Pandaya , The Jakarta Post , Fremantle | Sun, 08/23/2009 12:32 PM | Travel
The distinctive gatehouse has been restored several times since it was built in 1854, the latest being in 2005. Now it houses tour guides, a gift shop, a visitors’ center and a café. (JP/Pandaya)
Drenched from braving a light afternoon rain shower after a quick walk from a nearby market, we arrived at the Fremantle Prison, touted as one of Western Australia’s oldest and most historic buildings.
The barbed-wired high walls are still ominous even though the buildings the convicts built on the 185-hectare property between 1852 and 1859 were turned into a unique museum after the prison was decommissioned in 1991.
“Welcome to the Fremantle Prison, we hope you return here again safely today,” an attendant began cracking jokes as we surveyed the gatehouse. A smiling blonde female tour guide invited us to go along.
The complex housed a men’s and a much smaller women’s prison. The latter was built as a service area for the convict establishment and first inmates were moved in from a small women’s prison in Perth after the British government transferred the Fremantle Prison to the colonial administration in 1886.
The first stop for male prisoners was the ward in the service where they were officially transferred to the maximum security jail. Here, after a shower at the facility, the issuing of a uniform and some paperwork, prisoners would be taken to a dark room in the main cell block.
Safety nets were installed in the four-storey main cell block that was designed to accommodate 1,000 prisoners, after some convicts committed suicide by jumping from the top floors. (JP/Pandaya)
The 4-storey main cell block, built from locally-quarried limestone was designed to accommodate 1,000 prisoners. Inmates included imperial convicts, prisoners of war, colonial prisoners, enemy aliens and maximum security detainees.
Single cells, which account for most of the space in the main cell block, measure 1.2 meters by 2.1 meters. Standard equipment in the cell included a bucket for the occupant to relieve himself (toilets were never provided in cells until the prison was closed in 1991), a bible and a wooden box for belongings.
Cells for difficult prisoners who had attempted escape had additional wood panel reinforcements. Hammocks, instead of beds, were available for detainees accommodated in two large wards at the end of each cell range.
These rooms with 80 hammocks were designed for those who would soon receive a ticket of leave (akin to modern day parole), or as a reward for good behavior.
Today, on full view for visitors are six refurbished cells that bring to life the conditions throughout the maximum security facility’s life span and show how little changed during its 136 years of operation.
The remaining cells are locked.
The prison built by the British government as a convict establishment also serves as a monument of hard labor, floggings, burnings, hangings, riots, dramatic escapes and foiled escape plots.
In the olden days, prisoners were forced to do hard labor in leg irons 10 hours a day for months on end. Their feet were shackled with heavy chains to restrict their movement. This primitive form of cruel punishment is said to have caused injuries, groin pain and skin ruptures.
Those attempting to escape were flogged and locked up in the solitary confinement for up to 28 days, with nothing but bread and water. This prison has a dozen solitary confinement and six windowless cells, where prisoners would not only lose track of time, but also become disoriented.
This spooky, dimly lit room saw the execution of more than 40 convicts between 1850s and 1960s. (JP/Pandaya)
Troublemakers were sentenced to up to 100 lashes. This dreaded punishment was extremely brutal with the convict suffering untold pain and sustaining permanent scars. According to the prison’s records, the last flogging with the “cat of nine tails” (a whip with nine knotted strands) occurred in 1943 when a prisoner received 25 lashes. Another received 12 strokes of the birch in 1962.
Australia abolished hard labor and corporal punishment only in 1993, two years after the Fremantle Prison was shut down.
Today, you can still see all those instruments of torture at the visitor center and main cell block, as well as in the temporary exhibitions at the prison gallery.
On display are an estimated 5,000 artworks, artifacts, films, furniture and photographs collected from the 1850s to 1991.
Seemingly banal plastic racquets and balls on display are part of an intriguing tale; the balls were used as a means to smuggle messages and drugs between divisional yards and into the prison from outside the perimeter walls. Of particular interest are, of course, the leg irons and the birches – the instruments of torture that are icons of any old fashioned confinement system.
A little hidden from the rest of the regular cells is the execution room, where 44 hardcore prisoners were hanged on the gallows until as recently as 1964, according to the prison’s statistics.
In fact you can touch the gallows and stare down the dimly-lit pit where prisoners would have had their last moments.
“Any volunteers?” the tour guide said, breaking the silence.
But in fact stories about convicts’ last hours in the isolation cell before they were whisked to the gallows were even more chilling. Peppering up all the eerie tales about prison life and death are stories about daring escapes and ghosts haunting certain areas of the prison.
Stories about ghost sightings – that reminded me of a popular Indonesian TV program – can thrill you even more if you take a 90-minute evening tour. This torchlight tour will take you into dark tunnels 20 meters underground.
Prior to the closure, the Australian government became more kind-hearted, giving prisoners the freedom of artistic expression. So prison walls and a few cells are covered in graffiti, frescoes and murals, giving the facility a more humane face. Don’t expect a get out of jail free card though as tours do not come cheap.
Tours are available in an intricate system of ticket pricing, which ranges from A$14 to $95. You can only enter the gatehouse and the visitors’ center if you don’t take part in a tour. A whole tour package takes you to the women’s prison, the rifle range and odd places like the points where notorious prisoners like Moondyne Joe made their legendary escape.
“So which cell would you prefer?” a smiling museum attendant asked while seeing off visitors.
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