St Helena Island, Queensland
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St Helena Island is a
heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and man-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In many ...
island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
in
Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, east of
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
and east of the mouth of the
Brisbane River The Brisbane River is the longest river in South East Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay on the Coral Sea. John Oxley, the first European to explore the river, named it after the Go ...
in
Moreton Bay Moreton Bay is a bay located on the eastern coast of Australia from central Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources. The waters of Moreton Bay are a popular destination for recreational anglers and are ...
. Originally used as a prison, it is now a
national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
. Local
Australian Aboriginals Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isla ...
called the island Noogoon but it was renamed St Helena after an Aboriginal man named Napoleon was exiled there in 1827. The island is visible from the mainland, particularly the suburbs of
Wynnum Wynnum is a coastal suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Wynnum had a population of 12,915 people. The suburb is a popular destination in Brisbane due to its coastline, jetty and tidal wading pool. Geography Wynnu ...
, Manly and Lota. It has its own permanent water supply, a
spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season) Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...
in the centre of the island. Many migratory
bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
s use the island as a watering hole; it forms part of the Moreton Bay and Pumicestone Passage
Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...
, so identified by
BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...
because it supports large numbers of migratory
wader 245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...
s, or shorebirds.


History

In the 19th century St Helena Island was a
quarantine A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been ...
station which became one of the most profitable
prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
s in Queensland history. The island was used to house prisoners and staff for 65 years. Many of those involved in the
1891 Australian shearers' strike The 1891 shearers' strike is one of Australia's earliest and most important industrial disputes. The dispute was primarily between Trade union, unionised and non-unionised wool workers. It resulted in the formation of large camps of striking work ...
were imprisoned there along with
murderer Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
s and
bushranger Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under ...
s.


St Helena Island Prison

Four kilometres from the mouth of the
Brisbane River The Brisbane River is the longest river in South East Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay on the Coral Sea. John Oxley, the first European to explore the river, named it after the Go ...
lies St Helena Island. For more than 60 years from 1867, St Helena was the place of imprisonment for many hundreds of society's outcasts, for here was located colonial Queensland's foremost prison for men. In the early 1860s, as Brisbane's gaol at
Petrie Terrace Petrie Terrace is an inner suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Petrie Terrace had a population of 1,124 people. Geography The suburb is by road west of the Brisbane General Post Office. The precinct is bordered to ...
became more and more crowded, about 30 prisoners were transferred to an old hulk, called the ''Proserpine'', anchored near the mouth of the Brisbane River. In 1866, as part of their labours, the prisoners were taken each morning across the waters of Moreton Bay by
whaleboat A whaleboat is a type of open boat that was used for catching whales, or a boat of similar design that retained the name when used for a different purpose. Some whaleboats were used from whaling ships. Other whaleboats would operate from the sh ...
to St Helena Island. Here they were put to work sinking
well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...
s, clearing scrub, quarrying
stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
and building accommodation for a new quarantine station. They were brought back to the hulk each night. Government plans for the quarantine station were scrapped later that year — because the conditions at Petrie Terrace gaol had become so unbearable, the prisoners from the Proserpine were set to work building a gaol instead. On 14 May 1867, the
Governor of Queensland The governor of Queensland is the representative in the state of Queensland of the monarch of Australia. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governor Governors of the Australian states, performs c ...
signed a proclamation declaring the island 'a place whereat offenders under order or sentence of hard labour or penal servitude may be detained'. In the years that followed, St Helena was to become Queensland's showpiece prison. The toughest years on St Helena were undoubtedly the early ones, and the
ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...
on the island testify to the hard work that the prisoners had to do. These, too, were the years of severe punishment — the lash, the dreaded dark underground cells, the gag, and energy-sapping shot drill. These were the years that gained St Helena its fearful reputation as 'the hell hole of the Pacific' and 'Queensland's Inferno'. But in these days tough measures were used, because St Helena housed some of the country's worst criminals. In 1891, for example, there were 17 murderers, 27 men convicted of manslaughter, 26 men convicted of stabbings and shootings, and countless individuals responsible for assaults, rapes and similar violent crimes. Because of this, St Helena had to be a secure prison — and it was, through its isolation and its iron rule. During its lifetime, there were fewer than 25 serious attempts by prisoners to escape. Most of the 50 or so men involved were recaptured, although three disappeared without trace, two were drowned or taken by
shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimo ...
s in Moreton Bay, and a few were caught several years later. By the turn of the century, the St Helena establishment had grown to accommodate over 300 prisoners in a maze of buildings surrounded by a high stockade wall. It operated as a self-sufficient settlement, and even exported some of its produce to the mainland, including
brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
s for many of Brisbane's buildings, clothes to be sold in Brisbane, and white
rope A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibres, or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly ...
for ships, which was made from imported Sisal Hemp plants. In the island workshops the prisoners were taught such trades as carpentry, boot making,
tailoring A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...
, tinsmith, saddle making,
bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...
baking and butchery. The island boasted a prize dairy herd which won many awards at the Brisbane Exhibitions. The island was extensively farmed, particularly in the later years as a prison.
Maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
,
potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
es,
lucerne Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...
and other
vegetable Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, ...
s thrived in the rich volcanic soil and the
sugar mill A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw or white sugar. The term is also used to refer to the equipment that crushes the sticks of sugar cane to extract the juice. Processing There are a number of steps in pro ...
crushed over 75 tons of locally grown
sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...
annually by 1880. In many ways, St Helena was regarded as a model prison for the times, and held in high regard by visiting interstate and overseas
penologist Penology (from "penal", Latin '' poena'', "punishment" and the Greek suffix ''-logia'', "study of") is a sub-component of criminology that deals with the philosophy and practice of various societies in their attempts to repress criminal activities ...
s. By the 1920s, the prison had begun to show its age. In its later years, after the majority of prisoners and the workshops had been removed to the
Boggo Road Gaol Boggo Road Gaol in Brisbane, Australia, was Queensland’s main jail from the 1880s to the 1980s, by which time it had become notorious for poor conditions and rioting. Located on Annerley Road in Dutton Park, an inner southern suburb of Brisbane ...
on the mainland, the island became a prison farm for trusties, with a few dozen resident inmates tenaciously dismantling the ageing edifice. Many prison buildings remain. The last prisoner left the island on 15 February 1933. The last prison superintendent was Mr Patrick Roche.


