FREMANTLE PRISON

A Vast Natural Prison

1

Escape to Shark Bay

2

Dark Days Under Governor Hampton

3

Moondyne Joe’s Great Escape

4

A Disgraceful Affair

6

Joseph Ralph

6

Mass Breakout 1867

7

The Catalpa Escape8© Government of Western Australia 2009
Published by Fremantle Prison, Department of Treasury and Finance – Building Management and Works, Government of Western Australia
The Terrace, Fremantle, Western Australia, 6160, Australia
All rights reserved. This publication is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, classroom teaching, research, criticism or review, as permitted under
the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any otherinformation storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. No image in this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the copyright owners.
Fremantle Prison’s Key to Knowledge resources have been produced by Fremantle Prison for general classroom use. Teachers may duplicate the resources for education purposes only.
Research and Text: Luke Donegan
Design: Axiom Design Partners
Text editing: Maia Frewer, Oonagh Quigley
Acknowledgements:
Fremantle Prison would like to thank the following organisations and individuals who have made significant contributions to the development of this resource – State Records Officeof Western Australia, State Library of Western Australia, National Library of Australia, Western Australian Museum, History Teachers Association of Western Australia, City ofFremantle - Local History Collection, St Patrick’s Primary School, Margaret McPherson, Maree Whitely
Front cover illustration:
Escape of Fenian convicts from Western Australia 1876
Australian National Maritime Museum Collectioni

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Convict Escapes

FREMANTLE PRISONA VAST NATURAL PRISON

Fremantle settlement 1852, Hatch, W.S.
National Library of Australia

When the convicts first arrived at Fremantle in 1850, the local settlers were
worried about the convicts escaping and committing crimes in the community.
The Comptroller-General Edmund Henderson was responsible for the convicts andbelieved that the Australian bush with its hot and dry climate, dangerous animals
and tough vegetation would put off convicts from wanting to escape.
Henderson regarded the Convict
Establishment as a prison within a prison,and the Western Australian landscapesurrounding it a ‘vast natural gaol’. He
was not overly concerned with the risk ofescaping convicts:… it is almost hopeless, under the present
circumstances of the colony, for a man
to be long at large, were he to make an
attempt by land … the impossibility of theirescape has become evident to the prisoners,
and all intention of absconding, appears tohave ceased.1

Henderson was wrong, and hundredsof convicts attempted to escape from
Fremantle Prison.
Once past the prison walls, an escaped
convict had three choices:• he could stay close to the settlements
and survive by becoming a bushranger• he could attempt to escape the colony
by land which meant travelling acrossthe desert to the eastern states• he could attempt to escape the colony
by sea.

During the convict period from 1850 to1868, hundreds of convicts absconded fromwork parties and attempted to escape theestablishment. While the vast majority wererecaptured, by 1863, forty-seven convicts
had made successful escapes and were
never found.2 During the period from 1863
to 1868 the number of escape attempts
increased considerably.

1

Henderson’s Half Yearly Report, 1 January to 30 June 1851,
quoted in Trinca, M. 1993, p. 32

2

Evans, L. and Nicholls, P. (eds) Convicts and Colonial Society
1788-1868, 1984 p. 263.

The truth is, that the detention of prisoners, and consequently the safety of the free community in Western Australia, has depended mainly on
the impassable and inhospitable character of the bush, which serves the purpose of a vast wall around a natural jail, the inmates of which, as apoliceman once said to us, “may escape from the prison, but cannot get out of the prison yard”.

Early Settler, Fremantle 1850s

1

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Convict Escapes

FREMANTLE PRISON

Escape to Shark bay

Map of Shark Bay from Baudin’s 1801-1803 expedition c1801, M.M.L Freycinet et Faure (1779-1842)
National Library of Australia

There was a desperate escape attempt on 25 January 1859 soon after construction of
the Convict Establishment was completed. Five convicts on a work party in Fremantle
escaped into the bush and made their way upriver to Melville Waters. The police pursued
the convicts with the help of Aboriginal trackers. At Point Walter the convicts stole adinghy and rowed downriver keeping to the cover of trees along the riverbank. Oncereaching Fremantle they snuck past the harbour lookout and rowed out to open water.
The next morning they landed on Garden
Island and robbed a family, taking money,
provisions, firearms and a compass. They
loaded up the family’s whaleboat andset out to sea once again, heading north.
Meanwhile pursuit had been delayed.
While the convicts were rowing out to
Garden Island, the Water Police boat
was busy ferrying Governor Kennedy to
Rottnest Island where Comptroller-General
Henderson was also on holiday. By the time
the Water Police finally got their boat backand sailed to Garden Island, the convicts
had gone.

