In 1823 he was appointed lieutenant governor of Van Diemen's Land (later known as Tasmania). He arrived on the ship with his wife and family on 12 May 1824 and took office on 14 May. At the time Van Diemen's Land was the main British penal colony and it was separated from New South Wales in 1825. It was during Arthur's time in office that Van Diemen's Land gained much of its notorious reputation as a harsh penal colony. He selected Port Arthur as the ideal location for a prison settlement, on a peninsula connected by a narrow, easily guarded isthmus, surrounded by shark-infested seas. Arthur's predecessors had executed no one in Tasmania (capital punishment was carried out in Sydney); he executed 260 in his term of office (some bodies were left hanging for months)