IN SEPTEMBER 2011 the NSW Corrective Services Department moved all inmates and staff out of Berrima Gaol. The future of this historic building is now a matter of great interest for the people of the Southern Highlands.

This series of articles presents an overview of the Gaol’s history taken from various sources including NSW Prison Department records.

Opened in 1839, the Gaol housed prisoners appearing before the Berrima Circuit Court that serviced the southern district until the Court was moved to Goulburn in 1847.

Berrima Gaol then remained almost empty until 1866 when it was re-opened as a model prison that implemented a new ‘separate’ treatment system and this operated until 1909.

During World War I the Gaol became a low-security internment camp for German mariners. After that it was operated as a district tourist attraction until World War II when the Army used it to store munitions.

Remodelled after an internal fire in 1942, it opened in 1949 as the Berrima Training Centre for the rehabilitation of male inmates, and from 2001 it served as a medium-security prison for female offenders.

THE GAOL’S EARLY YEARS: 1835 - 1866

In the early 1830s, rather than wait for plans from London, Governor Burke had the Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis design a Court House and Gaol for Berrima. The Gaol was estimated to cost £5,300, but on completion in 1839 the cost exceeded £10,000.

When it first opened, the Gaol consisted of a massive and foreboding thick stone outer wall containing a centre building from which radiated three wings, each with fourteen cells. The centre building had a kitchen and rooms for the keeper and staff.

Further work was carried out in the 1840s to make the building more secure. All cell doors were made of solid cedar 3 inches thick and fitted with huge iron bolts. Corridors and exercise yards were partitioned off by heavy iron grilles.

On an underground level were solitary confinement cells and a condemned cell where convicts spent their last days awaiting execution. Only five were ever recorded as being hung at Berrima Gaol.

They were Curran, Dunkley, Beech, Henry Atkins and the notorious murderer John Lynch who was hanged in 1842 for the murder of eleven persons. Most of his victims had lived in the Berrima district, including a couple with two children, whose farm he took over after burying the bodies.

The only woman ever hanged at Berrima was Lucretia Dunkley along with her lover Martin Beech. They were executed on the same day in October 1842 for the murder of her husband Henry Dunkley.

Further additions were made to the Gaol buildings between 1863 and 1868. The front wall was rebuilt further out, giving an additional thirty feet of space inside, and a second storey was added to the prison wings thus doubling the accommodation.

INITIALLY Berrima served as the administrative centre for the southern district and the Gaol housed prisoners appearing before the Circuit Court held there.

By 1847, the rapid increase of settlers taking up in the Argyle district meant that Goulburn rather than Berrima had become the principal southern centre and Circuit Sessions were transferred to the more rapidly growing town which had both Court House and Gaol.

Only District court sessions continued to be held at Berrima and the Gaol was relegated to a subsidiary prison that held only a few invalid and aged prisoners.

During this mid-19th century period, in England and America, a vigorous campaign was carried out for the reform of the penal system. Its essential feature was the provision of a separate cell for each prisoner, a cell in which he was confined for the whole of the time, having no communication with any other prisoner or person except his warder and the chaplain. Through these measures of moral subjection the process of reform was expected to take place.

The colonial Government decided to trial this new ‘reform’ system at Berrima.

In 1866 - the date may still be seen carved in stone over the entrance - the Gaol was enlarged to allow the confinement of each prisoner in a separate cell. Its walls were raised by five feet and eight new cells were added to each wing, giving it a capacity of about 110 prisoners. A new, imposing facade was constructed out from the entrance gates.

These alterations allowed for a prison system to start at Berrima that today would be considered barbaric.

This article is sourced from the archives of Berrima District Historical & Family History Society, Bowral Rd, Mittagong. Contribution of information & old photographs welcome. Email bdhsarchives@acenet.com.au; call 4872 2169. Website: berrimadistricthistoricalsociety.org.au