Gaols of NSW - HM Hay Hay, New South Wales, Australia
By Throsbyonchurch on 13-Jul-20. Waypoint GA22970

Gaols of NSW

HM Hay

Architect: James Barnet

Built: 1879

Opened: 1880

Closed: 31 Oct 1947

Clasification:

The original gaol at Hay was a police lock-up, located in Lachlan Street on the site of the present Hay Post Office. The lock-up was proclaimed a Public Gaol on 1 December 1870. It initially contained two cells to accommodate prisoners.

During 1878, there was a large increase in the number of prisoners detained at Hay – 192 entries to the gaol (compared to just nine the year before) and 176 discharges (compared to thirteen previously). As a result, “much needed improvements” were made to the gaol, with the prisoner accommodation being increased by 1879 to four cells. In 1879 there were 173 entries and 175 discharges; and, in 1880, 154 entries and 158 discharges.

The large numbers of prisoners detained at Hay from 1878 onwards prompted approval to build new gaol facilities, with construction beginning in 1879. When the new gaol in Church Street was ready for occupancy in late 1880 the old Lachlan Street gaol was down-graded to a “Watch-house or Lock-up only”.

The new Hay Gaol in Church Street was built by local building firm Witcombe Brothers. The perimeter consists of a five-metre-high wall of locally produced red bricks, with a large central entrance gate (in front of a small barred entrance court). Two guard towers were placed at diagonally opposite corners of the perimeter wall. The main cell-block contained 12 cells (including two for female prisoners). The cells measured 3.1 x 2.9 metres, each with cement floors and a galvanised roof. The compound also contained a solitary confinement cell, mess-hall, kitchen, meeting-room and officer's residence.

The Hay gaol was officially opened in late 1880 with a proclamation by the Governor of the Colony of New South Wales dated 21 December 1880.

Between the two world wars, the gaol buildings were used for medical purposes, and in 1919 was briefly used as an emergency hospital to isolate patients during a local outbreak of the worldwide Spanish Flu epidemic. In 1921 Hay's Red Cross Society turned the gaol into a maternity home. The two rooms at the front entrance became wards, as did the old hospital area. Many older Hay locals enjoy telling the tale that they were "born in the Hay Gaol." By 1930 the maternity home moved to a new site.

In August 1930 the gaol was again proclaimed as a public prison as the state's gaols were congested, a result of the new Consorting Act which gave police more powers to convict well-known criminals. The Gaol operated for 10 years.

During World War II, Hay was used as a prisoner-of-war and internment centre, due to its isolated location. Three high-security camps were constructed here in 1940. The gaol was used as a detention and hospitalisation facility servicing the POW camps from 1940 to 1946. The first internees were over two thousand refugees from Germany and Austria, many of them Jewish. They had been interned in Britain when fears of invasion peaked they were transported to Australia in 1940 aboard the HMT Dunera. They became known as the "Dunera Boys". Later that year began the arrival of Italian civilian internees.

In February 1941, in the wake of the Cowra POW break-out, a large number of Japanese POWs were transferred to Hay and placed in the three high-security compounds. During 1946 the POWs who remained at Hay were progressively released or transferred to other camps, and the Hay camps were dismantled.

The internment at Hay of the Dunera refugees from Nazi oppression in Europe was an important milestone in Australia's cultural history. About half of those interned at Hay eventually chose to remain in Australia. The Gaol is one of only a few buildings remaining in Hay associated with the camps.

It was de-commissioned as a prison on 31 October 1947.

Following the Hay camps, the gaol was used intermittently for emergency housing during the 1952 and 1956 floods, and as accommodation for Italian workers in town to build the new sewerage system.

From 1961 to 1974 the gaol was managed by the New South Wales Child Welfare Department as a particularly coercive maximum security institution for girls between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. The Hay Institution for Girls, as it was officially known, was established in response to wide scale rioting at Parramatta Girls' Home in 1961. The aim of Hay was to separate the girls involved in the riots and those whose behaviours generally were considered too difficult to be managed at Parramatta. Girls were sent to Hay for three month sentences.

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