Think back to some of the truly classic documentary series'. Clark's Civilisation; Bronowski's Ascent of Man; Attenborough's Life on Earth; Sagan's Cosmos; and Burns'The Civil War. Can we now add Dawson's Know Your Colonial Gaol History to that list? No we can't.
Since 2012 I have posted the occasional article about the 19th-century Queensland penal system. Together these articles are forming the Know Your Colonial Gaol History series and attracting a readership stretching into high single figures. Such is life on a niche blog. Having recently reached the halfway point with #11 (yes, there's going to be at least 22 of these), now would be a good time to collate all the articles so far posted into a one-stop shop. And here it is.
The second half of the Know Your Colonial Gaol History series will follow the expanding frontier deeper into colonial Queensland, reaching as far as Blackall, Normanton and Thursday Island. New prisons also replaced the older structures in the major towns and cities as the penal system maintained the pattern - still seen today - of struggling to keep up with a growing prison population.
The series should be complete any year now. The colonial gaol history of Queensland is a lot more extensive and interesting that you might imagine...
Since 2012 I have posted the occasional article about the 19th-century Queensland penal system. Together these articles are forming the Know Your Colonial Gaol History series and attracting a readership stretching into high single figures. Such is life on a niche blog. Having recently reached the halfway point with #11 (yes, there's going to be at least 22 of these), now would be a good time to collate all the articles so far posted into a one-stop shop. And here it is.
The penal settlement that formed the basis of Brisbane was established in the 1820s. Home to convicts who had reoffended since their arrival in the Australian colonies, discipline was a pressing issue and imprisonment was not always an option. The first purpose-built incarceration facilities opened in 1828. |  |
Brisbane's first official prison opened in 1850 on the site of what is now the General Post Office, Queen Street. This had previously been the former 'Female Factory', used to confine female convicts in the penal settlement days. Already falling apart when it first opened, the Queen Street gaol was a 'gingerbread structure' that did not last long. |  |
Queensland became a separate colony from New South Wales in 1859, and the first new public building to open was a prison on Petrie Terrace. Although a big improvement on the Queen Street facility, it soon proved to be too small. |  |
This building was proclaimed a gaol for women in 1863 but was only used to hold short-term inmates awaiting trial or transfer elsewhere. Despite this, the gaol still attracted criticism as it suffered all the society-shocking problems usually associated with confining inmates in the common wards of larger facilities. |  |
The new colony expanded rapidly during the 1860s, and the prison system had to grow with it. Having a prison was something of a status symbol for the emerging regional towns, and it was Rockhampton, on the central coast, that became the second town in Queensland to have such a facility. |  |
Toowoomba, the administrative centre of the Darling Downs region, was the third Queensland town to have its own prison. As with Rockhampton, this also meant hosting executions in the yards of the prison. In later years the prison became a female-only facility, much to the chagrin of 'respectable' citizens. |  |
As Brisbane's penal authorities struggled to keep up with the booming prison population during the 1860s, a short-term solution was found in holding some prisoners on old ships on the Brisbane River. Initially the barque Julia Percy was used, and then more famously the barque Proserpine, which later became a boys' reformatory. |  |
Brisbane's second 1860s prison was opened on the Moreton Bay island of St Helena in 1867, taking some of the load from Petrie Terrace when long-term inmates were transferred there. St Helena proved to be one of Queensland's longest lasting and most interesting incarceration facilities. |  |
The colony continued to expand during the 1870s and so Roma, in the Western Downs, became the next regional centre to have a prison. In its heyday it was the unwanted home of cattle thieves and striking shearers, but like many of the regional Queensland prisons that followed, its days were numbered. |  |
11. Maryborough (1877) The central coast town of Maryborough was considered too small to warrant having its own prison, but needed one to host an execution scheduled to take place in the town in 1877. The police lock-up was therefore proclaimed to be a prison for the duration of the macabre event. |  |
The second half of the Know Your Colonial Gaol History series will follow the expanding frontier deeper into colonial Queensland, reaching as far as Blackall, Normanton and Thursday Island. New prisons also replaced the older structures in the major towns and cities as the penal system maintained the pattern - still seen today - of struggling to keep up with a growing prison population.
The series should be complete any year now. The colonial gaol history of Queensland is a lot more extensive and interesting that you might imagine...