Freemantle Prison served as a prison for 150 years, from convict days through until it closed in 1991. Since then it has operated as a museum. It was first built at the request of the early settlers, because they wanted a supply of convicts to help build the road and bridges needed to develop the settlement of Western Australia. The first convicts to arrive had to build the actual prison! Convicts shipped out from Britain were taken out each day to work on public works, before returning to prison each night. This continued until the early 1900's when it became a high security prison (for Australians), and prisoners subsequently spent all their time inside.
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| The main gates. The prison is right in the town of Freemantle. |
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| The standard cell, later doubled in size by the removal of walls. |
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| They call that netting "suicide netting". |
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| Sundays were spent mostly in the chapel. |
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| These multi-person cells are a bit of a mystery. There were only a few. |
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| View from one of the exercise yards. Prisoners spent 15 hours a day in their cells, and 9 hours here - rain or shine! |
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| Isolation cells, with double doors to block out sound and light. |
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| The prison was originally designed to house 1,000 prisoners. |
The tour guides gave us a lot of detail about the fairly miserable life of a prisoner here. Particularly unpleasant were the punishments for anyone who did not "toe the line". Prisoners were flogged here until the 1940's, and we were shown the gallows room, where the last hanging occurred in 1964.
