All Change Here

[Note: An edited version of this piece, which excludes the introduction and conclusion, was published in Search, the journal of the Coburg Historical Society, in May 2023. The author reserves full rights over this extended article, and all views and opinions are my own.

 

All factual information presented here has been reproduced exactly how it appears in material provided by the National Trust of Australia.

 

CONTENT WARNINGS: mentions of violence, death, police brutality, and discrimination.]

 

It takes a certain level of privilege to be able to freely walk in and out of the grounds of a prison, and even more so to be completely unscathed by it. The fact that is even possible is thanks to a still more privileged endeavour not just to keep a prison standing as a heritage site, but to turn it into a high-end family gathering space complete with shopping mall, cinema, and notorious multinational beer garden. I am of course talking about Pentridge Prison in my home suburb of Coburg in what is now called Victoria, a feature I can never believe is real despite living a fifteen-minute walk away. How did we get here?

 

Penal establishments have long been characterised by their use of dehumanisation as a form of punishment. They should’ve been outlawed centuries ago, but the continued endorsement of colonisation and religious extremism among other things mean they aren’t going away any time soon. With its cramped unlit cells bound by freezing bluestone walls, Pentridge remained a showcase of prison brutality as late as 1997 when it was (finally) deemed too archaic to run. It wasn’t just the inmates who had to wear the stains of its presence. Everyday residents of Coburg couldn’t go about their lives without having their yards swept for suspicious activity; children attending class at the nearby Coburg Primary School knew what the odd siren meant and more chillingly, the bell for executions.

 

All of this is common knowledge to me as a member of the Coburg Historical Society (CHS), but most other people who moved into the area within the last ten years would find it odd that such gruesome activity was happening in the same spot as a fish-and-chip shop. The new tours run by the National Trust of Australia in two of the preserved panopticons aim to fill that gap, but without the rather unnecessary dramatic flair of the Old Melbourne Gaol tours. I decided to check them out to verify if it was as unfiltered-but-tasteful as their promotions said, and perhaps validate the uneasy feeling I get every time I look upon the towers from my peaceful spot at Coburg Lake.

 

I would also like to thank my friend and fellow Melbournalia enthusiast, Sean Reynolds, for agreeing to tag along despite it being Easter weekend. Sean is an American-born former West Side resident and therefore completely new to the place, making me a sort of local tour guide as we explored the remaining buildings not part of the official tour. It is interesting what angles one chooses to approach when describing your home to a visitor; he could be forgiven for thinking I live in an urban legend. It’s a sentiment Coburgers have worn for decades not with pride so much as droll acceptance.

 

This is not a history of the prison, or the stockade, or how it came to be what it is now – I can do a far better job explaining all of that if you pay a visit to the CHS bluestone cottage museum on Bell Street. But if you’ve made it this far, and you don’t plan on doing the tours yourself but are still curious as to what we saw, read further on.

 

***

After a long period of closure caused by redevelopment activity, two of the former Pentridge Prison’s heritage-listed bluestone buildings have been reopened for public tours. These have been created by the National Trust of Australia for one of the site’s major developers.

Unlike the ‘ghost tours’ that were in operation previously, the Trust tours operate mostly in daylight, promising to ‘expose the intricacies of prison punishment’ through immersive audio-visual retellings of lived experiences.

 

Two divisions host the new tours, at $30 each: B Division, open only during the daytime, and H Division or ‘Hell’ Division, which has both day and night tour options. The night tour of H Division contains material of a ‘darker nature’, priced slightly higher at $45. For this review, we opted for a combined B and H Division tour package on April 8, 2023.

 

I have been a Coburg resident for a mere two years and a Coburg Historical Society member more recently, but with the bluestone walls close to my residence, I am acutely aware of the spectre it has cast over the community and continues to do so. Many long-time locals I interact with still speak of Pentridge in hushed tones as if it hasn’t truly closed or refuse to shop at the mall out of principle. Even using it as a shortcut to reach Sydney Road can feel quite intimidating – as if the panopticons are still watching you.

 

Perhaps we’d chosen a somewhat inappropriate date, as an Easter egg hunt was in full swing when we arrived in the afternoon. Children and families crowded and thronged in the piazza, blissfully unaware of the gruesome tales being recounted around them, and an Easter Bunny and his helper were dispensing treats to eager little hands. In a strange way, it was a perfect encapsulation of Pentridge’s image today; a chance for outsiders to experience how disconcerting it can feel to locals, especially those who have lived in Coburg while it was a functioning prison.