Escaping from St Helena Island prison

"It is impossible", wrote the Visiting Justice in 1869,"for prisoners to escape from St Helena. I am convinced of it. They would have three miles to swim." In fact, history was to show that the island was almost escape-proof. Over six decades, there were more than 50 prisoners desperate enough to try to escape but, despite several super-human efforts, their attempts proved futile. A few tried to swim. They were doomed to failure due to the dangers of the tides, offshore winds, choppy seas and sharks. Some took to crudely made rafts of driftwood and logs. One man lashed a door to two pine stools. Even a bath tub was tried. One pair planned to swim two
horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...
s across the bay with themselves as passengers. They were foiled by an alert warder. Then there were those who took to boats. One commandeered a whaleboat after slinging the guard into the water. Others discovered boats which had broken loose from moorings on the mainland and had drifted unseen cross the bay into the
mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...
s at St Helena. Still others tried to break into the prison boathouse. Some prisoners perished in their attempt. The aborigine, Burketown Peter, clinging desperately to a wooden target-frame used by the warders during rifle practice, vanished beneath the waters of Moreton Bay as his makeshift raft headed out to sea on an outgoing tide. One of the island prison's most publicised episodes took place in November 1911, when prisoners Henry Craig and David Mclntyre vanished for nearly two weeks. Most people believed they had escaped to the mainland and, as a result, a search was undertaken across
South East Queensland South East Queensland (SEQ) is a bio-geographical, metropolitan, political and administrative region of the state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million people out of the state's population of 5.1 million. T ...
. Warders turned out each day to search St Helena from end to end.
Police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...
and blacktrackers patrolled hundreds of kilometres of mainland coastline. On the twelfth day the prisoners reappeared. They had been hiding above the ceiling of the
tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...
s' workshop on St Helena, where they had been aided by a prisoner accomplice who supplied them daily with
food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...
and
water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
. Most escapees, however, rarely got any further than the island mangroves and scrub where they were captured by searching warders, supplemented, if necessary, by police from Brisbane, or driven out by hunger, or by intolerable hordes of mosquitoes. In fact, only one man was not recaptured after escaping from the island prison. Notorious gunman Charles Leslie was whisked from the island early one morning in 1924 by criminal accomplices who were waiting offshore in a motor boat.


