Campbell Street Gaol - Colonial History

Colonial History

The original portion of the gaol, at first known as the Hobart Town Prisoner's Barracks, was built by convicts in 1821 and accommodated 640 men. As thousands of convicts were arriving each year, the barracks was found to be too small almost immediately, and it was extended in stages over the next decade until it could hold over 1,200 men, by using every inch of available space, including the ceiling cavity. Used progressively as a civilian prison from 1846, it became Hobart's prison after convict transportation ended in 1853, as the Hobart Town Gaol, replacing an older building of that name in Murray Street which had become structurally unsound. A new cell-block was constructed to the north of the original one, and the gaol remained more or less in this form until its closure.

Found to be too old and small in the late 1940s, movement of the inmates to the new Risdon Prison began in 1961. Campbell Street Gaol closed in 1963, and all the buildings on site were demolished except the court rooms. These remained in use until 1983, when they too were replaced as courts by new buildings in Salamanca Place. The older buildings in Campbell Street remained standing and were given over to the care of the National Trust, and they are open to the public. Of the rest of the former gaol, only fragments of the outer wall remain standing today, and are visible along the length of Campbell Street where the gaol formerly stood.

Following the closure of the Port Arthur establishment in 1877, the Campbell Street Gaol was the only prison in Tasmania where executions could be carried out. A total of 32 people, including one woman, were executed at the gaol between 1857 and 1946, when the last hanging in Tasmania took place. Following the abolition of the death penalty in Tasmania in 1968, the scaffold was removed.

The gaol never had toilets installed in its cells, just slops buckets.