Paranormal Field Investigators

SIX YEARS OF OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION AT THE ADELAIDE GAOL

Photo © Alison Oborn

A BRIEF HISTORY

1841-1988

BUILDING THE ADELAIDE GAOL

It was back in 1838, soon after Governor Gawler took up position in Adelaide, that Sheriff C.C. Dutton started to press for a new Gaol to be built. He felt the present system they had was inadequate and indeed it was. For a while prisoners were kept on the ship H.M.S. Buffalo, but when the ship was recalled for duty in 1837, it left authorities having to look for a new place to keep their growing number of prisoners. A small wooden hut on the banks of the Torrens River was to follow but also proved to be unsatisfactory, especially as the prisoners were finding it easy to break out of. Governor Gawler, due to increasing concern on the issue of prisoner escapes and for the safety of the citizens of Adelaide, finally commissioned George Strickland Kingston to be Architect for a new and more permanent building. His design was bold and based on other overseas designs, in particular Pentonville Prison in the UK. Borrow and Goodier were to build the new structure and work finally commenced in 1840. The stone was quarried from the quarry that sat behind where Parliament House stands now and the red bricks were made on site. The sandstone that is seen on the sills and towers came from Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania.

However, the building of the Gaol was not without it's problems. Originally the estimated cost was to be approximately ₤17,000, but soon these costs escalated and by 1841 only half the proposed Gaol had been completed. This was largely due to Gov. Gawler making changes to the design, including the towers which there originally should have been 4 of, and increasing the size of the Governor's residence. To many, the building of the Gaol had proved to be an expensive folly and soon Governor Gawler was relieved of his position and held responsible for putting the State into extreme financial difficulty. Governor Grey was his replacement and soon after stepping into the role put a halt to the building work. This caused further problems and the builders Borrow and Goodier ended up taking it to court and nearly going bankrupt themselves in the process.

Although finally opened in 1841, the Gaol continued to be built in stages, with additions being built over the years. At the time, it was questioned as to why such an expensive Gaol was needed, especially in a State that was a free colony and not a penal one. However it soon proved its worth, and started to fill up fairly rapidly. A good case of 'If you build it, they will come'. A section of the Gaol was also used for a short time as a mental institution before other sites were built in Adelaide to house them.

An old aerial view of the Gaol

Over it's 147 years of service, an estimated 300,000 men and women have passed through its doors and 45 prisoners were executed on the premises, where they remain to this day. One of the more famous cases was Elizabeth Woolcock, who was hanged in 1873 and the only woman to have been hanged in South Australia. She was found guilty of poisoning her husband with mercury. However, he was already a sick man and was being treated by several different doctors, all of whom would have used small traces of mercury in their medication. A retrial was held recently and the same evidence was presented, at which poor Elizabeth was found not guilty as the evidence was not strong enough against her. Ironically she had tried to commit suicide a year earlier by hanging herself, but the attempt failed. Some people feel she should not be there now, and still leave flowers on her grave.

Between 1840 and 1964 one woman and 44 men were hanged at the Adelaide Gaol in 4 separate areas. Originally executions took place out in the Parklands, but after a public hanging went terribly wrong, a portable gallows was erected and used in what is now the car park of the Gaol. After 3,000 people turned up for one of the hangings, which was a third of the population of Adelaide at the time, they eventually moved the portable gallows behind the privacy of the Gaol walls and further executions took place along the walkway between the outer walls. Another 21 were hanged in the New Building and finally the last four were hanged in what is now known as the hanging tower. All of these people are still buried within the Gaol and their graves can still be visited along the outer walkways.

Graves at the Adelaide Gaol. The prisoners were only given a number, initials, and date of execution which, were painted onto the wall. This was seen as part of their punishment.

BUT WHAT OF THE HAUNTINGS?

Stories of ghostly sightings had been coming out of the Gaol for many years. We had reports of staff working in the office on their own, who would hear footsteps crossing the upper floor when nobody was there and sounds of furniture moving around. There were reports from another volunteer, who upon leaving the office to deal with the public in the shop, would return to find her paperwork strewn across the floor, even after she started placing mugs of coffee on them. At one point it was suggested that she told it to stop, as it was scaring her, which she did and never happen again. This behavior was rumored to be in keeping with the first Governor at the Gaol, William Baker Ashton, who was known to have a sense of humor and who exercised that humor by playing practical jokes on the people who worked there. He used to live upstairs in what was the governors quarters and he eventually died up there due to weight complications as he was a very large man. In fact he was so large that when they found him, it is said that rigor mortis had set in, and they had no choice but to lower him out of a window with ropes as it was impossible to get him down the narrow staircase. Not a very dignified ending!

Then there were stories of a lady dressed in white. In fact one school group, after a sleepover, approached staff the next day and asked where the mannequin had gone from one of the yards as it had been there the night before. They were informed there had been no mannequin in that yard, but they insisted they had seen a lady dressed in white just standing there. The only lady on record that ever wore a white dress in the Gaol, had been Elizabeth Woolcock at her execution. Was she still haunting the place?

Photo © Alison Oborn - The New Building

But the stories that interested us the most were the ones that were coming out of the New Building, where 21 of the executions had taken place. It was regularly reported that a guard would be seen at the top of the old metal staircase. In fact records show that even when the Gaol was working, prisoners and guards alike often found it uncomfortable in that block and made requests to be moved. I interviewed a guard who used to work there and he informed me that a couple of the guards refused to do night duty in that block as they could hear somebody patrolling the gantries, when they were sitting in their office.

Finally in 1988 due to the appalling living conditions, the Gaol was closed and the Adelaide Council were called in to clear it out. We tracked down a couple of the workers who described how after a few days they refused to go back into the Gaol, 'A' Wing in particular. According to these workers, they were often hearing footsteps, doors slamming and they were getting increasingly more uncomfortable. Eventually contractors were brought in to complete the clean up.

And then, there was the electrician who was up a step ladder adding some party lights ready for people who had hired the block for an upcoming celebration. If you can imagine yourself at the top of the stepladder and you glance up through the bars to the second floor, only to find a face smiling back at you through those bars, then you can imagine how he felt when he witnessed this. He ended up back at the office and was determined he wasn't going back in there again.

There was also the work experience student whose first job was to go into the New Building and put up the government No Smoking signs. It wasn't long before he too, ended up back at the office shaking. He said he had seen a guard come out of the top offices and run down one of the gantries and into a cell before disappearing. He was told that if he wanted to work there, he had to get used to the guard as he was part of the Gaol.

Top of staircase where old Office is and where the Guard is witnessed.

And the list of stories went on. So 6 years ago we were invited to come in and officially start investigating the Old Adelaide Gaol. We thank management and the DEH for this and for the trust they gave us right from the start. Eventually we, like many other volunteers that work tirelessly there, fell in love with the place and went on to become volunteers ourselves and ended up helping to take some of the Ghost Tours for them.

Story run in Advertiser 2002/2003

Over the years that we investigated, the tours increased from 1 hr and expanded gradually into over 2 hrs. This is largely due to the fact that the more PFI investigated the more material was accumulated to add to these tours.