Melbourne Gaol

OLD MELBOURNE GAOL

Upon Ned’s capture at Glenrowan in June of 1880 he was swiftly taken to the Old Melbourne Gaol (after a nights stay in Benalla lockup) and was treated in the grounds hospital for the wounds he received at Glenrowan. Ned made a slow but steady recovery. Although he had a substantional amount of lead still embedded deep within his limbs he was announced fit to stand for his preliminary trial in Beechworth in August 1880. After what was to be a three day trial Ned was ordered to stand trial for the murder of Constable Lonigan on the 28-October-1880 in Melbourne’s Supreme Court. Judge Redmond Barry, after only a two day trial, passed the death sentence for November 11, 1880.

HISTORY

The Old Melbourne Gaol is Victoria’s oldest surviving prison. Until it closed in 1929, it housed some of Victoria’s most notorious criminals.

Built in stages between; 1841-1864, the Old Melbourne Gaol was used to accommodate short-term prisoners, the mentally insane and some of the colony’s most famed criminals, including Ned Kelly. During World War II, the gaol was briefly re-opened as a military detention barracks. The goal was witness to135 hangings. The infamous Ned Kelly met his doom at the gallows on the morning of November 11, 1880 and buried in a corner of the prison grounds where he was to remain there for the next 49 years.

During the early stages of the great depression in 1929 the Old Melbourne goal was finally closed. Prisoners were being transferred to other prisons, among them Pentridge, and the transfer also saw the exhumation of the executed prisoners. Their remains were to follow close behind the transfer convoy to Pentridge.

Overtime, the records of re-interment of the executed prisoners from the Old Melbourne gaol to Pentridge become lost. The authorities had no knowledge of their whereabouts, so records and graveyard location remained lost in time.

In early 2008 the authorities at Pentridge come into possession of a department of justice document showing the precise location where the executed prisoners were laid to rest in 1929. March of 2008 saw the exhumation of those prisoners, and, once again, Ned Kelly was to see the light of day.

At present it is not known what is to become of the discovered remains. Presently the remains are with the department of forensic medicine in Melbourne. Upon the release it is hoped that the remains may be claimed by the families. I, for one, would welcome the idea of those executed to be buried beside their loved ones.

At present there is a great deal of work being done by several Kelly researches in the hope of locating the headstone which once marked Ned’s grave at the Old Melbourne Gaol. The headstone mysteriously disappeared... or did it?

Note that by headstone I don't mean a traditional cemetery headstone
but I refer to a type of burial marker used by the gaol. When an
executed prisoner was buried, names, or in the case of some like Marvis
Needle, initials (M.N, for Martha Needle) were used. These were carved
into the bluestone wall near the grave. When parts of the Old
Melbourne Gaol were torn down, the bits of wall with the names and
initials were sometimes left intact.

During the early months of 1929 the demolished bluestones from the Old Melbourne gaol found their way along the beaches of metropolitan Melbourne. The bluestones were used as part of the sea wall in various foreshore reserves. The department of public works hired local men who had been idled due to the great depression to construct the wall. Further reading

It is not known exactly what happened to Ned’s headstone, perhaps a contractor held on to it as a souvenir? Or did it in fact make it to one of our beaches? What we do know is, several headstones have been located, namely in the Brighton and Beaumaris areas. Brighton has two separate locations several kilometres apart from each other, those of which are as follows: Further reading

NAME Date of Execution Place of Execution Location

Philipi Castillo (16.9.1889) Old Melbourne gaol New street, Brighton

John Wilson (23.3.1891) OMG As above

Joseph Pfeffer (29.4.1912) OMG As above

John Conder (28.3.1893) OMG As above

William Colston (24.8.1891) OMG As above

Fatta Chand (27.4.1891) OMG As above

Martha Needle (22.10.1894) OMG Wellington street, Brighton

Fredrick Jordan (20.8.1894) OMG As above

William Robert Jones (23.6.00) OMG As above

Charles Henry Strange (13.1.96) OMG Beaumaris

Alfred Archer (21.11.98) OMG As above