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Privatising History at Boggo Road Gaol
This post can be viewed in PDF format here. It is an article called 'Privatising History at Boggo Road Gaol' and is taken from next month's Boggo Road Bugle #52. It looks at some of the problems...
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Look, nobody is going to sue you for sharing a story...
The attempted privatisation of Boggo Road Gaol has raised a number of important issues relating to the practice and presentation of History. On one hand, when you visit the gaol you can only hear this...
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1948: Reds in the Cell Beds
Courier-Mail, October 1949.With no apparent sense of irony, columnists for News Ltd have recently used their coast-to-coast media platforms to complain about proposed new laws that they claimed would...
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It warms the cockles of my heart
We have put our petition for 'A Better Future for Boggo Road' online, basically demanding that Boggo Road Gaol is run for public benefit and is not privatised by the Queensland Government. If you...
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The Kindness of Strangers
My last blog article looked at some of the wonderful comments left by people on our petition for a better (non-privatised) future for Boggo Road Gaol. The signatures have kept coming, giving us a...
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At Boggo Road, There Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing
This is Eddie. Eddie is happy for me to tell his story but he’s a bit reluctant to show himself on the Internet and Eddie is not his real name. He is, however, a real person. I have known him for...
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The Kindness of Strangers, Part 3
Here's the third installment of comments from our 'Better Future for Boggo Road' petition over at change.org. Once again a big thanks to everyone who has signed so far, especially those who leave...
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Can we run Boggo Road? Yes We Can!
IMPORTANT UPDATE HERECan we run Boggo Road?YES. WE. CAN.Okay, some jolly nice person has been very kindly putting it about that the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society doesn’t have the 'commercial...
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The Last Hanging: Remembering 1913 and all that
We historians get very busy when centenaries come around. I found that out back in 2003 when the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society organised the Centenary Open Day tomark the opening of Boggo Road’s...
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Prison Numbers: Boggo Road Visitor Stats
"Statistics may be defined as "a body of methods for making wise decisions in the face of uncertainty."(Wilson Allen Wallis)Public Works recently stated that 3,000 people visited Boggo Road Gaol in the...
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Can we run Boggo Road? Yes We Can!
IMPORTANT UPDATE HERECan we run Boggo Road?YES. WE. CAN.Okay, some jolly nice person has been very kindly putting it about that the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society doesn’t have the 'commercial...
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'Haunts of Brisbane' Goes Live!
Busy, busy, busy... Liam Baker and myself spent several hours in Brisbane city centre last night exploring the out-of-the-way streets and places of historical interest. Why? We have been busy preparing...
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Boggo Blog Springcleaning
Over the next few weeks this blog will be undergoing some renovation. Not so much in the way it looks, because God knows I've fiddled with that stuff enough, but more in the content side of things....
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Know Your Colonial Gaol History #4: Petrie Terrace 1860-83 (Part Two)
(See here for Part One of this article)Conditions at Petrie TerraceOvercrowding soon became as much of a problem at Petrie Terrace as it had been at the older Queen Street gaol. The visiting surgeon...
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Beer Ahoy!
In the classic 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore!, the unwelcomely sober lives of the inhabitants of the Hebridean island of Todday are considerably enlivened when they realise a cargo ship sinking off...
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The Story of the 'Executed Prisoners' Plaque.
‘Some traces of antiquity are so faint that only contrivance secures their recognition. In the absence of signposts, how many visitors to an old battlefield could tell that it was an historical site?...
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Know Your Colonial Gaol History #5: The first Rockhampton Gaol 1864-84
Rockhampton Wharf, 1888.This prison was officially proclaimed open on 29 March 1864, making Rockhampton the secondtown in Queensland (after Brisbane) to have such a facility. Prior to the building...
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Prison Numbers: Boggo Road Visitor Stats
"Statistics may be defined as "a body of methods for making wise decisions in the face of uncertainty."(Wilson Allen Wallis)Public Works recently stated that 3,000 people visited Boggo Road Gaol in the...
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Know Your Colonial Gaol History #6: Toowoomba Gaol, 1864-1903
This is the sixth article in a Boggo Blog series about Queensland’s 19th-century prison system, and this one takes us to the Darling Downs town of Toowoomba. Toowoomba, 1888.In 1864 Toowoomba became...
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War & Peace & the Inala Civic Centre
(Photo: Leong Ming)It was a striking sight. I was drinking tea at a shaded table on the side of the square when a Muslim woman walked past, dressed head to toe in a black burqa, a niqab covering her...
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