Four days later the stolen whaleboat wassighted off Moore River and the Water
Police took up the chase again. The
convicts fled along the coast of Western
Australia and were pursued 800 kilometres
north to Shark Bay. During the epic chaseboth police and convicts suffered manyweeks of exposure to the sun, the wind,
and the ocean waves.

2

The convicts were eventually captured
and returned to Fremantle. However, thepolice found only four of the five escapees.
Suspicion arose that his companions had
murdered the missing convict. During
questioning they admitted to killing theircompanion in a fit of anger because he had
drunk more than his share of fresh water.
Months later the body was found. He had
been brutally murdered. The convicts weretried, one was hanged and the others foundguilty of robbery with arms.

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Convict Escapes

FREMANTLE PRISONDARK DAYS UNDER GOVERNOR HAMPTON

Flogging prisoners, Tasmania c1850s, James Reid Scott (1839-1877)
National Library of Australia

John Hampton was appointed Governor of Western Australia on 28 February 1862.
He had a controversial background – while employed as Comptroller-General ofConvicts in Van Diemen's Land from 1846 to 1855 he was accused of corruption andmaking money from the illegal employment of convict labour. His governorship ofthe colony came to be one of the darkest periods for convicts in the prison’s history.
During his six year term as Governor ofWestern Australia Hampton paid close
attention to convict affairs. His interferencein convict management drew the hostilityof Perth newspapers and many prominent
citizens. Comptroller-General Henderson
resigned and left the colony in December
1862. Before Henderson’s replacement
arrived, Hampton assumed direct controlof the Convict Establishment. When the
new Comptroller-General Captain Newland
arrived in 1863, Governor Hampton refused
to give up control and he and Newland
constantly argued.
Newland left in 1866 and Governor Hampton
placed his own son George Hampton in
the role of Acting Comptroller-General.
George was an unlikable man and he became
extremely unpopular with the colonists.
Governor John Hampton c1860s
State Library of Western Australia

Cat o’ nine tails
Fremantle Prison Collection

3

Hampton was a tyrannical leader. During
the years 1865 to 1867 the number of
floggings at the establishment increased.
Hampton reintroduced the use of solitaryconfinement which had ceased three years
earlier. A convict caught attempting toescape could receive 100 lashes from the cato’ nine tails, and perhaps six to nine months
solitary confinement beginning with 30
days on bread and water.3 Both the convicts
and the general community complained
about the Hamptons. On 5 September
1866 the Inquirer referred to the ‘severityof punishment’ in the establishment andHampton’s ‘repressive regime.’4
Under the management of the Hamptons,
escape attempts increased. Between
June 1866 and March 1867, more than
90 convicts attempted to escape – threetimes the number of any other nine-month
period.5 Of the 32 floggings during 1864,
25 were for escape attempts. Similarly,
during 1865, 23 of the 40 floggings werefor escape attempts.
3

Hasluck, A. Unwilling Emigrants,
Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1991, p. 60.

4Inquirer, 5 September 1866.

5

Elliot, I. Moondyne Joe – The man and the myth,
University of Western Australia Press, 1978, p. 87.

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Convict Escapes

FREMANTLE PRISON

MOONDYNE JOE’S GREAT ESCAPE

Each time a prisoner escaped from the Establishment, a canon outside theguardhouse on the northwest corner of the convict grant was fired to signal thealarm. The boom rattled the windows of the nearby houses in Fremantle, shaking
the nerves of the local residents. While George Hampton was Acting ComptrollerGeneral, the rate of cannon fire was higher than at any other time in the prison’s
history, and not more so than for any other prisoner besides Moondyne Joe.

