Trial Bay Gaol is a heritage-listed former public works prison and internment camp at Cardwell Street, Arakoon, Kempsey Shire, New South Wales, Australia.
The property is owned and operated by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 14 May 2010.
History
Colonisation of Trial Bay
Before European settlement in Australia the land now known as Arakoon National Park where Trial Bay Gaol is located was associated with the Dunghutti people who lived and moved through the Macleay Valley following the seasonal supply of food resources. The Macleay River, South West Rocks Creek, Salt Water Creek and the ocean would have supplied the indigenous people with fish and shell fish and the dunes in the area may have been a source of edible plants. Other plants found in the area such as cabbage palm, and fern roots may have made the area around Trial Bay Gaol attractive to the pre-contact Dunghatti people.
Arakoon National Park would have also been frequented by Aboriginal people to maintain their cultural lives as the area is near the Smokey Cape Area which is closely associated with sacred beings such as Ulitarra important in the north coast Aboriginal creation stories. A site of spiritual significance to the local Aboriginal people is located near Trial Bay Gaol and another in nearby South West Rocks would have been a focus of ritual activity for the Dunghatti people.
One of the earliest contacts between the European settlers and the local Aboriginal people is reported to have occurred when the brig "Trial" was shipwrecked at what became known as Trial Bay in 1816. This ship, owned by Simeon Lord, had been hijacked by a number of convicts in Port Jackson who, in a bid for their freedom, forced the crew to set sail north up the coast. There was no news of the ship's progress until word of a shipwreck on the coast above Port Stephens was relayed to the Europeans by Aboriginal people. There were a number of survivors from the wreck who subsequently lost their lives attempting to sail or trek back to a settled area. It was reported that one female convict went to live with an Aboriginal man and had two children by him.
European settlement in the area began to accelerate after 1836 and the impact of this on the Dunghutti community was marked by the dispossession of them from their lands and thus their means of survival. By the 1860s many local Aboriginal people depended on government rations or rations from the settlers who had taken their land, often providing labour for the farms in return for rations. During the 1870s and 1880s moves were made to establish Reserves on which Aboriginal people should live and in the Macleay Valley such sites were located at Pelican, Shark, Kinchela and Fattorini Islands and at Euroka Creek. The initial step forwarded afforded by allocating Aboriginal people land was eroded through the implementation of the Aborigines Protection Board Act in 1909 which enabled the Board to remove children from their families and invested the power over Aboriginal peoples earnings to the Reserve Manager. All earnings from the land and other sources was turned over to the board in exchange for the provision of rations. Many people at this stage moved off the Reserves to camps and in 1925 the Reserves in the lower Macleay Valley were revoked.
In the course of his exploration of the north coast of the NSW colony, John Oxley noted Trial Bay as a sheltered bay and the area was soon noted as a safe haven for shipping travelling between Port Stephens and Moreton Bay. While it provided shelter during south-easterly gales, however, it offered no protection when the gale-force winds were easterly or north-easterly. To remedy this, Engineer in Chief for Harbours and Rivers, Edward Orpen Moriarty began to formulate a plan to construct a breakwater and safe harbour at Trial Bay in 1861. By 1866 the plan was considered by the NSW Parliament and finally, in 1877, a sum of money amounting to 10,000 pounds was set aside for the construction of the breakwater and also a gaol to house the prisoner labour force that would be assigned to the project.
Gaol
The design and construction of Trial Bay Gaol was carried out under the supervision of Sheriff Harold Maclean, a proponent of penal reform who advocated a number of principles of prison reform including the provision of substantial masonry accommodation rather than cheaply constructed barracks and reducing the spread of bad influence and ideas within the prison population through housing prisoners in individual cells. He was also a believer in the modern British penal model where long-term prisoners, reaching the last years of their sentence, were employed in the construction of public works projects. Here they could learn skills useful for future employment and enjoy new privileges and freedoms as they approached the time of their release from prison.
Construction of the gaol began in 1877 but was delayed on a number of occasions due to shortfalls in finance. By 1882 one cell block providing single-cell accommodation for only 64 of the 128 prisoners was completed. Temporary wooden barracks were used to accommodate the other half of the prisoners. A Mess Hall and adjoining kitchen and a hospital had also been constructed over these years. By 1884 the perimeter walls and watch towers, Gate House, Silent Cells and supplementary structures were established. Another period of construction of the gaol occurred between 1899 - 1900 when the final kitchen, scullery and bake house, cell block B, lavatories, shelter sheds, salt water storage, telephone communications and electric lighting system were installed. The last period of construction occurred during World War I when the gaol was used to accommodate German Internees.
