HM Prison Pentridge
HM Prison Pentridge was an
Australian prison built in
1850 and located in
Coburg,
Victoria. The prison officially closed on
May 1 1997.Pentridge was often known by the nickname
The Bluestone College.The prison has since been partly demolished to make way for a housing development. The front gate area remains.
The
1994 Australian film
Everynight ... Everynight details prison life inside Pentridge's H Division.
1850s
As a result of a greatly increased crime rate during the
Victorian gold rush, the government decided to establish a number of penal stockades. HM Prison Pentridge (a former name of Coburg) was built to receive, in December 1850, sixteen prisoners from the overcrowded
Melbourne Gaol. Pentridge was thought to be a good place for a prison, being near
Melbourne, yet isolated from it.
The site chosen was the only available
Crown land left unsold at the time. The purpose of the stockade was to provide labour for the construction of the newly proclaimed
Sydney Road. There was a lot of
bluestone in the area so the prisoners could do 'hard labour' breaking up the stone and working on the unmade road.
Residents were frightened and angry because the stockade consisted only of log huts on wheels behind a low 1.2 metre wooden fence with prisoners guarded by an inadequate number of overseers. Because it was so insecure, mounted aboriginal troopers (police) were employed to patrol its perimeter. The first superintendent of the stockade was Mr Samuel Barrow.
Prisoners worked, slept and were fed in chains. People passing sometimes talked to chain gangs working on the road and gave them tobacco. Prisoners slept on wooden benches and ate standing outside in all weather. Those who broke rules or refused to work were punished by wearing heavier irons or given solitary confinement on bread and water. Some were flogged. Prisoners could only have one letter or visit every three months. The worst punishment was to be sent to the hulks, the floating prison boats moored at
Williamstown.
In the period
1857 to
1864 the stockade was transformed into a typical
Pentonville-type prison. Single cells replaced the dormitory accommodation of the earlier stockade, and high external bluestone walls with towers for sentries were built providing a much higher level of security.
1870 - 1900
'A' division was designed as a women's prison and remained as such until
1871 when female prisoners were transferred to the
Melbourne Gaol. By 1870 there were 650 male and female prisoners and 100 staff. A new three-storey building was erected in 1894 to accommodate the then 195 female prisoners. It was supervised by a female governor and staff and continued until 1956 when Fairlea Female Prison was opened. The three-storey building then became a remand prison known as 'D' Division
1900s
Prisoners worked in various industries such as the woollen mill, bakery, printery, tailor's shop, garden, library or in the labour yard rock-breaking. A car number-plate manufactory was established in
1962. By
1945, prisoners were allowed one visit per month and to receive and send one letter a fortnight.
1950 – 1970
In the 1950s and 1960s the prison became a bit more humane. Prisoners could study, join a debating team and some acted and put on plays. By 1970 there were over 1000 prisoners.
With the closure of the Melbourne Gaol in
1926 all executions in
Victoria had been carried out in Pentridge. The last man hanged there was
Ronald Ryan in
1967. He had been found guilty of killing a
prison officer, George Hodson during a prison escape.
Closure
For a long time, Coburg Council tried to have the prison moved or closed. From 1984, drugs and general unrest in the prisons gave rise to rioting and strikes. In 1994, the State Government announced its program to privatise prisons. In May 1997 the northern half of the prison was officially closed and the prisoners sent elsewhere. June 1997 saw the beginning of public tours of the prison. The southern part of the prison closed on 28 November that year and in 1999 the site was sold and is now being developed as housing estates, parklands and business precinct.
The prison was split into many divisions, named using letters of the alphabet.
* A - short and long-term prisoners of good behavior
* B - long-term prisoners with behavior problems
* D - remand prisoners
* E - similar to "A"
* F - remand and short-term
* G - psychiatric problems
* H - high security, discipline and protection
* J - long-term with record of good behavior
* Jika Jika - maximum security risk and for protection, later renamed to K Division
Jika Jika high security unit
Jika Jika was the name of a 'gaol within a gaol' maximum security section, designed to house Victoria's hardest and longest serving prisoners. It was awarded the 'Excellence in Concrete Award' by the Concrete Institute of Australia before being closed in the middle of controversy after the deaths of five prisoners in 1987.