 

The former warders’ quarters within Pentridge Square, adjacent to the wrought-iron entrance gates, are not part of the ticketed tours but has been converted into the administrative office, with the top floor being a photograph gallery. What stood out to me was how the inner walls of the building had been weathered and the plaster missing in portions, owing to the removal of the former walls to create the gallery space. Almost as if it was setting the scene for what we were to expect.

 

Both tours began outside the main gate, with every tour guide following a collection of notable photographs like the stockade’s first appearance, the muster in the central yard, and the notoriously primitive C Division (demolished in 1974, now the location of the shopping mall). Facing the Merri Creek was a good place to start, as it was the source for the bluestone beside us; but the lack of recognition of the ancient waterway among the audience told me I was the only local present.

 

Our tour guide for B Division, Benny, was a knowledgeable and friendly young person who took us around the features of the warders’ assembly yard before leading us to the main entrance. The first thing that came to my notice was the ‘B Division 1859’ sign above the door, present before redevelopment began, was now missing.

 

As we were led inside, we stopped at a room that was once the office of Father John Brosnan, the prison’s benevolent Catholic chaplain who developed such close ties with his wards that he wished ‘his mates’ well when the prison’s closure was announced in 1997. The office has been starkly furnished as it would have been when it was used, including an old footy on the desk in Geelong Cats colours after its occupant’s club of choice. Benny was quick to inform us that not all clergymen enjoyed the favour that Father Brosnan did, pointing out the unfortunate case of Reverend William Hill who was killed by a prisoner in B Division.

 

But this gory tale only had a few moments to linger with us as we exited the office.

 

The immersive element of the tour is located within the far side of the B Division panopticon. To get there requires traversing through the intersection of the east and west wings that are now converted into the lobby of the Adina apartment hotel and a wine bar respectively. The cells here have been repainted and closed and the upper railings blocked from access, but they share space with plush sofas, colourful velvet carpets, and ambient hanging lights.

 

It was nearly as disconcerting as the Easter egg hunt outside, and Sean shared my discomfort. How was one supposed to relax with a glass of wine here? Was this space meant to cater to an audience that consumes romanticised true-crime podcasts? Perhaps the arrangement might’ve been different had the tour been conceived ten years ago in the early stages of Pentridge’s redevelopment. Now it comes across as an afterthought, and we were almost thankful to immerse ourselves in the audio and focus on why we were really here.

 

The setup used in both tours is quite ingenious; each cell is fitted out with Bluetooth and represents a different theme or story, and you are given an iPod and set of headphones that play the audio corresponding to the cell you enter. There is no set order to them, and you can enter each cell as you please.

 

In B Division (this distinction will become important later) the cells contain helpful props such as books and utensils that prisoners might have used, or a case containing a collection of (real) handmade contraband, including a tennis-ball bong. The walls now accommodate collages of images and other related material supplied by organisations such as the State Library of Victoria, the National Trust, and the Coburg Historical Society. Each audio is three minutes long on average and features narrations from historians such as Rachel Maza, a few former warders, and former prisoners who spent time in B Division, including the late Uncle Jack Charles, who I was pleasantly struck to hear again.

 

The themes covered are myriad, with content warnings provided: from the galling treatment of women and Aboriginal prisoners; to Governor William Champ’s infamous 24-hour ‘separate and silent’ system that drove many a man insane; to the role of Pentridge in abolishing the death penalty in Australia when widespread protests followed the hanging of convicted police-killer Ronald Ryan in 1967.

 

After we finished exploring the cells – roughly 40 minutes in total – Benny led us outside through a side door fitted with a special lock to the former exercise yard. The weather had grown colder, and a drizzle had set in, adding to the dreary ambience. For those who have read Richard Broome’s Coburg: Between Two Creeks or visited the Pentridge exhibit in the Coburg Historical Society museum, this will be familiar: yet the structure in front of me was unexpected.

 

The foundations of the circular structure divided into twelve triangular wedges looked considerably reduced in size from the photographs of their first excavation in 2005. Small cuttings of native lavender and pigface grew between the rocks that remained. A triangular metal frame had been erected in one of the wedges to simulate how a prisoner might have stood in his personal wedge to get ‘aired’ for the one hour of sunlight he received in the day, with a wooden stage in place of the overseer’s tower. A cross on the wall facing Champ Street marked the spot where Ronald Ryan made the escape that eventually led him to the noose, and we listened as Benny told his tale in the intensifying rain.

 

It was when we commenced our tour of H Division an hour and a half later, however, that we realised B Division had been strategically laid out and painted over: either to ‘ease in’ those who might be doing both tours, or because it has no specified age limit, while H Division is strictly for those 16 and over even in the daytime. Yet there is a certain degree of loss that comes with this sanitation. It can deliver an incomplete picture, without nuance, and those doing only one tour may leave with less to think about.