After Moondyne Joe’s first escape from theEstablishment in 1866, George Hampton
ordered the construction of a new escape
proof cell. The stone walls of a cell on thesecond level of the Main Cell Block wererebuilt and completely lined with timber
sleepers. These were fixed to the walls withhundreds of heavy dog spikes. A strong mesh
grill was fastened over the barred window.
This cell was escape proof, but also almost
air proof and light proof. The prisoner was
locked inside and placed on a diet of bread
and water. George Hampton, extremely proudof the cell invited his father to inspect the‘renovation’. Governor Hampton, visibly
impressed apparently told Joe that, ‘if he evermanaged to make his escape again, he would
forgive him’. These over-confident words
would come back to haunt the Governor.
After two weeks in the new cell Joe’s
health began to fail and Surgeon Attfieldrecommended he be taken off the diet ofbread and water. After a month Attfieldadvised that Joe needed regular exercise
outside.7 George Hampton reluctantly agreed
and Joe was allowed outside his cell during
daylight hours to break stones in the parade
ground, but only under strict supervision.

Joseph Bolitho Johns 1830-1900, better known as theWestern Australian bushranger Moondyne Joe 1880
Hesperian Press and Ian Elliot6

4

Joe worked by the perimeter wall behind
the Superintendent’s residence. The rubble
was supposed to be removed at the endof each day but the warders overlooked
this procedure. Slowly the pile of rockgrew larger. Once it was large enough tohide behind, Moondyne Joe swung at thelimestone perimeter wall with his pickaxe.
He must have been elated at the result as
the stone crumbled into sand.
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Convict Escapes

FREMANTLE PRISON

MOONDYNE JOE’S GREAT ESCAPE
At 5pm on 7 March 1867 the signal cannon
was fired – a convict called Thomas Morris
had escaped from the North Fremantle
Bridge work party. Moondyne Joe’s guard
checked on his prisoner. What he found wasa dummy made from the pickaxe stuck in
the ground dressed in the prisoner’s jacket,
shirt and trousers. Joe, dressed only in his
underwear, broke through to Superintendent
Lefroy’s yard, passed through a garden
gate to the front of the prison and quickly
disappeared into the nearby bush. The Perth
Gazette, writing about the escape said:

Probably no event in the colony ever more tickled the risible faculties of the public than theescape of the notorious convict, Moondyne Joe, on the afternoon of Thursday last week.
Much of the amusement felt arose from remembrance of the theatrical exhibition made of
Joe by the Acting Comptroller General when he was last captured – chaining him to a postin one of the yards and Mr Hampton improving the occasion by addressing the assembled
prisoners and pointing out to them Joe’s sad condition … When the escape was discovered
the consternation amongst the prison officials is said to have been something worth
witnessing; the warder who did not ascertain the fact until he had actually taken the dummyby the arm was nearly sick with fright; the Superintendent could not believe it and brought
forward a theory that it could not possibly be a fact. However the alarm bell was rung, thegun was fired and the police and the military distributed and an express sent to Perth, whichis said to have greatly disturbed His Excellency and Mr. Hampton’s digestion of their dinnerand did not greatly contribute to their repose during the night or the day after.8

Despite a vast manhunt throughout thecolony, Moondyne Joe remained at large
for two years, living off the land. He could
have spent the rest of his life as a free man
but for an unlucky chance meeting with
police at the most unlikely of places.
On 25 February 1869 a man drowned in theriver at the Upper Swan. Police and locals
dragging the river recovered the body at 1am.
Mr C.W. Ferguson, who worked at Houghton
Vineyard, invited the men back to the cellar
for a late drink. Ferguson described what
happened once they arrived:
The ‘escape-proof’ cell, 2008
Fremantle Prison Collection

The cellar at Houghton’s Winery, 2008

5

… we commenced to walk towards a cask ofwine which was on tap. We had only gone a
few yards from the door when there was anunearthly yell and the tall figure of a man,with hair streaming over his shoulders andlooking extremely weird … sprang out of thedarkness. He … dashed past us straight into
the arms of the police officers and the othermen who were following. … I confess I wasscared for the moment as, I think, most men
would have been in similar circumstances,and was relieved when I got outside to findthat my attacker had been captured by thepolice, and was sitting on the ground securely
handcuffed. No one at first recognised the
intruder, and then someone called out, “Why,
its Moondyne.” “Yes”, replied the prisoner,“you have got me at last.”96This is the only known photograph of Joseph Bolitho Johns(1830-1900).

7

Elliot, I. Moondyne Joe – The man and the myth, University ofWestern Australia Press, 1978, p. 70.

