History of Fannie Bay Gaol
Fannie Bay Gaol was opened on the evening of 20 September 1883 with a total of 31 prisoners. Three European, 18 Chinese and 10 Aboriginal prisoners were transferred from the old one room lock up in Mitchell Street to the new facility. The new facility was located on the outskirts of Darwin, south of the Government Experimental Gardens. The location enabled prison work gangs to be used at the Gardens without the prisoners having to travel through town and thus reduced prisoner contact with the civilian population. In 1886 the Gardens were moved from the Fannie Bay site to their present day location and officially designated the Palmerston Botanical Gardens (today the George Brown Botanical Gardens). The Gardens remained well outside of the town boundaries and the role of prison labour remained crucial in their maintenance and development.
The new Gaol was considerably more substantial than the previous facility, consisting of a total of sixteen, twelve foot square stone cells, overlooking Fannie Bay. The Gaol was so far out of town, that the guards and the Gaoler had to live on site and houses were part of the early prison complex. The Gaol had its own water supply with underground wells and a prison farm to supply food. The corrugated iron walls were high, but prisoners were released for a daily swim, and to empty the latrine buckets from the cells.
Fear of contagion from sick prisoners, who previously were brought to the town hospital for treatment, led to the construction of a stone building in 1887, just outside the Gaol walls.
Little changed on the site for some years, although the cyclone of 1897 caused some damage. Female prisoners were housed in the Gaoler’s House until 1928 when separate accommodation was constructed.
After the bombing raids on Darwin on 19 February 1942, Judge Wells freed all the prisoners in a general amnesty. The Gaol then became a base for defence personnel and many of the corrugated iron structures, such as kitchen sheds and perimeter fencing, were destroyed.
After the war, there had been plans to close the Gaol at Fannie Bay and relocate the facility even further from town. Gradually though, the site began to be used as a prison again. New structures put up in this period made use of materials left over from the war, including paint, arc mesh, and war surplus corrugated iron Sidney Williams huts that were cheap to purchase and easy to construct.
The Gaol infrastructure originally occupied a relatively small site on a large block of land, but gradually the needs of the town began to encroach. In about 1918, part of the original Gaol land was resumed to build the town’s airstrip (which is today Ross Smith Avenue). In 1952, the Gaol perimeter fence was extended to include the Infirmary Building, as the site of the last executions in the Territory.
The Gaol was also used to house Darwin’s mentally ill, at first in the Infirmary, but by 1965 in a solitary confinement area with a separate yard. At this time, overcrowding became an increasingly urgent problem.
The December monthly figures for the first half of the 1960s show a sharp increase in prisoner numbers. In 1960 there were 32 inmates; 56 in1961; 69 in 1962; 91 in 1963; 78 in 1964; 106 in 1965 and by 1966 the Gaol housed a total of 192 prisoners. As the need arose, various corrugated iron workshop facilities and further prisoner accommodation were added.
Although these corrugated iron structures looked very primitive, they survived Cyclone Tracy quite well, and prisoners had the advantage of being able to communicate with each other throughout the night of the cyclone, reducing feelings of isolation and fear. The open corrugated iron cells were more popular, particularly with Aboriginal prisoners, than the isolation of the stone cells. Cyclone Tracy, on Christmas Eve 1974, damaged the buildings, watch towers, Gaol wall, and took the roofs off the stone buildings. In an effort to deal with the accommodation crisis, short-term prisoners were freed while others were transferred to Alice Springs or accommodated in the Darwin police cells.
The Gaol was repaired and re-opened after the cyclone but its long-term viability had come to an end. On 1 September 1979, almost exactly 96 years after its opening, Fannie Bay Gaol was finally closed as a prison.