 

Our guide for ‘Hell’ Division was an older gentleman who recounted in great detail the escape and records of two of H Division’s most infamous: William O’Meally, whose vivid journalling of torture by cat-o’-nine-tails in H prompted demands from Brunswick-based student organisations for his release, and John Killick, who attempted escape so many times he became a regular in H and the scourge of the officers there.

 

These escapees were meant to be contained by H, but it soon gathered many souls never intended for its cold walls, including a young boy who had been thrown in H for the ‘crime’ of suspected homosexuality. Killick narrates, among other stories, how he comforted the boy after brutal beatings from the officers.

 

The portion of H Division used for the tour is the cordoned-off cell block of the A Division panopticon as well as its adjoining rock-breaking yards. This is where the distinction from B Division plays out the most: unlike the cells in B, there is very little additional decoration in the form of collages or props. The cells have almost entirely been left in their original state, complete with years of graffiti in various languages, inks, scratches, and fades. The rock-breaking yards have even less: a few hammers and chunks of bluestone. You are left to ruminate on the haunting audio with as much as the prisoners would’ve had to occupy themselves with. In that regard it is a more accurate experience, but I suggest not doing it alone.

 

Unlike B Division, the stairs and upper deck were free to access, which Sean and I explored away from the other visitors. There is no audio setup here, but the widespread graffiti paints the picture for us – and the choice to leave it all intact. One cell contains crude poetry echoing anti-police sentiment not too dissimilar to Bla(c)k Lives Matter slogans of today; by contrast, another contains a cruder inking of blatant Neo-Nazi imagery.

 

No doubt there were some unsavoury characters within these walls – Ray Mooney, one of the narrators, was doing time for molesting an underage girl – but how many others had been rendered that way by the treatment they got? It’s hard to draw a clear line. Nearly all the recordings press home how the harsh and cruel nature of the officers gave ‘Hell’ Division its name, making you ponder who history really determined to be the ‘worst of the worst’ in this place.

 

There are a few criticisms to be had, of course. One notable omission, especially from B Division, was further exploration of Industry Lane and how prisoners’ reform was carried out through industry. It is a surprising oversight considering the Coburg Historical Society Museum has quite a few donations of prisoner-made products. The market of prison goods had a significant impact on the sentiments of the Coburg community, as did the routine escapes and lapses in security. Mothers would tell children not to lick the stamps that prisoners had made because they were ‘contaminated’; meanwhile, schoolboys would calmly hop over the walls of the prison to retrieve lost cricket balls.

 

I understand the tour is structured in such a way to be understandable to anyone from anywhere. However, these gaps in local knowledge were either left to the tour guides to fill – the above stories being supplied by them – or to me as the sole Coburg resident present. It cannot be underestimated to what extent the former prison was intertwined in the life of Coburg. Every long-time resident over a certain age has a Pentridge story to tell, however far-fetched or not. And these testimonies will certainly enrich what is already a rather well conceived tour. It may have to be longer – the recordings already stretch over the prescribed 40 minutes – but it will be worthwhile.

 

Father John Brosnan described Pentridge as a place that ‘turned bicycle thieves into murderers’. While B Division does its best to illustrate that notion through combined historical and anecdotal context, H Division speaks for itself, providing a human element through an invisible demonstration of inhumanity. It is even more jarring to then exit these walls into the loud and chaotic frivolity of a shopping mall; one can’t help wondering how many of these people would remain had they undertaken the tour themselves.

 

***

To Coburg, Pentridge is like the stray cat that never goes away no matter how many times you shoo it out of the house. The entire reason the suburb got its present name is because residents didn’t want to put Pentridge on their address. But the reputation never went away as long as the prison's clock-face was still visible from the Sydney Road trams, and in the 21st century it has morphed into something altogether more bizarre. ‘Where do you live? Isn’t that where the prison with the cinema is?’

 

I am only a mere observer of the evolution of an institution before my time; others have done a far greater job delineating what it was like within those cold walls of state-sponsored violence. I particularly recommend Rupert Mann’s Pentridge: Voices From the Other Side, which independently interviewed former prisoners and warders (including Uncle Jack) when it was announced the site was sold for redevelopment. Many still want the place to be torn down completely, and I don’t blame them. The only way those bluestones will truly be cleansed is if they were to return from whence they came – back to rest in the bed of the Merri Merri.

 

Until then, what we are left with is a hollow reminder of what a few men with warped ideas of discipline and too much clout can achieve, from empty lichen-crusted guard towers to empty gilded glass-panel apartments. Only time will tell what the urban legend of postcode 3058 will be with the next generation of its residents.