Medicine in Prisons

Surgeon, coroner, health officer, vaccinator

The role of medical practitioners in NSW prisons has a long and complex history, but the nature of that relationship has changed dramatically over time.

The earliest available evidence shows that hospitals or infirmaries were included in prison planning and construction in NSW. On Goulburn Gaol’s completion in June 1847, for example, the building was considered “unsophisticated” and “badly built” leading to decades of reparations. One of the first changes made was to add hospital wards. As historian James Semple Kerr points out,

‘James Sinclair was the first to work on the completed gaol. In 1848 he created male and female hospital wards in the cell range by removing cell walls and enlarging windows…’

James Semple Kerr, 1994

Prevailing ideas about hospital architecture were very influential in the design of prisons from the 1800s. Yet the role of medical people within prisons went through several major changes.

Under the transportation system, ships’ surgeons played a key role in overseeing the health of convicts during the voyage from England. Those appointed as surgeons in the service of the colonial government were influential in the penal colony’s bureaucracy and shaped the experience of convictism in NSW.

After the legislative changes introduced in the 1840s, coinciding with the end of transportation to NSW, responsibility for prisons was ostensibly transferred to prison governors. However, while the relevant gaol and the local professional community played some role in the appointment of prison doctors, the final decision remained firmly in the hands of the Department of Prisons, the Comptroller General of Prisons and ultimately the Minister for Justice.