Fannie Bay Goal Stories
Joseph Abdoolah’s story
At 4.15 on the afternoon of Monday 7 September, 1885, Joseph Abdoolah, was brought to Fannie Bay gaol in police custody. Abdoolah had been sentenced to three months haard labour for defaulting on a fine of £5.10s for resisting the police. Although members of the Palmerston Islamic community were normally among the more law abiding and sober of residents, Joseph Abdoolah had a weakness for alcohol. As the newspaper noted his face is extremely familiar to visitors at the Police Court…
When Joseph Abdoolah arrived at the Gaol, he joined 34 other, mostly Chinese or Aboriginal prisoners, although there was the occasional short-term European prisoner in for three days drunkenness or vagrancy. Abdoolah was probably put to work at the Experimental Gardens (now the George Brown Botanical Gardens) but did not settle down too well in gaol and maintained a truculent attitude towards authority. On his first Saturday in the gaol it was reported that he had used insolent language … in a disrespectful manner and refused to go into his cell when told to. His behaviour was extreme enough to warrant a complaint by prison staff to the Visiting Justice, Paul Foelsche and Abdoolah was sentenced to seven days solitary confinement.
Three weeks after Abdoolah’s arrival at Fannie Bay, a prisoner, Ah Sing, began singing loudly in his cell after evening lockup. Gaoler Becker had told him to stop, but he managed to keep up the noise until nearly eight o’clock giving insolent answers and … making the noise. Four days later the two Visiting Justices responsible for maintaining internal discipline within the prison, sentenced Ah Sing to a flogging of 36 lashes for insolence. Ah Sing immediately went on a hunger strike and a week later, on the day scheduled for the punishment, the doctor pronounced Ah Sing to be progressing favourably. To the annoyance of the Sheriff, John George Knight, none of the guards were willing to carry out the flogging. In desperation, the prison administration called for a volunteer from amongst the inmates and, as scheduled on 12 October, Ah Sing received 36 lashes administered by prisoner Joseph Abdoolah.
.Abdoolah himself became too ill to carry out hard labour and on 20 October was placed at light work out of the sun and was treated with a dose of salts. A month later Abdoolah was placed in his cell for repeatedly disobeying the orders of the Gaoler and using insubordinate language. During the night or early in the morning of the next day, Abdoolah cut off part of two of his fingers of his left hand which, after they became infected, had to be amputated at the second joint by Doctor Wood.
Around this time, Abdoolah was also sentenced to an additional two months hard labour, in irons, for insubordination and repeatedly disobeying … orders. In December Abdoolah was again placed in irons, even though he was still under Dr Wood’s care. On Tuesday, 12 January 1886, Joseph Abdoolah was well enough to be brought before the magistrate for his crime of self mutilation. His punishment was an additional 38 days hard labour to make up for the number of days’ work missed because of his injury.
Joseph Abdoolah then disappears from the records and so presumably served out his sentence without further incident or perhaps died; prisoner deaths were not always officially recorded. Joseph Abdoolah, who was originally ordered to serve three months, ended up serving about twice his sentence and spent much of his time in irons or otherwise in pain and was permanently mutilated for defaulting on a fine of £5.10s.
Nemarluk’s story
In August 1931 a group of Aboriginal bandits, led by the warrior, Nemarluk, attacked and killed three Japanese fishermen at Treachery Bay, near the mouth of the Fitzmaurice River. Nemarluk with a group of nearly a hundred men, had for some time been ranging across the Northern Territory-Western Australia border area attacking lone travellers, spearing livestock and carrying out blood feuds with other Aboriginal groups.
Nemarluk was arrested, tried and imprisoned at Fannie Bay Gaol but escaped in 1933. He followed a work gang carrying the latrine buckets to empty into Fannie Bay and slipped away into the rainforest. It was said that he swam across the harbour to meet his lover who fed and sheltered him, but whatever the truth, Nemarluk proved hard to catch again.
Constables Birt and Fitzer, with four trackers, followed him across the Territory until1934, when the unique bushcraft skills of tracker Bull Bull led to the re-capture of Nemarluk near the mouth of the Victoria River.
Nemarluk returned to Fannie Bay Gaol, where he continued to serve his sentence of life imprisonment, and became something of a celebrity there. Many people were keen to visit the Gaol, shake his hand and be able to say they had met Nemarluk the Aboriginal bushranger. Following the publication of Ion Idriess’ best selling books Nemarluk and Man Tracks Nemarluk became famous across Australia.
At some point in time, probably around 1940, but the details on this are not recorded, Nemarluk became ill with pneumonia and was taken into town to hospital. He was so ill that he was not considered a danger or needed to be kept under surveillance, He slipped away from the hospital but did not, this time, go bush. Instead he crawled back to the Gaol before sunrise, and woke the wife of one of the prison guards, Margaret Widdup, begging to be let back into the Gaol. Margaret Widdup remembered that he seemed to be starving hungry. She made him a cup of tea with bread and jam and said that he could stay at Fannie Bay as long as he was able. Nemarluk died soon after.
There are many stories told about Nemarluk. Some say he died in hospital, others that he recovered and was let free in the general prisoner amnesty after the bombing of Darwin. Some people say he was a bushranger and a hero who killed to protect his country, and others that he ruled in a reign of terror over his people and their neighbours. Whatever motivated Nemarluk, he was one of the greatest bushman of his generation, and his history will always be closely linked with Fannie Bay Gaol.
