TODAY IN KIMBERLEY’S HISTORY 31 DECEMBER Kimberley (GW) win the 4th Champion Bat cricket tourney, 1887 Pvt Kelly of the Kimberley Regiment found dead in the Big Hole, 1899 St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral (pictured) destroyed by fire, 1938 Malay Camp to be cleared of any residential buildings, 1953 Harry Oppenheimer retires as Chairman of De Beers Board, 1984 DID YOU KNOW Kimberley gaols of yesteryear were not as comfortable as they are today. A certain newspaper correspondent, true to his profession of occasional overindulgence in spirituous liquid, spent several days in Kimberley’s Transvaal road “tronk”, compliments of Mr Shirley, the Acting Police Magistrate, for being “drunk and incapable in the public streets”. It is not the transgression of the reporter, known only as “By One who has Been There”, that is important in this story, but rather the characteristics and quality of life in the gaol of 1886. The Criminal Yard was a large, open space lined with high black and white walls, the ground covered in hardened cow dung, and the walls in a “paint” cover of black shale. The black and white prisoners were kept apart as much as possible by George Healey, “the Governor”, but a man convicted of a trivial offence would be with hardened criminals. Kimberley prisons were different to those in Natal and the rest of the Cape colony in that both black and white were divided, whereas elsewhere they were herded together irrespective of colour or creed. The food was not bad at all, with the meat and bread being “quite wholesome”, the latter being just as good as bread bought from a bakery. Prisoners in for a longer period than three months received more rations than those in for a month or two, while women, children under the age of 18 and blacks received ¾ rations of the men. Normal rations for a man would be (per week), 20 ounces of meat, 16 ounces of bread, 8 ounces of meal and ½ ounce of salt; and daily, one ounce of rice and an ounce of beans and onions. The gaol kitchen was in a “dark sort of outhouse” and had six large copper pots dividing the kitchen in two, devoted to soup, meat and mealie pap. The soup would be carried to the prisoners in galvanized buckets, while the meat, when cooked, was thrown into a large wooden tub to be cut up. The ration due was placed on a tin plate together with a piece of bread and a chunk of salt and then given to the prisoners. The bakery was a “scrupulously clean place”, and the bread baked there was eaten by many of the top officials including the Resident Magistrate and the Civil Commissioner. Two prisoners worked all day bringing out the bread requirements. Washing facilities were rudimentary indeed, the “baths” being four square holes made of cement, with a shower head over each “which lets down a good volume of Vaal river when the tap is turned on”. Five or six prisoners were placed in each bath and cleaned en masse. An iron tank to the rear of the “baths” held 2000 gallons of water. The laundry was a small miserable room, where all the washing and ironing was done. At least six female prisoners did the ironing, and the laundry yard always had washing hanging on the lines. Black and white women did exactly the same work, side by side in the sunshine at the washtubs. The white women had only two beds in their prison ward, while on the opposite side of the female prison yard, the black women had a hut where they slept. Debtors and “criminal libelists” were not kept with the other prisoners but had their own room in George Healey’s house. Considered a first class flat it had a decent bed with wooden floors, the only sign of prison being a barred window. Prisoners condemned to death, generally speaking, are not contented, and the quarters allocated to these individuals were not very cheerful places. The doors were painted black and the cells were eight feet by six feet by nine feet in size. In the corner of each cell was an iron chain to which the prisoner would be fastened. The walls of the cell were made of mud, and anyone could cut his way through with a penknife or pick handle in a short time. The black prison sick ward had the appearance of an old kraal hut. Where the mud walls join there were cracks that ranged from one inch to five inches. There were no beds, as some old sacks were deemed sufficient. The white prison hospital – not a ward – was in a rough dreary room some forty feet square. The doors were black, the predominant colour in the prison, the walls were cracked and the roof was bare corrugated iron with one sunlight, the only piece of glass in the entire building. The floor was made of mud, and the furniture consisted of a table with a blanket as the cloth and a small stove. Six beds were in the hospital, nearly always occupied, and were mere planks of board placed on trestles some nine inches from the ground. The walls were painted black from the ground upwards for four feet, and then whitewashed up to the roof - clean, cold and cheerless. In those days, paupers and the mentally disturbed were looked after in the gaol, and in Kimberley gaol there were ten beds available for the streetwalkers, while for the “lunatics” there were two rooms. At the time of this report one of the rooms was occupied by an Irishman named Kinshela who was awaiting removal to Robben Island. The “prisoner awaiting trial yard” was the worst part of the prison. They had the same food as the rest but the living quarters were the worst. Over the road from the gaol was the “industrial yard” where some prisoners would do carpenting and blacksmithing work, the Government making good use out of the department. Indeed, convicts did not only build the old Courthouse but also made the fittings and furniture within. Guards had their own quarters in a small row of houses within the gaol precinct. Clergymen rarely visited. In December of 1886 there were 773 prisoners all told, of which some 228 were at De Beers where they worked in and about the mine. Mr Healey, the supervisor, managed everything most admirably, but the entire gaol was rambling and badly arranged. Everything was primitive, rough and clumsy, and “ought to have been pulled down years ago”. It would last until the 1890s when the new gaol at the corner of Transvaal Road and Hull Street was opened.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 02:57:17 +0000
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