The design of Jika Jika was based on the idea of six separate units at the end of radiating spines. The unit comprised electronic doors, closed-circuit TV and remote locking, designed to keep staff costs to a minimum and security to a maximum. The furnishings were sparse and prisoners exercised in aviary-like escape proof yards.
In 1983 four prisoners escaped from ‘escape proof' Jika Jika. When two prison officers were disciplined in relation to the Jika Jika escape a weeklong strike occurred.
1987 Jika Jika prison fire
In a protest initiated by conditions in Jika Jika, inmates Robert Wright,
Jimmy Loughnan, Arthur Gallagher, David McGauley, Ricky Morris and
Craig 'Slim' Minogue sealed off their section doors with a tennis net. Mattresses and other bedding were then stacked against the doors. The windows in the day room were then covered with paper so the prison officers couldn't identify which prisoners caused the ensuing damage.
Plumbing was then torn from the walls in the cells to enable the prisoners to breathe for when the fire was started, as Jika Jika was completely free of any fresh air whatsoever. It was a climate controlled division.
In spite of the men's attempts to avoid the toxic black smoke by breathing through the plumbing, convicted
Russell Street bomber Craig Minogue was the sole survivor of the fire.
Attorney General and Minister for Corrections Jim Kennan ordered the closure of the Jika Jika maximum security section of Pentridge Prison immediately after a 1987 riot and fatal fire.
|
Ned Kelly the day before his execution by hanging. His remains are buried at the former Pentridge Prison site. |
The grave site of bushranger
Ned Kelly and also
Ronald Ryan lies within the former walls of Pentridge Prison. Kelly was executed by
hanging at the
Melbourne Gaol in
1880 and his remains moved to Pentridge Prison in 1929, after his skeleton was disturbed on
April 12,
1929, by workmen constructing the present
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) building. The gravesite, as of 2005, is covered in many weeds and is largely unkept by the developers, who have fenced off the area until a decision is made on its upkeep. Reverend
Peter Norden, former
prison chaplain at Pentridge Prison is campaining for the sites restoration.
*
Dennis Allen, oldest member of the
Pettingill family. {d. 1987)
*
Garry David, (d. 1993), also known as
Garry Webb, responsible for the
Community Protection Act 1990*
Peter Dupas, Australian serial killer
*
Christopher Dale Flannery, aka Mr Rent-a-Kill, hitman
*
Ned Kelly,
bushranger*
Julian Knight, murdered 7 people in the
Hoddle Street Massacre *
Eddie Leonski, the
Brownout Strangler*
Derryn Hinch, Author and broadcaster
*
Clarrie O'Shea, trade unionist
*
Craig 'Slim' Minogue,
Russell Street Bomber*
John Nicholls,
Carlton footballer
*
Kevin Murray,
Fitzroy footballer,
Brownlow Medal winner
*
Frank Penhalluriack*
Victor Peirce, member of the Pettingill family, acquitted of the 1988
Walsh Street police shootings. Killed in 2002.
*
Harry Power,
bushranger*
Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read, Author
*
Gregory David Roberts, Author of
Shantaram, escapee of Pentridge who fled to
India*
Ronald Ryan - last person to be executed in Victoria in
1967*
Maxwell Charles Skinner, constant escapee, infamous for commandeering a Coburg Tram in one of his escapes
*
Squizzy Taylor, gangster
*
Stan Taylor, actor and convicted
Russell Street bomber* 1850's Pentridge 'F' Division opened
* 1870's 'G' Division opened as an Industrial Reformatory School
* 1894 Female prison at Pentridge ('D' Division)
* 1967 last execution in Victoria -
Ronald Ryan* Between 1842 and 1967 186 prisoners were executed
* October 1987 - Five prisoners die in a fire in Jika Jika during riots over prison conditions.
Craig Minogue is the sole survivor.
*
May 1,
1997 - Pentridge Prison is closed.
