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Most of the information on this page is drawn from the display at the Derby Gaol. The information is drawn from many sources including stories told by senior members of Derby's Aboriginal community. Many other Aboriginal people participated in the consultation about issues of cultural concern. After serious consideration it was agreed that the story of the Gaol would best be told if some images and names of deceased people appeared on the panels. For the purpose of the web site, I have deleted their names and obscured their faces.
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derby gaol
The Old Derby Gaol was built behind the Loch St Police Station in 1906. It was supposed to be temporary accommodation for prisoners who were headed to the common gaol in Broome.
However, some prisoners spent up to six months in appalling conditions locked up here.
It was used mostly for Aboriginal prisoners. The land next to the gaol was used as a campground for the police trackers and their families.
An Aboriginal prisoner remembers a night in the gaol in the 1960s -
There was a drum in the corner for a toilet area blocked off by a blanket. You just tried to jump over to get to the toilet and there were bodies there. No mattress. I remember the smell and stuff you know. I remember bodies everywhere on the floor.
Designed for 30 people it held 61 people in 1907. In 1969 it held 109 prisoners. They were held by neckchains and were secured with handcuffs to the floor, sleeping on the concrete. There was no hygiene and clothes were never washed. This led to an influenza epidemic, which prompted an inquiry into living conditions. No improvements were made. In fact, conditions didn't imrove until 1975 when the gaol was shut down.
In the 1950s government institutions and church missions on the north coast and at Sunday Island closed, forcing hundreds of Worrorra, Wunambul, Bardi, Jawi and Ngarinyin people into the Derby camping reserves. In the 1960s another wave of pastoral station people moved to town after the introduction of award wages (and the station owners couldn't afford to keep them on, not paying them low wages), Social Security benefits and schooling at Derby childrens' hostels - effectively increasing the population of the prison. The prison was also used to hold Aboriginal patients who were waiting to be transferred to hospitals, missions or institutions.
Go back to the beginning when people didn't know why they were wearing chains around them in the first place. They didn't understand. They were probably wondering what's happening? Why are they doing these things?
Peoples' spirits are roaming still after dying away from their country.
Cold times, the wind would blow the rain inside and they'd be huddled together in a corner just to keep themselves warm. That's how we lost a lot of people through prisons like this...
The feeling of the place for us, Aboriginal people, is strong, very sad. It makes me shiver to walk through. Imagine the past.
the aborigines act
The 1905 Aborigines Act, in force until the 1960s in the Kimberley, was supposed to protect Aboriginal people from disease, exploitation and suffering (!) by restricting and controlling movement and contacts. Without permission of the Chief Protector it was illegal for an Aboriginal person to:
"marry, work for Asiatics or Afghans, enter a Prohibited Area (Derby Townsite), move out of the State or Kimberley region, sell or buy property, own a mining licence, own a gun, leave an employer with an employment permit, leave an official Native Institution, enter hotel premises..."
The Chief Protector was the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children, and police had the force to carry out the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families. Some children were held in the Derby Gaol. In 1910 two Nyikina kiddies were held in the goal before being shipped to the mission -
This is where my mother and her sister were locked up...My grandmother was working for Quan Sing washing and ironing...this police buggy and horse came and those two Aboriginal police boys sang out to them in their language if they like to go for a ride. One little boy ran away but the girls didn't understand the meaning of that joy ride...they were taken away forever.
From this gaol they could hear my grandmother's voice but they couldn't answer. Mum said that the last thing they can remember they were put on the train and straight down the jetty. By the time Granny got down to the water, old jetty...it was too late.
police trackers
Police depended upon Aboriginal trackers who were called 'police boys' to build huts, hunt, fish, find feed and water for horses, and to track and arrest prisoners. Trackers were also interpreters, providing vital information about about the whereabouts and movement of Aboriginal people.
Each policeman was paid an allowance to ration and clothe his tracker. In 1949 Sergeant King was paid 4 shillings a day for Tracker Jack who was paid 5 shillings a week pocket money, with two sticks of tobacco, and two meals of beef stew, sugar and tea per day.
Life as a tracker meant taking part in the best and worst of policing in the Kimberley. Long horse patrols could be visits to the country using a gun to hunt goanna or kangaroo, and honing bush skills to catch dangerous men or lost people. But they could also involve clashes to repress Aboriginal resistance, arresting groups of frightened, sick people for the Derby Leprosarium or removing children to missions or government institutions.
Back to the Kimberley.
Last updated: 13th February, 2002
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