WE SAVED THE OLD ALICE SPRINGS GAOL
“…Olive was a great advocate of the Aboriginal people and she desperately wanted to get herself gaoled…”
In 1937-1938 the old Alice Springs Gaol was built by the Northern Territory government and was officially opened on November 1st of the latter year.
A fairly typical bureaucratic construction: everything square, bulky, unadorned and functional, a place where society hid away its human misfits from the eyes of the conforming and respectable, a place of shadows where broken hearts, minds and spirits could languish in splendid isolation for a designated period of time. There was no rehabilitation, no sympathy or attempt at understanding their wilful ways. The prisoners were simply a burden of society who were removed by concealment.
When completed, the total cost was listed as (in today’s currency) $27,900.
The original superintendent, Phillip Muldoon, recalled they started with 16 male Aboriginal prisoners, one female Aboriginal and five Europeans. Conveniently, Muldoon’s wife supervised all female guests.
In 1966 the Alice Springs population was 6,390, a figure which for the first time included Aboriginal people.
By 1996, when the gaol closed, the local population had increased to 27,092.
Initially, the gaol was meant to accommodate about 110 inmates, but it often contained up to 150. They were incarcerated for 16 hours per day, from 5pm – 8am and from 12 noon – 1pm.
On July 16, 1996, it was closed and the Northern Territory government wanted to bulldoze it into rubble to make room for apartments.
The local community at the time greatly resented that a heritage-listed group of buildings was to be destroyed in the interests of commercial “development”.
A protest group formed. Not energised by politics or any other motivation other than to save a gaol that had historical significance and should be preserved.
At that time, everywhere around Alice Springs places of historical importance were being thoughtlessly destroyed by the N. T. government (Liberal), and their main antagonist was the portly Alice Springs lawyer, Shane Stone, then negotiating his way up the political ladder.
A protest camp formed outside the main gates of the gaol, made up of artists, teachers, taxi drivers, housewives, journalists, photographers, unemployed, the disabled, clerics and atheists, Liberal and Labor voters, conservationists – a whole cross section of residents who just wanted “to save the old gaol” from the greedy hands of money-grabbing entrepreneurs.
Conspicuously absent were local history buffs, such as Max Cartwright, Shirley Brown, Dick Kimber, Dave Leonard, etc. Why? Perhaps the gods understand.
A protest march commenced in the town centre near the council offices and paraded, with banners, and chants – (“Save the Alice Springs gaol!”) – through the streets until we all were gathered outside the main prison gates where we resolved to conduct a 24-hour vigil in case the government sneaked in overnight with their bulldozers.
“His Majesty’s Gaol and Labour Prison,” the official title of the Alice Springs Gaol, in Stuart Terrace, was more commonly known in its earlier times as “Muldoon’s Guest House.”
Phil Muldoon was the gaol’s first superintendent once its construction was completed in 1938.
The late historian, Max Cartwright, said the old gaol was a “welcome retreat” to many of the old-time bushies and Aborigines who declared it “a good camp”, a place where good tucker (food) was served thrice daily; it was warm in winter and reasonably cool in summer.
To pay for their board and lodgings, inmates were required to provide their labour by cutting and carting firewood, growing vegetables, cultivating lawns, flower gardens, fruit trees, etc.
The gaol produced the first tennis court in Alice Springs!
Perhaps Muldoon’s most controversial guest (almost!) was the eccentric artist-anthropologist, Olive Pink. Olive was a great advocate of the Aboriginal people and she desperately wanted to get herself gaoled so she could learn first hand how her Aboriginal friends were treated inside Mr Muldoon’s inner sanctum.
To get herself arrested, Olive deliberately entered an Aboriginal Reserve without an official permit. She was duly arrested, taken to court and found guilty, and was issued with the option of paying a fine or serving a short sentence in the local prison.
On the grapevine, Muldoon learnt that Olive had chosen to become a convict. In a raw panic, he rushed down to the Court House to anonymously pay Olive’s fine from his own pocket – anything to save him from the caustic tongue of the most feared female in Alice Springs.
Thereafter, goes the legend, Olive always sarcastically referred to Muldoon as “His Holiness the Pope.”
The only escapees over the years were those who absconded from labour gangs while working outside the walls, attending gardens or chopping firewood. Surrounded by the eternal desert, all were quickly recaptured.
One inmate who escaped repeatedly was a man named Brockheison. The gaol authorities asked the escapee how he did it. To demonstrate, he amazed onlookers by pulling himself up a pipe fixed to the wall, somehow wriggled unharmed under the barbed wire, then dropped to the ground outside – all within about five seconds, according to one witness, a visiting Justice, John Owen.
Brockheison’s last escape occurred one Christmas Eve when he absconded with a supply of Phil Muldoon’s beer, an offence for which he was never forgiven.
It is also on record that in the old days it was common practise to incarcerate mentally unstable people, or “mental defectives,” as they were described, because a gaol was regarded as the safest place to restrain potentially dangerous characters. Included among the insane was a woman who had to be contained in a cell padded with six-inch thick coir matting; there was also a member of parliament and a former soldier.
The famous Central Australian water-colourist, Albert Namatjira (July 28, 1902 – August 8, 1958) was once imprisoned in the Old Gaol. The famous artist supplied alcohol to his fellows and one night a woman was murdered in the Morris Soak camp during a drunken spree.