Work constructing the Breakwater began in 1889 after the initial stages of the gaol were constructed. Granite for the Breakwater was cut from the quarry and transported to the breakwater site by steam crane and horse tramway. The prisoners were supervised by a senior warder and 14 warders who were accommodated on site along with the prison Governor, a resident surgeon, two chaplains and Department of Public Works employees such as the Supervising Engineer for the Breakwater project.
The majority of prisoners at Trial Bay, 111 out of 124, were categorised as Licensees and they had the freedom to fish, swim or play sport when not working. They could grow beards and were not obliged to wear prison uniform. They were paid a wage which was credited to their bank accounts and enjoyed a standard length work week of 36.5 hours. Under supervision, they learned the various skills required for the work.
This relatively benevolent treatment regimen was dismantled soon after the start of the Breakwater's construction following the death of Sheriff Maclean. Maclean was replaced in 1890 by George Miller as Comptroller General of Prisons. Under Miller, wages were reduced, stern discipline reintroduced and working hours lengthened. The ideal of one cell per prisoner was also discarded and shared accommodation (2 inmates per cell) became the norm. In 1895 the position as Comptroller General of Prisons was taken up by Captain Frederick Neitenstein who was a supporter of the idea of separation of prisoners and reinstigated the idea of a single cells for each prisoner.
While the Justice Department administered the business of the prison and prisoners, the Harbours and Rivers Department was in charge of the breakwater's construction until 1898. In 1898 the Prisons Department took on the administration of both the breakwater and prison. Progress on the construction of the breakwater was constantly hampered over the years due to the work being washed away in storms. By 1903 the breakwater had reached less than 20% of its planned finished length at a huge cost of 67,000 pounds. The cost plus other factors (including the silting of the harbour caused by the construction of the breakwater, the establishment of a serviceable overland system of transportation along the coast and the improvement in sea-going transport) led the Department of Public Works to abandon the breakwater project in 1903. Shortly after, the prison was closed. The houses and buildings were sold off and removed to various places around the district including the new Pilot Station at South West Rocks.
Internment camp
The gaol remained unused until 1915 when it was commandeered by the Department of Defence for use as an internment camp for German Prisoners and resident "enemy aliens" interned for the duration of World War I. This was initially under the command of Major Sands. Other German internment camps in NSW and the ACT were located at Berrima on the South Coast of NSW, Bourke in the west of this State, Molonglo in the ACT and the major camp at Holsworthy in south-west Sydney. The camp at Trial Bay was used to intern Germans of social standing, often prominent businessmen and professionals. Two prominent figures among the internees were two German Scientists attending the Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the request of the Australian Government. Unfortunately for Professors Pringsheim and Grabner, war broke out during the Congress proceedings and they were interned as "enemy aliens". German Naval Officers and elite German residents of neighbouring British Commonwealth countries in the Pacific and South East Asia were also interned at the gaol. Trial Bay was the only internment camp to house internees from overseas.
The internment camp received its first internees on 1 August 1915 after they had marched to South West Rocks from their disembarkation point at Jerseyville. First accommodated in tents set up within the perimeter walls of the gaol, the internees were put to work constructing furniture and cleaning and maintaining the cells at the gaol which eventually accommodated most of the internees. Officers and Consuls interned at Trial Bay were accommodated in temporary timber barracks located within the perimeter walls and in 1916 they were given newly constructed barracks outside the walls of the gaol.
The structure of an internee's day while confined at Trial Bay Gaol and the other camps was defined initially by a royal warrant, a British code of instructions, in August 1914 and was later superseded by the Australian "Rules for the Custody of and Maintenance of Discipline among Prisoners of War in NSW". This document noted the schedule for mandatory activities such as the twice daily roll call, meal times, times of rising and retiring for sleep.
The "Rules" also lay out that the "general welfare" of the camp was to be looked after by an elected internee Camp Committee which was the conduit of communication between the internees and the Camp commandant. The committee had a number of subcommittees set up to facilitate different aspects of camp life. One committee was the Education and Lectures committee which organised an impressive array of courses in languages, accounting, mathematics, engineering and navigation, among other things. Another subcommittee managed the library, and others the theatre, orchestra, kitchen and other services.