8Perth Gazette 15 March 1867.

9

Sunday Times 27 May 1928.

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Convict Escapes

FREMANTLE PRISONA DISGRACEFUL AFFAIRJOSEPH RALPH
Another notorious escapeartist, Joseph Ralph, wasconvicted of burglary andsentenced to twenty years.
He arrived at Fremantle
in 1854. He was a mild
mannered, non-violent man
and became a favourite of the
Prison Chaplain who found
The Causeway as it looked in 1860, Alfred Stone
State Library of Western Australia

On 29 May 1867 three violent convicts named William
Graham, Thomas Scott and George Morris made adaring escape. Graham used a duplicate key to unlock
his cell. It is not known how he came across this key.
As a fierce storm swept over Fremantle the thunderingrain muffled the sound of Graham’s footsteps as hefreed his two friends from their cells.
The three men snuck outside the Main
Cell Block and made their way to the East
Workshops. There they stripped leather drive
belts from the workshop machinery, tiedthe belts together and used them to scale
the perimeter wall. Their escape was notdiscovered until muster the next morning.
The trio soon started bushranging to support
themselves, stealing rifles and food as they
moved through farmlands northeast of Perth.
Police and Aboriginal trackers caught up
with the trio two days after their escapeand during a night time shoot out, George
Morris was shot through the neck and killed.
His companions escaped the settlement bycrossing the Causeway and continued theircrime spree through the southwest.
Finally, after a few weeks a group of four
police officers and three Aboriginal trackers
discovered the fresh trail of Graham andScott east of Kojonup. Sensing the convicts
were close the police made camp and sent
the trackers into the scrub to search for themen. The trackers found Graham standing
watch outside an abandoned hut.

They returned to the police camp andreported their discovery, and here the police
made a decision that was later said to ‘cast
shame on the whole force’.10 The trackers
were forced to return to the hut and open
fire on the building. The trackers obeyed
the command, fired on the hut and the twomen inside, then returned once again to
the police camp. In the morning the police
found that both men had been wounded andescaped. William Graham dragged himself
twelve miles through the bush, bleedingfrom his right arm and foot. Fearing he
was about to die he gave himself up to a
shepherd. Scott was captured a few days
later near the Blackwood River. Both werereturned to the Establishment. The police
involved were dismissed from the force forwhat was described in the Perth Gazette asa ‘disgraceful affair’.11

him work in the prison library.
The Chaplain described Ralph as a sincere
man who had the potential to be reformed,
as long as bad companions did not tempthim. However, bad companions weredifficult to avoid in the Establishment. On
18 August 1857 Ralph received 75 lashesof the cat o’ nine tails for attempting toescape through a gate in the northern
perimeter wall. In 1864, after attempting
to escape several times he was placed insolitary confinement for six months.
On 21 August 1865 Ralph again
attempted to escape from his cell. Thiswas his ninth recorded escape attempt.
A search of his cell revealed a set offalse keys. Ralph continued his escapeattempts over the next few years. Finallyin 1874 the Comptroller-General ordered
Ralph’s cell to be reinforced similar to
Moondyne Joe’s cell. Grating was fixed
to the window, wood panelling covered
the walls and iron plating was fastenedwith headless screws to all parts ofthe cell that Ralph had tampered with.
Additionally, prison guards were placedin the cells on either side and under theone occupied by Ralph. He was also strip
searched twice a day.

10

Elliot, I. Moondyne Joe – The man and the myth,
University of Western Australia Press, 1978. p. 87.

11

Perth Gazette, 27 September 1867.

6

Ralph did not escape again and died in
the Prison Hospital in 1887.
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Convict Escapes

FREMANTLE PRISONMASS BREAKOUT 1867

Perth Gazette and W.A. Times 1867
State Library of Western Australia

While Graham, Scott and Morris, and Moondyne Joe were on the run in 1867,
another sensational mass escape took place. The Perth Gazette newspaper
described the escape as follows:
On the evening of the 8th ofAugust, shortly after the working
gangs of convicts had beenmarched into prison for thenight, the door of one of thewards was opened and from it
emerged a party of eight men
apparently under the charge ofa man in a warder’s uniform;
he halted his party while hereclosed and locked the door,
and then giving the order tomarch took them to the gate of
the work yard, passing on theway a sentry just relieved, who
seeing the apparent warder
took no notice of the party.
Unlocking the workshop yardgate and passing through it, it
was re-locked, and the fellows
having barricaded it were securefrom observation; they thenraised two ladders against theouter wall of the prison, andwith ropes fastened to the upper
rounds quickly let themselves
down the other side.
Perth Gazette 1867

