Albany Convict Gaol Museum

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Albany Convict Goal

Explore the Old Convict Gaol and discover the fascinating convict past, as you wander the cell blocks.

Wander through the cell blocks reading the plaques about the colourful history and gain an understanding of the difficulties experienced by the convicts.

The Gaol was initially founded with rehabilitation as a core principle, housing convicts sentenced to transportation from England between 1850 and 1868. Built in 1852 as a convict hiring depot, it included quarters for warders and cell blocks for imperial convicts brought to Western Australia as skilled laborers.

Convicts who earned their ticket of leave were employed by free settlers for various jobs. After the hiring depot closed in 1872, the Gaol was expanded in 1873 to serve as a public prison, adding women's cells, a hall and additional warden's quarters. It was ultimately used as a police lockup during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

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TRUE CRIME

Frederick Bailey Deeming

The greatest criminal of the nineteenth century, but was Deeming the most infamous serial killer - Jack the Ripper?

Deeming a globetrotting murderer, killing two of his wives and four children, assumed multiple identities and reputed occupations which lured many into his web of lies. Captured in the small goldfields’ town of Southern Cross in Western Australia, his transfer back to Melbourne, involved a night spent at the Albany Convict Gaol.

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