Sam Lawson announced the move yesterday while bracketing murdered crime boss Carl Williams with Ned Kelly as the two best-known former inmates of the old prison.

It is thought Williams was an inmate in 1994 when serving six months for attempted drug trafficking.

Matthew Johnson is currently on trial for Williams’ murder in Barwon prison.

Mr Lawson said both Kelly and Williams were in the news again and were part of the site’s history.

“I have offered to the Attorney-General a place (for Kelly’s remains) in this jail,’’ he said.

“I understand it is under consideration.”

Mr Lawson said one of his staff had spoken to a Kelly family member about the remains identified by forensic scientists last week as belonging to Kelly, who was executed in Melbourne in 1880.

It is thought eight men hanged at Beechworth between 1865 and 1881 were buried in the precincts but manager Darren Sutton thought most of the bones would have disappeared after being covered in quicklime

Former prisoner education officer Rick Edwards said he remembered seeing correspondence in the 1950s relating to bones being found when the prison swimming pool was built.

The graves, including that of Patrick Sheehan, 31, who stabbed James Kennedy to death at Rowdy Flat at Yackandandah in 1865, are unmarked.

Mr Lawson was speaking after Tourism Minister Louise Asher officially reopened the prison as a tourist attraction that charges adults $22 for a one-hour tour, children $17.50 and concessions $20.

Member for Benambra Bill Tilley watched as Mr Sutton led Ms Asher through the cell blocks and led her on to the very platform where condemned men were placed for hanging.

Ms Asher stretched out a gloved hand and touched the noose hanging from an old wooden beam.

Near the platform are large information boards detailing the executed men’s crimes such as murders in Chiltern, Yarrawonga and elsewhere.

Also, a “suicide” board explained that several prisoners killed themselves in the jail, including men in 1997, 1998 and 2000.

Editorial — page 34