Details

Latitude

-26.5695

Longitude

148.773

Start Date

1872

End Date

1923

Roma Gaol was used to receive inmates convicted of minor offences resulting in sentences of 12 months or less. In 1903 it was reclassified from a prison to a police gaol that could only receive prisoners serving sentences of 30 days or less. It served in this capacity until 1923, when it was demolished.

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Details

Latitude

-42.0333

Longitude

147.494

Start Date

1848

End Date

1854

Built in the early 1940s as a probation station for male convicts working on road gangs, the Ross site was converted into a workhouse for female convicts in 1848. The Police Department took over the buildings after the factory closed in 1854. Today the only remaining building is the Overseer's Cottage, which contains a historical display about the site that is open to the public.

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Latitude

-31.0736

Longitude

150.923

Start Date

1881

End Date

2999

In 1881, a purpose-built prison opened in Johnston Street, Tamworth to take over the function of the town's earlier gaol, which was regarded as no longer fit for purpose. It received mostly short-sentence prisoners sentenced from the surrounding area. In 1943 the gaol was closed. Five years later, the gaol became the Tamworth Institution for Boys, and was used as a place of secondary punished for boys aged 15 to 18 years who had absconded from or committed offences in other facilities. Conditions at the institution were particularly harsh. In 1976 it became known as Endeavour House, but continued to act as a maximum-security juvenile detention centre for boys convicted of or charged with serious crimes. A spate of suicides at the institution led to its closure in 1990.?In 1991 the facility reopened as an adult prison.?Today Tamworth Correctional Centre is a?medium-security, 89-bed prison for males.

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Details

Latitude

-34.4874

Longitude

150.336

Start Date

1839

End Date

2011

Established in 1839, this site has continued to be used as a criminal detention centre on and off right though to today. The gaol was initially constructed using convict labour to house locally-convicted prisoners from the surrounding areas. In 1866 it was renovated to act as a 'model prison' in line with current penal reform ideas, which included the provision of separate cells for each prisoner. All prisoners sent to the gaol spent at least one year in solitary before gradually being given opportunities to interact with other prisoners during work and exercise periods. The gaol closed in 1909, and during World War One was used as a German internment camp. During the interwar era it acted as a police station, with the gaol open for public inspection as a place of historic interest. From 1944 it was rebuilt using prison labour, and reopened as the Berrima Training Centre in 1948, functioning as a minimum security prison for men. In 2001 it became an all-female prison instead, before being closed in 2011. In 2016 it was reopened to cope with New South Wales' growing prison population.

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Details

Latitude

-43.137

Longitude

147.846

Start Date

1830

End Date

1877

Port Arthur was used as a penal colony for transported convicts from 1833 until the cessation of transportation in 1853. Juvenile convicts were also received at Port Arthur at the Point Puer prison, which received boys as young as nine.?Port Arthur was considered a particularly secure location, being both remote and surrounded by water on three sides. The site continued to be used as a prison after the cessation of transportation, with Port Arthur prison considered a model of the "Silent System" in which prisoners were kept separate from each other at all times.?This led to high rates of mental illness among inmates. The prison closed in 1877. Today it is a heritage site that is open to the visiting public.

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Details

Latitude

-37.903

Longitude

144.861

Start Date

1853

End Date

1868

The Success was purchased along with the other hulks?to cope with the increased population and crime that followed the discovery of gold in Victoria. In 1857, convicts from the?Success?murdered Superintendent of Prisons?John Price. The hulk was later used to receive female prisoners until 1868. It was then put to various governmental purposed until 1890, when it was outfitted as a travelling museum about convict life. This display was not a commercial success, and the ship was scuttled, but was then refloated in 1893, with the convict museum travelling around the world, including to San Francisco in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. A fire destroyed the ship in 1945.

