Albury Gaol housed men and women who had committed crimes from murder to bigamy, sedition, counterfeiting, malicious wounding and some who simply crossed the Murray River illegally.
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Albury’s first lock-up was located between St Matthew’s Church and the post office, with two cells about three metres square, called locally the “Black Hole.”
The first judge to sit in Albury, Thomas Callaghan, was horrified by it and demanded the colonial government build a jail.
The first jail was built in 1861 on the corner of Thurgoona and Pemberton streets.
It had a two-storey cell block, with six cells about three metres by two metres, each taking up to three prisoners.
Between 1860 and 1880, Albury’s population grew from 1500 to 5500, and the railway arrived. A bigger jail was needed.
The jail was extended on two levels in 1879-81, with another 16 cells (four for women).
A jailer’s house, a workshop, hospital ward, kitchen and surgery were added.
Also new was a five-metre high, brick perimeter wall enclosing an area measuring 51m x 52m, with watchtowers at two corners.
The 1879 design included one cell for solitary confinement and another was the condemned cell.
In 1881 the condemned cell was used.
Henry Wilkinson, 46, was hanged for murdering a woman and her father in a wine shanty on the Jindera Gap.
Dozens of Chinese were held in the 1890s, many for evading the poll tax crossing from Victoria.
Prisoners were not idle.
Men worked in the workshops or jail gardens, chopped wood, laid bricks, painted and did some carpentry.
Women knitted, sewed, washed, cooked and swept – the whole idea being to make the jail self-sufficient.
Prisoners made all the prison clothing, socks, and hats.
The jail continued throughout the Depression years and into the 1940s.
It was officially closed in 1943, but the army used it during the war as a lock-up. After the war, it fell derelict and became a playground for kids until it was demolished in 1947.
The government transferred it to the housing commission, who used the bricks for the flats.
Visit the Albury and District Historical Society website alburyhistory.org.au for more interesting articles and photographs.
The Albury and District Historical Society meet the second Wednesday of the month at the Albury Commercial Club.