The magistrate told Albert: “As a direct result of you taking the alcohol, this young woman has died … “
He was released with a warning.
Again he introduced alcohol into the Morris Soak camp and another young Aboriginal girl was seriously injured during a dispute. Albert was sentenced to six months in prison.
Old-time identity, Reg Harris, recalled: “Albert was taken to the Alice Springs Gaol, booked in, and I don’t think he spent many nights there at all. He was then … put on a truck and taken out to Papunya where he was told to sit down there for three months and do some painting …”
Albert Namatjira died two months after his sentence was completed.
Once the protest camp of about 250 people had been established outside the Old Gaol’s main gates, a couple of the protestors, Mike Gillam and Domenico Pecorari, hatched the evil intention of breaking into the gaol to gain personal knowledge of its internal condition.
Alderman, Fran Erlich, advised the protesters to “maintain the rage,” and former cleric, Milton Blanch, described the N.T. government’s action as “the rape and destruction of property.”
A former chief superintendent, Tony Bohning, went on record saying the superintendent’s house (still standing) had a ghost.
He claimed: “I used to live in the old superintendent’s house … from 1985 until retirement. There was a ghost there … It was a female dressed in period costume from the late 1800s … I lived with it for ten years.
“I used to say to her: ‘How are you going? What’s happening?’
Mr Bohning admitted to being frightened the first time he saw the lady ghost standing at the edge of his bed. He said his dog always remained scared of the nocturnal spectre.
The N.T. government of the day were proclaiming to one and all that the gaol’s walls and internal buildings were falling down, were dangrous, and needed to be demolished. The gaol-breakers, Gillam and Pecorari, wanted to know if this was true or false. After all, who believes the claims of politicians?
Mike and Domenico broke into the Old Gaol TWICE. Concealed by the night, about 2am they placed a borrowed ladder against the gaol wall, climbed up to the top of the wall, raised the barbed wire entanglement, pulled up the ladder behind them and lowered it inside. On the second occasion the dastardly duo were accompanied by an ABC cameraman who wanted to secure tenable evidence of the gaol’s internal condition.
Within cooee, there was a small cottage (now demolished) where a government-paid security guard was housed overnight to keep an eye on the protestors. As the trio prepared to climb the ladder for their second foray into the gaol, a light went on in the cottage and the security guard emerged, seemingly looking in their direction.
Believing he would immediately alert the cops, the three intruders hurriedly got themselves inside the gaol to collect evidence.
They stayed inside for about three hours, video-taping the buildings, the walls, the lovely murals painted by inmates.
Domenico said: “We thought the coppers would be waiting for us as we came down the ladder and we would be arrested. We didn’t want them to confiscate the video footage, so we removed it from the camera, put it safely into a can and threw it over the north-eastern wall where we could retrieve it later.”
But there were no cops waiting.
Either the security guard had not spotted them in the darkness, or he otherwise decided not to announce their illegal entry.
I was working at the time as a journalist and photographer for the rejuvenated “Alice Springs Star” newspaper. I wanted some sort of dramatic photo for the front page story I had just finished drafting.
Among the protesters was the elderly Jose Petrick, probably the most senior person in attendance.
I took her aside and said: “Jose, I want to take a photograph of you for the front page.”
“Oh, yes,” she smiled. “I would be happy to do that.”
“Right,” I nodded. “Now, I want you to climb up that ladder leaning against the gaol wall …”
“How far up?” she queried, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“Up to the top,” I suggested.
“Oh!”
“Then I want you to reach out and, with both hands, tightly grip the barbed wire, step off the ladder and just hang there …”
“What?” she exclaimed.
“Now, once you’ve done that, I’m hoping there with be blood dribbling down both your arms, and that will make a fabulous picture.”
“Not me,” she spluttered, and quickly disappeared back into the crowd.
It became evident that the Northern Territory government would need to be confronted in a court of law. The National Trust, in Darwin, were apprehensive in grappling with such a formidable opponent. It could be a very costly exercise, they argued.
Finally, Mike Gillam and Domenico Pecorari offered to put up $5,000 each rather than risk the finances of the Trust. It was soon decided by the court that the old Alice Springs Gaol was, indeed, heritage-listed and the N.T. government had no legal right to demolish it to satisfy commercial interests.
During the long weeks of our sit-in vigil, we were visited by an interesting assortment of characters, but there was only one, if I remember correctly, who claimed to have once been incarcerated in the old gaol’s cells.
He was a part-Aboriginal bloke who said he had once shot – or shot at – a cop and had been allocated a 10-year sentence.
“I reckon they should knock the place down,” he said. “I wasted a lot of my life inside that rotten bloody place. I don’t want to be reminded of it.”
His story was much bandied about at the time, but after the dust had settled a police historian said he had scrutinised all available records and he could not find anyone who had shot at a copper and been gaoled for ten years. But it was a good story while it lasted. I imagine it scored the story-teller a few free fags and a drink or two along the way.
When the judgement had been made in favour of preserving the Old Gaol, and the most vocal antagonist, Shane Stone, had been silenced, I was asked by Dave Richards, of ABC Radio, for a comment.
I said: “Well, mate, we took on the Northern Territory government and made them bleed – which just goes to prove: you CAN get blood from a stone.”
-Editor, Alice Springs, 2009.