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Details

Latitude

-42.8937

Longitude

147.299

Start Date

1828

End Date

1856

This purpose-built workhouse for female convicts operated from 1828 to 1856. Female transportees would be housed there upon their first arrival in the colony until they could be sent out to assigned service with an appropriate family; assigned women would also be returned to the factory for disobedience or rule-breaking. The factory's location in a damp, swampy area led to high rates of disease among inmates, exacerbated by overcrowding. In 1869, more than a decade after its use as a female convict factory had ceased, the site became a reformatory for boys who were homeless or had been convicted of offences by the courts. At the reformatory boys would receive a basic education, work on farmland attached to the institution, or be apprenticed out to employers. The reformatory closed in 1876, but in 1884 the site was again opened as an alternative facility to prison for juvenile offenders, now known as the Boys' Training School. The Boys' Training School was transferred to a new site in New Town in 1896. Today the remaining Cascades buildings form a heritage site that is open to the visiting public.

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Details

Latitude

-42.7361

Longitude

147.44

Start Date

1825

End Date

1920

This gaol was established as colonists moved away from Hobart Town in search of more farming land, bringing with them convicts to act as unpaid labour. The township of Richmond was proclaimed in 1824, with the gaol and a courthouse opening the following year. The small gaol was often overcrowded, with prisoners forced to sleep in the passageways. After the cessation of convict transportation, the gaol was simply used as holding cells by the local police, before being entirely abandoned in 1920s. Today the gaol is a heritage site open to visitors.

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Details

Latitude

-41.4398

Longitude

147.134

Start Date

1827

End Date

1917

This gaol was built in Paterson Street, Launceston to accommodate convicts sent as labour to colonists in northern Tasmania, as well as receive locally-convicted prisoners from the surrounding area. After the cessation of transportation in 1853, it was mainly converted to the latter purpose, receiving men, women and children as prisoners. By 1900, it was being used only for short-sentence prisoners. In 1917, it ceased operations with the construction of a police watch-house a few blocks away.

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Details

Latitude

-37.2796

Longitude

142.959

Start Date

1863

End Date

1989

Ararat Gaol, the design of which was based on London's Pentonville prison, opened in 1863. It was run as a gaol until 1886. Following some alterations, the former gaol was made a special ward of the Ararat Asylum in 1887. J Ward was used to accommodate persons convicted of crimes who were considered mentally unfit. It continued to be used for this purpose until 1989. Today it is the site of the Melbourne Polytechnic Ararat Training Centre, which runs a vineyard and winery where students can learn about the wine business. However, public tours detailing the history of gaol and asylum buildings are available by booking.

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Details

Latitude

-23.7277

Longitude

133.864

Start Date

1904

End Date

1909

This small wooden police hut was the first prison in Central Australia. The first prisoners committed there were eight Aboriginal males (including two boys aged 14 and 16), who had been convicted of 'larceny of beef' or cattle killing. Sentences in the group ranged from 14 days hard labour for the two teenage boys to up to 6 months hard labour for the adults. All six escaped from the gaol but were eventually recaptured. The Heavitree Gap Gaol closed in 1909 when the purpose-built Stuart Town Gaol opened. The wooden gaol hut no longer exists, but restored stone buildings associated with the police station were declared a historical reserve in 1979.

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Details

Latitude

-33.8476

Longitude

151.171

Start Date

1841

End Date

1909

Cockatoo Island was declared?a gaol in 1839 due to the imminent closure of the Norfolk Island convict establishment. Convict barracks were built, and became occupied in 1841. In 1869 the remaining prisoners were transferred from the Island to Darlinghurst Gaol, and the prison buildings became the Biloela industrial school and reformatory for delinquent girls from 1871. Following the closure of the Biloela reformatory in 1888, male prisoners were again sent to the island. The gaol continued to function until 1909. The Cockatoo Island Prison Barracks Precinct is now a heritage site and is open to the visiting public.

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Details

Latitude

-32.0559

Longitude

115.741

Start Date

1831

End Date

1900

The first permanent building of the Swan River Colony, which had been established two years earlier in 1829, the Round House at Fremantle is today the oldest extant building in Western Australia. Based on Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon design, the prison consisted of eight cells and a gaoler's residence. It was used to house colonial and Indigenous prisoners until 1886, when convicted locals began being sent to Fremantle Prison (formerly a prison for convict transportees) instead. The Round House remained in use as a police lockup until 1900. Today the site is a heritage tourist attraction.