Tourism

These days, the island is a tourist destination for school children and visitors to Brisbane alike. The island is visited by Cat O' Nine Tails Cruisers. Private individuals can visit the island but are restricted to the picnic area to the south west, and excluding the ruins. History tours of the island operate, including a Ghost tour. 2007 saw the first roving theatre on the island. Cat O' Nine Tails Cruises in conjunction with the St Helena Island Theatre Troupe, have written the show ''Secrets of St Helena''. The show brings to life the often harsh but sometimes funny stories about St Helena Island. A repeater station for 4TAB is located on the island.


Historical timeline

* 720BC to 1840 (Approx) Used by Aboriginal tribe, the Nooghies * 1799 Island described as one of the 'Green Isles' by Matthew Flinders * 1826 Named St Helena after Aboriginal exiled on Island * 1850s Fledgling dugong industry * 1866 Quarantine Station built * 1867 (14 May) Declared Penal Establishment * 1875 Construction started on stone causeway * 1885 Tramway commences operation (first passenger tramcar in Qld) * 1890 Warder's families removed from Island * 1891 Leaders of Great Shearer's Strike imprisoned on Island * * 1905 Sisal Hemp growing started * 1907 Lash last used * 1921 Announcement of intended prison closure * 1921 (to 1932) Became prison farm for low security prisoners * 1922 Dismantling of buildings commenced (cont'd to 1932) * 1925 Electric light installed * 1932 (Dec) Official Prison closure * 1933 (1 Dec) Opened to the public (under responsibility of Brisbane City Council) First passenger ferry service established from Wynnum Pier (Closed 1934) * 1939 BCC handed Island back to State Gov't. Leased as dairy farm to 1973 * 1973 Charles Carroll acquires 2 leases on Island (tourism and pasture) * 1974 Part of North Point leased to 4IP Radio to build radio station * 1979 (4 Oct) Gazetted National Park * 1980 (11 Sept) Gazetted Historic Area (First in Qld) * 1981 First Park Ranger appointed to Island * 1983 Coral dredging commenced Eastern side of Island (finished 1988) * 1984 Carroll's leases requisitioned * 1985 Education Queensland involved in guide training and collating archival material * 1986 (Oct) New jetty opened. First scripted play, St Helena by Night staged on Island 1987 Horse-drawn wagon transport introduced to Island (until 1996) * 1996 Diesel powered train commenced operation (until 2002) * 2000 Establishment of Museum completed * 2004 Queensland Prison & Penal Historical Association was formed by tour guides to assist in the restoration, research and promotion of the island.


Heritage listing

St Helena Island was added to the
Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. As a ...
in 1992.


See also

*
Protected areas of Queensland Queensland is the second largest state in Australia. It contains around 500 separate protected areas. In 2020, it was estimated a total of 14.2 million hectares or 8.25% of Queensland's landmass was protected. List of terrestrial protected are ...
*
List of tramways in Queensland List of tramways in Queensland provides three separate lists, each in alphabetical order of the key identifier. They are: * Non sugar cane tramways, ordered by Tramway Name as contained in Wikipedia articles. * Sugar cane tramways, ordered by Sug ...


References


Further reading

*''True Tales of Old St Helena'', ''More True Tales of Old St Helena'', ''The Wild Men of St Helena'', ''The Escapes from St Helena'', ''The St Helena Island Prison''. Jarvis Finger, Boolarong Publications, Brisbane. * ''Part of the Glory'', Julian Stuart. * ''St Helena Island Moreton Bay: An Historical Account'', , 229 pages including index, Lauren Penny. * ''The St Helena Story: An Illustrated History of Colonial Queensland's Island Prison'', , 300 pages, full colour, references, index. by Jarvis Finger, Fernfawn/Boolarong Publications, Brisbane, 2010. *


External links


The St Helena Story
- photographs, anecdotes, history * {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Helena Island National Park National parks of South East Queensland Protected areas established in 1979 Defunct prisons in Queensland Important Bird Areas of Queensland Geography of Brisbane Museums in Queensland Prison museums in Australia Queensland Heritage Register History of Brisbane Islands of Moreton Bay 1979 establishments in Australia