Posts in this category relate to information about the many prisoners who entered St Helena Penal Establishment over its 65 year history.
Brand new research has come to light for St Helena Island! Our discovery has realised that there was a prisoner in St Helena Penal Establishment who was also a convict transported in 1840. Continue reading St Helena Island is NOT a place for convicts… until now.
Is data your thing? Or stories? For me it’s always the story, which is why it’s so amazing that this whole blog post is going to be about data and databases. And I’m going to be seriously enthusiastic about them because we’ve never had digitised data relating to St Helena Penal Establishment in any format that is searchable. And now The St Helena Island Community … Continue reading Is data your thing?
In prison 1st January 1921- 158 prisoners.Received through the year 117. Discharged through the year 186 In prison 31st December 1921 – 89 prisoners. Prisons Department Report – Year ended 31st December 1921 In 1921, The Home secretary, Mr McCormack controlled prisons. Major discussions had been ongoing for years regarding the best way to administer and manage prisoners in Queensland. The final decisions, outlined in … Continue reading ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER ON ST HELENA ISLAND
I think history is like a large jigsaw puzzle – the 5,000 small piece kind. In the box, the puzzle is a jumble of indistinct colours and shapes and there is no clarity. Yet, when you begin to join some pieces together, a picture starts to emerge, and the more pieces that you are able to join together, the clearer the picture is. When researching … Continue reading History is like a box of jigsaw pieces
The turquoise waters and white rock faces of Walkerville are reminiscent of the Aegean Sea surrounding the Greek Isles. But standing in the southerly most point of Victoria, Australia, we’re 15 000 kms and a hemisphere away from the warm lazy waters of the ancient land of Greece. In Walkerville, the story of the landscape is written in limestone and the remnants of that story … Continue reading Landscapes shaped by lime
What did Christmas and New Year Celebrations look like on a prison island? Roast beef and Plum Pudding were a feature of even St Helena Penal Establishment’s Christmas celebrations . Continue reading ‘All I want for Christmas’ at St Helena Penal Establishment.
It IS true that Johnny Lennon was punished for singing in his cell. But this story happened in the prison on St Helena Island in Australia. Read more and see the news article written about his story. Continue reading Johnny Lennon… locked up for singing in his Saint Helena cell
Bob Jnr and Fred Murrie’smother Charlotte (nee McMunn) was one of the few women on St Helena Island in the 1910’s. Becoming Senior Warder in 1913 meant Bob Murrie Senior was allocated a small cottage, and was one of the few warders given permission to have his wife and children living with him on St Helena Island. This Mother’s Day, let’s celebrate the contribution of … Continue reading 100 years ago – celebrating the St Helena Island mothers
“We could go anywhere, we were only youngsters. We couldn’t go in the stockade, but if there was a warder with you, you could go in. My father’s job…at 9 o’clock at night, he used to go in to the prison and make sure everything was locked up and under control, and I’d go in with him sometimes… we’d go in the front Number 1 … Continue reading ‘We could go anywhere here, we were only youngsters.’ Bob and Fred Murrie.
Being an island means that St Helena is not a simple day’s journey for a quick visit. The lucky few have their own small boat and can access the long jetty in between carefully timed tides. For the rest, it takes an organised tour to access the restricted zone surrounding the Prison Stockade and Warder’s Row. I’m pleased to say that the first annual St … Continue reading Take a walk on the wild side… with a ‘Belinda tour’of St Helena Island.