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Details

Latitude

-27.3887

Longitude

153.233

Start Date

1867

End Date

1932

In 1866, prisoners who were being kept aboard the prison hulk Proserpine began to be taken ashore St Helena Island each day to work on buildings intended to act as a new quarantine station. However, because the gaol facility at Petrie Terrace in Brisbane was becoming so congested, it was decided to use the buildings under construction as a gaol instead. Even after the opening of a new prison in Brisbane at Boggo Road in 1883, St Helena Island continued to be used as a secure prison for the colony's worst offenders, predominantly those convicted of serious violence. The prison closed in 1932. Today the island is a tourist destination, with visitors able to take guided tours about the prison's history.

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Details

Latitude

-42.639

Longitude

148.066

Start Date

1825

End Date

1932

Between 1825 and 1832, Maria Island operated as a penal colony that was conceived of as a compromise between the harsh conditions at Macquarie Harbour and the less stringent security of work in a chain gang building roads. Due to numerous escape attempts and disciplinary problems, the remaining convict population was relocated to Port Arthur in 1832. In 1842 the site was reopened as a probation station,??but was closed due to overcrowding in 1850. Today the island is a national park.

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Details

Latitude

-41.4397

Longitude

147.133

Start Date

1834

End Date

1855

Opened as a work-house for female convicts, the site operated as a female factory until 1855. It then operated as a gaol until 1914, when it was demolished to build Launceston High School (today Launceston College).

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Details

Latitude

-37.8077

Longitude

144.965

Start Date

1845

End Date

1924

The gaol was established in 1845, but by 1850 it was already over-crowded, and the population influx brought by the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851 quickly necessitated extensions (which were based on London's Pentonville Model Prison).?Detailed records of daily life inside the gaol are provided by the?diaries?of John Castieau, governor of the gaol between 1869 and 1884. Men, women and children were all imprisoned in the gaol. The youngest prisoner (not counting those infants born inside or accompanying their mothers) was a three-year-old convicted for being an idle and disorderly character in 1857. There were 135 hangings at the gaol, including infamous bushranger?Ned Kelly?and nineteenth-century serial killer?Frederick Bailey Deeming. The gaol was closed in 1924, although during World War Two it was used as a military prison. Although part of the gaol was demolished, today the remaining buildings operate as a prison museum.

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Details

Latitude

-42.877

Longitude

147.327

Start Date

1821

End Date

1963

Built by convict labour, this gaol was originally used to house male convicts, with accommodations for 640 men. However, extensions across the 1820s soon meant the gaol could house twice that figure. From 1846 it was increasingly used as a civilian prison, especially after the cessation of transportation to Tasmania in 1853. It was the site of 32 executions between 1857 and 1946. The gaol finally closed in 1963, following the establishment of a new facility, Risdon Prison,?a few years earlier. A small group of gaol buildings remain intact at the corner of Campbell and Brisbane Street, now known as the Penitentiary Chapel Historic Site, which is open to the visiting public.

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Details

Latitude

-42.9882

Longitude

147.717

Start Date

1833

End Date

1848

Located about 23 kilometres from Port Arthur, the Saltwater River Penal Colony consisted of both an agricultural settlement and a coal mine, known for its particularly hellish working conditions. The penal colony closed in 1848. The ruins of the convict buildings at the Coal Mines Historic Site now fall under the administration of Port Arthur, and can be explored via a walking trail through the area.

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Details

Latitude

-33.7987

Longitude

151.001

Start Date

1821

End Date

1848

This purpose-built facility was used to house convict women until they could be assigned to service in a respectable family, and also as a place of detention for those who had broken regulations while in assigned service. The factory also acted as a prison for women who committed a crime in the colony. Linen, wool and linsey woolsey were manufactured on site, with women also set to spinning, knitting, straw plaiting, washing, cleaning duties, rock breaking and oakum picking. In 1827, the factory was the site of Australia's first industrial action when women rioted in response to a cut in their rations. With the end of convict transportation to the colony, the site was converted into a lunatic and invalid asylum in 1848. Today the buildings form part of the Cumberland Hospital and New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry.

