History: By 1865 Berrima Gaol enlarged to hold intractable prisoners

FROM 1862, major renovations were undertaken at the almost empty Berrima Gaol. This was to ease overcrowding in other gaols, from where prisoners were brought and put to work as labourers.

The first prisoner batches came from Goulburn Gaol, and subsequently from Sydney's Cockatoo Island penal prison and Darlinghurst Gaol. A few men escaped over the wall during early building works, but security was soon tightened.

On 22 August 1863 the Goulburn Herald described a mutiny in Berrima Gaol:

"On Tuesday morning last a mutiny broke out among the prisoners in Berrima Gaol, which at one time seemed likely to be attended with serious consequences. It appears that on the previous evening, the gaoler, Mr Small, proceeded with two warders to the cell of a delinquent who was undergoing a punishment of solitary confinement, to demand some articles which were in that cell, when he refused to give them up, and suddenly aimed a blow with the leg of a stretcher at Small's head, which, had it not been averted by one of the warders, would have very likely killed him on the spot. The remainder of the occupants of cells in the same corridor (who were numerous) upon hearing the noise occasioned by the affray, immediately set up an almost simultaneous and most fiendish yell, which was repeated several times, much to the discomfiture of many residents in the town, who heard it distinctly."

"Quiet being restored, the prisoners next morning were treated as usual, and at the proper hour, to the number of eighty assembled in the new long mess-room of the prison to breakfast. Suddenly they closed the doors and barricaded them, using violent language and refusing to come out themselves or let anyone in until they should see the sheriff or until the gaoler was suspended or dismissed. The warders, to the number of some fourteen or fifteen, were beat to quarters and armed, and the visiting magistrate, Mr Badgery, who resides some ten miles from Berrima, immediately sent for; the police were also promptly assembled in the gaol yard, in case of any emergency requiring their services."

Upon his arrival, Badgery tried negotiating through the grated windows with the mutineers, but found them entirely unreasonable and refusing to yield until their demands were complied with.

He then telegraphed to the sheriff, requesting to be informed what he was to do. The sheriff replied that he would leave next day for Berrima.

Another telegram to Sydney was then despatched, and towards evening it was notified to the prisoners that, if they did not immediately surrender, the doors would be forced at their peril. At this time the warders and police were drawn up under arms in the gaol-yard, and near the mess-room, ready for action should a rush take place.

Either hunger or some wise discretion prompted the mutineers at this juncture to surrender. The doors were opened and the convicts marched quietly off to their respective cells without affording any further trouble.

Superintendent Chatfield had arrived in Berrima on the Tuesday night, with a detachment of police from Campbelltown, but finding that quiet had been restored, left again. The sheriff arrived the following evening and an investigation was commenced.

The Herald concluded its coverage by saying that "the necessary good order in this prison has not been improved by the addition of a batch of the celebrated Cockatoo desperadoes, who have lately been sent up. The prison has lately been very materially enlarged and the number of prisoners in it exceeds one hundred."

BY 1866 the front wall of Berrima Gaol had been rebuilt further out, giving an additional thirty feet of space inside, and a second storey was added to the prison wings, thus doubling, to 110 prisoners, the capacity of the original prison.

The Goulburn Herald provided an update in November 1865: "Berrima Gaol is now undergoing a change, to fit it for the reception of refractory prisoners from Cockatoo Island and Darlinghurst. A large number of separate cells are being constructed. The invalid prisoners are to be sent to Port Macquarie, where probably they will not have such easy times of it as they are reported to have had here. Their removal will somewhat affect the town, which, while perhaps indifferent on the question of solitary confinement, decidedly objects to the starvation system to which refractories are usually subjected."

Criticised by a Royal Commission in the 1880s, this inhumane system of harsh deprivation at Berrima Gaol was gradually phased out. The gaol closed in 1909.