokens were made by smoothing the surface of a coin and engraving it with messages and pictures to leave with loved ones. The National Museum is home to 315 convict tokens – the largest single collection in the world.
Sophie Jensen, Senior Curator
The stories within each token are powerful, they are individual and emotional and we are adding to them all the time. The tokens receive a lot of interest, especially from families who have explored their ancestry and found one of the tokens is part of their own story.
The Museum's dedicated convict tokens website includes high resolution photographs of both sides of every token in the collection, with visitors encouraged to read transcripts, leave comments and ask questions.
Convict tokens
One of the more decorative coins is believed to have been carved by 29-year-old shipwright Henry Barton in 1825. Made for Elizabeth, Henry entreats her to remember him as he leaves England for ‘Two Years Slavery’.
This emotive and poignant token is as a key object on the In Canberra website, an initiative between Visit Canberra, Schwartz Media and Australia’s national cultural institutions – showcasing Canberra as the cultural capital.
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