February 3, 1849 – Brisbane prison completed.

Well, that’s accurate in a way. Work was completed on the renovations to the old Female Factory in Queen Street on February 3, 1849. The authorities in Sydney Town felt that an inexpensive repair to an existing building would be better than a fancy new gaol for Moreton Bay.

The Female Factory had been largely unused, thanks to a new facility at Eagle Farm for female convicts. In fact, Andrew Petrie and his young family spent some profoundly uncomfortable months living there in 1837 while waiting for their own residence. The nicest thing Petrie could call it was “that hole”.

By 1848, the Colony had been a free settlement for 6 years, and prisoners on short sentences and remand were routinely transported to Sydney, a little jaunt of about 580 miles each way. The Factory was renovated. Slowly. So slowly that it became a public joke.

The Gaol is still going on at the old rate of something like a nail and a brick per diem. It is said that there is a probability of the work being completed next month, but this is a case in which nothing but demonstration can produce belief. It appears to have been arranged that the prisoners are not to escape over any parts of the wall but those where the jutting eaves of the kitchen and other out-offices secure them from any danger in the undertaking. Upon some parts of the wall, chevaux de frize have been placed, which would make the passage of any gentleman, who wanted to go out for a walk, rather inconvenient; but the roofs of the various buildings afford an easy means of avoiding the spikes, and will no doubt be duly appreciated. This arrangement is very humane and considerate, because, while the bristling spikes on some parts of the wall are calculated to create a horror of going into the Gaol, the smooth shingles that are interspersed at convenient distances, offer a comfortable way of getting out. Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1846 – 1861), Saturday 20 January 1849, page 2

And then, Eureka! February 3, 1849:

Incredible News! – Completion of the New Gaol! – Mr. Beard, to whom the immediate control of the arrangements for completing the new Gaol was committed by Mr. R. J. Smith, has announced to us the startling fact that the work is at length finished. When we first heard the intelligence, we smiled an incredulous smile, and intimated to our informant that we were not to be done; but conviction was forced upon us, and we believed. On yesterday afternoon the final stroke was put to the work. The last nail was driven, and the last doze taken on the top of the shingles. When the solitary workman descended from his elevated position, casting backwards a regretful look upon the scenes so long familiar to him, the recollection was involuntarily recalled of Gibbon, when he had written the last line of his” Decline and Fall”; or of the imprisoned Tasto’s fanned lament over the last sheets of his “Gierusalem Liberata”:-
” – Thou, my young creation! my soul’s child! That, ever playing round me, came and smiled,
And wooed me from myself with thy sweet sight. Thou, too, art gone! and so is my delight!
*. *. *. *
Thou, too, art ended! What is left me now? ” . Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 – 1861), Saturday 3 February 1849, page 2

What now? How about waiting a year until you’re given permission to use it?

THE GAOL.- It cannot, in the abstract, be considered a weighty evil to have an unoccupied gaol ; but while offenders continue to be sentenced to confinement in a prison five hundred miles away, and witnesses in more important cases are compelled to travel a thousand, it is really lamentable to see the listless indifference displayed by the authorities in Sydney with regard to the new gaol at Brisbane. The building is, apparently, completed, and only awaits the approval of the Colonial Architect, and the proclamation of the Governor; to be used when necessity demands it. The assistance of such criminals as might be condemned to road labour for offences committed in these districts, would be valuable in improving the wretched condition of our highways, and in per-forming other works of public utility. As, however, the gaol has at last, after all its drowsy adventures, got into the soporific region of the Colonial Architect’s office, it seems about as far as ever from being made useful. It is like an unhappy victim in chancery. March 24, 1849.

Hope was diminishing with the old year.

THE SLOW-COACHES OF SYDNEY. -The executive authorities in Sydney, may perhaps be aroused someday, and astonish us by proving that they have not been so fast asleep as we have supposed; but certainly there appear at present strong indication of somnolence. But a few days remain of the present year, and the gaol is not yet proclaimed; the appointments of, the Sub-Sheriff, Judge’s Clerk, or the officers of the prison, are not notified; and nothing has apparently been done towards refitting the Court-house, which will require extensive alterations before it can be used for an Assize Court. It is surely time that a little activity was displayed in these matters. The money has been voted for payment to the officers of the gaol from the first of next month, and we have reason to believe that repeated applications have been made to have the necessary alterations made in the Courthouse.

But, startlingly, the paperwork was signed off, and the new year of 1850 saw prisoners shuffle into the gaol to await trial or serve their sentence. And it wasn’t long before Mr Beard’s construction management skills were called into question.

THE GAOL —We have before noticed the fact of workmen having been employed for the purpose of making the Brisbane Gaol safe, —a work that certainly ought to have been performed by the original contractor. Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 – 1861), Saturday 11 May 1850, page 2

The original 1820s bricks were crumbling, having been made of poor quality stone nearly 30 years earlier. Convicts could pry them apart with sticks.

In August 1850, a submission for funds to repair the gaol was refused by Sydney. In April the following year, a break-out was narrowly foiled:

ATTEMPT TO BREAK OUT OF BRISBANE GAOL.-A plot on the part of the prisoners confined in Brisbane gaol, to break out of the prison and make their escape, has been discovered and defeated. Suspicion of the movement having-been excited, one of the wards was searched, and it was found that one of the hardwood planks of the ceiling had been almost cut through. A rude saw, some blanket ropes, and an iron wrenching implement were also discovered, secreted. Some of the police assisted in guarding the gaol on Thursday night, when suspicion was first aroused, and on Friday the search was made. An investigation was held before the Resident Magistrate on Saturday morning, and the result was that the whole of the prisoners (seventeen in number) in that ward were immediately placed in heavy irons. Some of these men were charged with very serious, and, in one or two instances, capital offences. The unfitness and insecurity of Brisbane gaol has been frequently pointed out, but it appears that no steps will be taken for the better security of prisoners, until some such catastrophe as the letting loose a number of desperate men again upon society takes place, accompanied perhaps by murder. Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1846 – 1861), Monday 28 April 1851, page 1.

Unsurprisingly, £250 for repairs to Brisbane gaol was approved in that August’s Estimates.

The Queen Street Gaol would struggle along, increasingly overcrowded and gradually falling down, until 1860, when it was closed, and Petrie Terrace gaol opened. Eight prisoners were executed at the Queen Street Gaol. They were the indigenous men Dundalli, Davy, Chamery and Dick; a Chinese man named Angee; William Teagle, Patrick Fitzgerald and Jacob Wagner.