50 Years Hard: The Story Of Pentridge Gaol From 1850 To 1900
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Behind the bluestone walls of Pentridge Gaol — one of Australia's most notorious penal institutions — lay fifty years of brutal discipline, desperate lives, and the raw machinery of colonial justice. 50 Years Hard: The Story of Pentridge Gaol from 1850 to 1900 chronicles the turbulent history of this forbidding Melbourne prison, detailing the convicts, warders, hangmen, and reformers whose lives intersected within its iron-gated confines during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Denton Prout and Fred Feely reconstruct a world of leg-irons and solitary confinement, of escapes and executions, drawing on historical records to present an unflinching portrait of colonial penal policy in action. Anchored in the social and political upheaval of post-Gold Rush Victoria, this work serves as both a meticulous historical record and a searing indictment of an era when punishment was synonymous with suffering. Prout and Feely write with the authority of seasoned researchers, weaving individual stories of hardship into a broader narrative about crime, class, and the contested meaning of justice in a young nation. For anyone fascinated by the darker corridors of Australian history, this is an essential chronicle — one that leaves the reader questioning where the walls of punishment ended and civilisation was supposed to begin.
Author: Denton Prout & Fred Feely
Format: Hardback
Published: 1967, Rigby Limited, Adelaide
Genre: Australian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Behind the bluestone walls of Pentridge Gaol — one of Australia's most notorious penal institutions — lay fifty years of brutal discipline, desperate lives, and the raw machinery of colonial justice. 50 Years Hard: The Story of Pentridge Gaol from 1850 to 1900 chronicles the turbulent history of this forbidding Melbourne prison, detailing the convicts, warders, hangmen, and reformers whose lives intersected within its iron-gated confines during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Denton Prout and Fred Feely reconstruct a world of leg-irons and solitary confinement, of escapes and executions, drawing on historical records to present an unflinching portrait of colonial penal policy in action. Anchored in the social and political upheaval of post-Gold Rush Victoria, this work serves as both a meticulous historical record and a searing indictment of an era when punishment was synonymous with suffering. Prout and Feely write with the authority of seasoned researchers, weaving individual stories of hardship into a broader narrative about crime, class, and the contested meaning of justice in a young nation. For anyone fascinated by the darker corridors of Australian history, this is an essential chronicle — one that leaves the reader questioning where the walls of punishment ended and civilisation was supposed to begin.