A Desperate Breakout Attempt

Brisbane, 1853

In 1853, the Brisbane gaol was located at the old Convict Female Factory in Queen Street (where the Post Office is today). Those in charge of the settlement decided that perhaps it was not ideal to have the lady prisoners in such proximity to the gentleman prisoners, lest improprieties should arise, and the women were packed off to a remote place named Eagle Farm.

The Factory lay empty for a few years, until the new Supervisor of Works, Andrew Petrie, was accommodated there on his arrival in 1837 with his young family. I understand that he referred to the building as “that hole.”

After much delay and very little expense, the Female Factory was reopened as Her Majesty’s Gaol at Brisbane. It boasted none of the mod cons one could expect of a gaol in the early 1850s, such as sound roofing and security, but it came in on budget.

In 1853, a group of prisoners decided to try to overwhelm the guards and make a break for it. Here is the Moreton Bay Courier’s account.

DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO BREAK OUT OF BRISBANE GAOL.

“On Thursday evening last, at 6 o’clock, Mr Feeney the gaoler proceeded as usual, with the principal turnkey and four other turnkeys, to muster the prisoners in Brisbane gaol. The turnkey on duty (Gleeson) opened the door of No. 1 ward, where the committed prisoners were confined, and called upon them to fall in as usual, but instead of doing so, some of them immediately made a rush at the door, which they attempted to force wide open.

James Smart, a prisoner under committal on a charge of having murdered a native blank woman in the Wide Bay district, was foremost in this attempt, and made several, blows at the turnkeys with a piece of iron hoop – a formidable weapon which appears to have been wrenched from one of the night tubs, and was doubled at the end, and partly sharpened.

The blows were partly warded off by the sticks of Mr. Feeney and the other turnkeys, and, with their assistance, Gleeson succeeded in preventing the prisoners from forcing a passage through the door. The most conspicuous amongst them, besides Smart, were Clegg and Griffiths, two of the Norfolk Island runaways, who were in irons, and two men named Ramsden and Stone, committed for trial for horse stealing.

Other prisoners were evidently assisting, but could not be recognised, and there was a repeated cry of “now’s your time boys,” and “drag the fellow in, and we shall have the door to ourselves.” Two or three of the turnkeys were struck with the piece of iron.

The whole was the work of a few seconds, for Mr. Feeney immediately called for arms, which were handed in through a porthole in the door of the yard, by the turnkeys who had been stationed outside, and whose attendance there the prisoners were evidently ignorant of.

Even if they could have succeeded in overpowering Mr. Feeney and the turnkeys in the inner yard, those men in the outer yard could have shot them down with the greatest of ease. The arms having been handed in, the prisoners were forced back, and the ward door closed.

Subsequently Clegg, Griffiths, Smart, Stone, and Ramsden, were called out, and secured with handcuffs and irons. An investigation was held yesterday morning, before W. A. Duncan and J. S. Ferriter, Esqs, and the Bench ordered that those prisoners should remain in irons. None of them made any defence, and Smart remarked that they could not place him in a worse condition than he was in – or something to that effect.

The Bench directed that a note should be appended to the proceedings, expressive of their high approval of the conduct of Mr. Feeney and the turnkeys on this occasion.”

Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1846 – 1861), Saturday 2 April 1853, page 3