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Convict's black and yellow woollen work jacket, from Campbell Street Goal, Hobart, late 1850s

This black and yellow chain-gang jacket is representative of parti-coloured uniforms of yellowand black or dark brown worn by the worst of prisoners: those assigned to hard labour and government work in chain-gangs. Parti-coloured uniforms were known colloquially as ‘magpie’. This particular jacket is from Campbell Street Gaol in Hobart, which opened as a barracks for male convicts in 1821 and closed in 1960

Source

National Museum of Australia

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