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Details

Latitude

-33.8693

Longitude

151.213

Start Date

1819

End Date

1847

Upon opening in 1819, the Hyde Park Barracks provided accommodation for male convicts transported to the New South Wales penal colony. It ceased to be used for this purpose in 1848, becoming instead an Immigration Depot for newly-arrived female migrants. From 1862 it was an asylum for destitute women. In 1887 it was converted into law courts, operating as such until 1979. Today the Hyde Park Barracks operates as a history museum.

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Details

Latitude

-31.9496

Longitude

115.862

Start Date

1854

End Date

1888

The transportation of convicts to Western Australia from 1850 provided a labour force for public works, and a need for a facility to house inmates near the city. Initially the gaol was used for colonially-convicted prisoners, but from 1858 such prisoners were transferred to Fremantle Prison and Perth Gaol was used as accommodation for convicts transported from Britain. In 1875 the gaol reverted to use as a prison for locally-convicted inmates, following the cessation of transportation to Western Australia in 1868.?By 1886 there were reports that the gaol was overcrowded, and the prison closed in 1888. Since 1891 the building has been used as a museum, originally for geological and natural history artefacts. The gaol now forms part of the larger Western Australian museum complex, sitting behind the main building.

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Details

Latitude

-27.4708

Longitude

153.023

Start Date

1828

End Date

1842

Built of stone, the prisoners' barracks at Moreton Bay was the largest building in the area when they opened in 1828, having accommodation for 1,000 convicts. The Moreton Bay penal colony and its barracks? closed in 1842.

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Details

Latitude

-27.4674

Longitude

153.028

Start Date

1829

End Date

1834

A Female Factory was established at the Moreton Bay penal colony in 1829. As many as 138 women convicts lived and worked within this small building, many employed picking oakum from frayed ropes. The Moreton Bay Female Factory ceased being used as a convict establishment in 1834, when all the female convicts were transferred to Eagle Farm. The building?became Brisbane's first prison in 1850, then a police court. Today it is the site of Queen Street's General Post Office.

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Details

Latitude

-42.3882

Longitude

145.448

Start Date

1822

End Date

1833

This penal station was established as a place for the worst convicts, particularly those who had escaped from other settlements. Despite its isolated condition, there were a considerable number of escape attempts from the island. Its most infamous escapee was Alexander Pearce, who managed to get away twice, and on both occasions cannibalised his fellow escapees. Convicts at the penal station were set to logging and shipbuilding, but the lack of suitable land for food production on the island led to high levels of malnutrition. Living conditions were also overcrowded and the imposition of floggings was common. Some prisoners preferred execution than a transfer to the island. The penal station was closed in 1833, with the remaining convicts transferred to Port Arthur. The settlement ruins - though not very well-preserved - are today a heritage site, along with the rest of the island.

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Details

Latitude

-33.8793

Longitude

151.218

Start Date

1841

End Date

1914

Construction on the gaol began in 1822 using convict labour, but the site was abandoned for over a decade before the funds were found to complete some of the cell blocks, allowing the first prisoners to be received in 1841.?76 people were hanged at the gaol during its period of usage, including bushranger Andrew George Scott aka "Captain Moonlite", and the last woman executed in New South Wales,?Louisa Collins, hanged in 1889 for poisoning her husband. The gaol closed in 1914, following the construction of new facilities at Long Bay Gaol. Darlinghurst Gaol was used as an internment cap during World War One, and since 1921?the site has been inhabited by the National School of Art.

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Details

Latitude

-27.4708

Longitude

153.023

Start Date

1824

End Date

1828

Moreton Bay (later Brisbane) was established as a penal colony in 1824, used as a place of secondary transportation for hardened convicts who had been convicted of further offences after arriving in New South Wales. Upon arrival a temporary wooden building was established to house convicts on Queen Street (now the city's main thoroughfare), in the vicinity of today's Brisbane Square. It was used until stone structures were opened in 1828.

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Details

Latitude

-33.8028

Longitude

151

Start Date

1804

End Date

1821

The first Parramatta Female Factory was built near Parramatta Gaol, on what is now Prince Alfred Square. Within a decade, however, increasing numbers of convict women in the penal colony meant the facility was no longer adequate. A suitable site was found further up the Parramatta River for building a new female factory, which opened in 1821, allowing the closure of the first facility.

