Review of Vandemonians: The Repressed History of Colonial Victoria by Janet McCalman

Abstract

In Vandemonians (2021), Janet McCalman brings together the shocking and the quotidian to explore the lives of ex- Van Diemen’s Land convicts who lived in nineteenth-century Victoria. The renowned social historian, best known for Struggletown (1984), shows that Victoria, presumably free of the ‘convict stain’ which haunted other colonies, was actually home to thousands of former Tasmanian prisoners who led rich and varied lives that were often marred by violence and poverty.