Destination WA - Fremantle Torchlight Tour

Episode: Episode 7 (05/06/16)

Fremantle Torchlight Tour

Episode: 7
Broadcast: 5 June 2016
Presenter: Chrissy Morrissy

Chrissy takes us to the Fremantle Prison, the biggest and also last convict prison built in the Southern Hemisphere.

Not everyone who lived and worked in the Fremantle Prison made it out alive.
The Torchlight Tour aims to put you in touch with the histories and the stories of the prison.
You are only given a small torch as you follow your guide who tells you tales of life behind bars.
During the 1970s one prison officer had an experience one night as he walked away from the tower, he turned around to see a man in a dark coat in the tower staring directly at him. The prison officer was late able to identify the man in the tower as Surgeon Atfield, who served as the doctor there in the 1860s. After that the prison officer refused to work in the tower and 3 months later transferred out of the prison.
Jumping from the upper stories was just one means of escaping the prison, a common course of action for desperate inmates before nets were installed.
There were two prisoners in a small cell with buckets for toilets.
‘Ghosts’ literally come to life- revealing unbelievable stories.
Some cells are also home to hauntingly beautiful works of arts by former inmates.
There were 44 executions there, the first in 1888 and the last in 1964.