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Details

Latitude

-42.877

Longitude

147.327

Start Date

1821

End Date

1829

Due to the growing female convict population in Tasmania, in 1821 Governor Macquarie ordered that a small female factory be erected adjacent to the Hobart Town Gaol. The site's poor security led to frequent escapes from the factory during its years of operation, which ended in January 1829 when the final prisoners were transferred to the newly-built Cascades Female Factory. After the closure of the Female Factory in 1829 it was converted into shop premises.

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Details

Latitude

-27.4436

Longitude

153.09

Start Date

1834

End Date

1839

The suburb now known as Eagle Farm in Brisbane started to be cleared for agricultural cultivation by convicts in the Moreton Bay penal colony in 1829. By 1934, some of the women convicts had been moved there, working in the fields and as dairywomen. Stationing female convicts at Eagle Farm was also an attempt to reduce their fraternisation with male convicts and the military. In 1836, the construction of slab cells at Eagle Farm was undertaken, and the following year all remaining female prisoners in Brisbane were removed to Eagle Farm. In 1839, all remaining convict women were shipped out of Moreton Bay penal colony to Sydney, closing the Eagle Farm prison. Only the foundations of the prison survive.

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Details

Latitude

-41.1063

Longitude

146.825

Start Date

1822

End Date

1834

Initially this Female Factory where was simply a shed where female convicts would work at making woollen cloth and leather shoes during the day, then find lodging wherever they could in town at night. This changed in 1825, when the Factory was moved to the property of Reverend John Youl, and the women were housed onsite. However, as at the Hobart Female Factory, security on the site was poor, leading to riots and escape attempts. The operation closed in 1834, with the remaining prisoners sent to the Launceston Female Factory.

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Details

Latitude

-32.0548

Longitude

115.754

Start Date

1855

End Date

1991

While Swan River Colony was initially established in 1829 as a 'free settlement', by 1850 the need for a larger labour force convicts led to the introduction of transportation of convicts from Britain to Western Australia. Fremantle Prison was established to provide accommodation for these overseas convicts; some locally-convicted inmates were also held there from 1858. Penal transportation to Western Australia ended in 1868 and the number of convicts under sentence in the colony then gradually declined, so the prison eventually came under colonial control in 1886. Locally-convicted men from Perth Gaol were transferred to Fremantle, and from 1887 female prisoners were also sent there. The discovery of gold in Western Australia in 1890s swelled the population and prison numbers, and in the early twentieth century the gaol was considerably enlarged. Nevertheless, in 1911 a Royal Commission into Fremantle Prison recommended closing the facility due to its outdated conditions, but this recommendation was not acted upon. During both world wars the prison was used for the detention of military personnel accused of crimes, as well as an internment centre for enemy aliens and prisoners of war. Female inmates were removed from Fremantle in 1970. Despite growing pressure for prison reform, Fremantle Prison was slow to modernise, eventually leading to a major riot by dissatisfied prisoners in 1988.?The prison closed in 1991 and today operates as a museum about the gaol's history.

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Details

Latitude

-33.4178

Longitude

149.558

Start Date

1888

End Date

2999

Overcrowding and poor sanitation led to the construction of a new prison at Bathurst, which opened in 1888 with 308 cells. Up until the First World War, the gaol was mainly designated for receiving prisoners who were repeat offenders or considered unlikely to reform. However, from 1914 it began catering more to prisoners who - though previously convicted - were still considered 'hopeful cases'. During the Second World War the gaol was used as an internment camp for 'enemy aliens'. Its use as a prison resumed after the war. In 1970 the gaol was reclassified as a maximum-security prison. The 1970s saw multiple riots at the prison by inmates dissatisfied with their living conditions: there was no glass in the the windows, no heating in winter but extreme heat in summer, and a piggery operating just outside the gaol produced bad odours and attracted insects. The gaol facilities were criticised during the Nagle Royal Commission into the New South Wales prison system (1976-1978). In 1992, the prison's name was changed to Bathurst Correctional Centre. It remains operational today as a minimum to medium-security prison with capacity for 222 inmates.

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