7

Rain and darkness prevented an immediate
pursuit and the nine convicts soon began
bushranging; robbing settlers’ houses
for provisions and weapons. Four of theconvicts were soon captured without a fightnear Pinjarra. One convict was captured after
a wild shootout with police. Another two were
captured near Beverly attempting to maketheir way east towards the desert. One of these,
Bernard Woottan, attacked a police officer
with an iron bar and was sentenced to death forattempted murder. He was later executed.
The final two convicts headed south
towards the ports of Bunbury andBusselton with the hope of catching a boat
to freedom. One was captured near the
Murray River and the last, John Williams,
drowned in the river trying to escape fromthe pursuing police.
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Convict Escapes

FREMANTLE PRISONTHE CATALPA ESCAPE

The steamship Georgette confrints the Catalpa, Jack Wemp nd

Perhaps the most famous escape from Fremantle Prison was that of six Irish
convicts in 1876. The Fenian movement or Irish Republican Brotherhood was asecret political society resisting British rule in Ireland in the 1860s. A number ofFenians who had infiltrated the British military services were discovered, arrested
and transported to Australia.
In 1868 the convict ship Hougoumont
arrived at Fremantle carrying 280 convicts,
including 62 Fenians. This was the lastconvict transport to arrive in Australia. The
following year one of the Fenian prisoners,
John Boyle O’Reilly, was sent to a convict
depot in Bunbury. O’Reilly befriended
a local Catholic priest who helped him
escape aboard an American whaling vessel.
O’Reilly sailed to America and settled in
Boston, eventually becoming the editor ofa local newspaper. Yet he never forgot theother Fenian prisoners back in Fremantle.
Two rounds of pardons in 1869 and 1871
saw most of the Fenians released. O’Reilly
and another Irishman living in America,
John Devoy, plotted to rescue the six
remaining prisoners.
The Catalpa ship was purchased anddisguised as a whaler. In April 1875 itleft Massachusetts for Western Australia.
Captained by George Anthony and crewedby 22 sailors, most of whom did not know
their true mission, the Catalpa took 11
months to reach Australia.

Meanwhile two undercover Fenian agentsJohn Breslin and Tom Desmond arrived
in Fremantle in September 1875. Breslin
masqueraded as a wealthy Americanbusinessman, and Desmond as a wheelwright.
The Catalpa reached Bunbury in March
1876. Captain Anthony and Breslin met
to finalise the rescue. Coded messages
were sent to the prisoners in the Convict
Establishment and on Easter Monday the
rescue plan was put into action.
Desmond cut the telegraph lines
between Fremantle and Perth to hamper
communications. The six Fenian prisoners
left the prison in their morning work
parties. Most of the convict garrison was
out watching the Perth Regatta on theriver and security was at a minimum.
The six prisoners slipped away from theirwork parties and were met by Breslin and
Desmond with two horse drawn carriages.
A nervous two hours followed as thecarriages raced south to Rockingham wherea long boat waited to take them out to theCatalpa. A local worker saw the convicts
as they arrived on the beach and raced toFremantle to alert the authorities.

8

Meanwhile a fierce storm prevented thelong boat from reaching the Catalpa.
Forced to remain in the long boat overnight
the Fenians feared for their lives. The nextmorning the Fenians once again rowed
for the Catalpa. By this time the armed
steamship Georgette commandeered by
the Governor was approaching the whaler.
The long boat reached the Catalpa first.
The convicts climbed aboard and theCatalpa set sail for the open seas. But theGeorgette quickly overhauled them andfired a warning shot across the Catalpa’s
bow! Anthony raised the American flagand brazenly claimed that if the Georgettefired on the Catalpa it would be firingon America itself. Wanting to avoid
a diplomatic incident, the Georgettereluctantly allowed the Fenians to sail away.
The Catalpa arrived at its homeport of New
Bedford, south of Boston on 25 August1876 to a heroes’ welcome.

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