A Prison Within a Prison

A dilemma faced by the authorities of the early NSW penal colony was how to punish crimes perpetrated in the colony. As a penal colony, the whole British settlement was considered a prison of sorts. Nevertheless it was believed that both convicts and free-settlers who committed a crime in the Colony needed to face a separate retributive process.

For recalcitrant or recidivist convicts, transportation remained a favoured punishment: convicts from Botany Bay were shipped to Fort Denison (Pinchgut), Norfolk Island, Port Philip or Moreton Bay or (most fearsome) to Van Diemen’s Land, as a means to intensify their punishment.

For free settlers, a dedicated local prison was felt to be more appropriate. NSW’s first purpose-built prison emerged in 1798 in George Street Sydney with a matching prison in Parramatta. Made of wood (provided by the free settlers) both prisons were soon burnt to the ground.

Replacement prisons made of more durable (and secure) stone soon replaced them. Setting a pattern that would last well into modern times, these prisons were crowded, insanitary and a threat to the health of inmates. As Thomas Macquoid, High Sherriff of Sydney in the 1830s noted of the George Street gaol,

“At one stage, one hundred and ten male prisoners shared a dormitory 32 feet [9.7m] by 22 [6.7m], and 40 women with ten children shared the other dormitory of 27 feet [8.2m] by 22 feet!”

Both prisons were replaced in the 1840s with the large imposing structures in Parramatta and Darlinghurst that remain standing today.

Right: close detail of George Street gaol from below depiction of Sydney

Song of the Prison

by Henry Lawson (1867-1922)

OW THIS is the song of a prison - a song of a gaol or jug - A ballad of quod or of chokey, the ultimate home of the mug. The yard where the Foolish are drafted; Hell's school where the harmless are taught; For the big beast never is captured and the great thief never is caught. A song of the trollop's victim, and the dealer in doubtful eggs, And a song of the man who was ruined by the lie with a thousand legs. A song of suspected persons and rouge-and-vagabond pals, And of persons beyond suspicion - the habitual criminals. 'Tis a song of the weary warders, whom prisoners call "the screws" - A class of men who I fancy would cleave to the "Evening News." They look after their treasures sadly. By the screw of their keys they are known, And they screw them many times daily before they draw their own .… Staircase and doors of iron, no sign of a plank or brick, Ceilings and floors of sandstone, and the cell walls two feet thick; Cell like a large-sized coffin, or a small-sized tomb, and white, And it strikes a chill to the backbone on the warmest summer night. What avail is the prayer of the abbess? Or the raving of Cock-eyed Liz? The holy hermit in his cell, or the Holy Terror in his? Brothers and sisters of Heaven, seen through the bars in a wall, As we see the uncaught sinners - and God have mercy on all. wn,

Henry Lawson was imprisoned in Darlinghurst Gaol on many occasions for drunkenness and non-payment of alimony. Lawson referred to Darlinghurst as 'Starvinghurst Gaol' because of the miserly rations provided to the prisoners. His famous poem, One Hundred and Three, details his experience of incarceration in 1908. Lithograph, Wellcome Iconographic Collections. wellcomeimages.org