> Dear Histarchers,
>
> During the time there were public executions in Ontario for a wide variety
> of
> crimes, it was a widespread and common practice for hanged prisoners,
> unclaimed by relatives, to be buried in the jail yard.
<Snip>
> Does anyone have knowledge of jail yard burials at this particular jail
> (Toronto's 3rd), or at others in the period1830 to 1850 in Ontario, or
> elsewhere if relevant?
There's just been a highly relevant excavation in Australia at the Melbourne
Gaol, complete with executed prisoners buried in the yard.
There's a brief article in the June ASHA newsletter, written by Geoff
Hewitt, but since I doubt most Histarch subscribers are ASHA members, and I
was June's guest editor, and still have the article on my hard drive, here
it is:
'La Trobe University and the Former Police Garage Site in Melbourne'
A project conducted by the Archaeology Program of La Trobe University on
behalf of RMIT University is reaching finality. The City Campus of RMIT
University has expanded in recent years to encompass the former legal
precinct of Melbourne which includes the old City Watchhouse (c.1908), a
former Magistrates¹ Court (c.1910) and the former Russell Street Police
Garage. The latter, constructed in 1937 and adjacent to the National Trust¹s
Old Melbourne Gaol cellblock, occupied what was once the site of the gaol
hospital and yard; some parts of which date from 1845.
RMIT University is in the process of redeveloping the Police Garage site
into landscaped open space within the standing stone walls of the old gaol
yards. The work is proceeding under the watchful eyes of Ray Tonkin, Dr Leah
McKenzie and Jeremy Smith of Heritage Victoria.
La Trobe Archaeology¹s consultancy, under the broad supervision of Professor
Tim Murray, has involved test excavations conducted by Maddy Atkinson, Dr
Peter Davies and Chris Williamson who then excavated the footings of the
1855 hospital building. More recent work, directed initially by Maddy
Atkinson and subsequently by Geoff Hewitt, has involved a watching brief
during removal of the remaining approximately 1000 square metres of concrete
slab floor and some 2000 cubic metres of contaminated fill.
Rather than the straightforward process expected, fill removal soon revealed
a vast and complex archaeology. Intact paved surfaces, the stone footings of
walls and buildings, arrays of timber post features, cesspits, cisterns and
a network of drains of various type and period came to light under the
layers of clay, asphalt and broken stone. Beneath it all, clear traces of
the pre-European landscape became evident.
Keeping pace with the contractor necessitated a substantial archaeological
team which included La Trobe postgraduate and undergraduate students Ghattas
Sayej, Libby Riches, Ilya Berelov, Peter Waldie, Fiona Anderson, Adrienne
Ellis, Jenny Porter, Greg Deftereos, Lynne Dore, Caroline Wilby, Chu Youxin,
Josara de Lange and Zvonka Stanin. Practical assistance was also given by
volunteer Celia Parham and by Liz Kilpatrick of Heritage Victoria.
Unusual finds included a mass burial of young and robust dogs, probably the
result of (unsuccessful) experiments, conducted at the gaol during the
1870s, to evaluate an antidote for snakebite.
A new perspective on the ineffectiveness of quicklime as a means to dispose
of unwanted corpses was provided by the discovery of the body of an executed
prisoner buried in the hospital yard. The remains, tentatively identified as
Albert Edward Budd, a former stevedore and returned soldier wounded at
Gallipoli who was hanged in the Melbourne Gaol early in 1918, were exhumed
under the direction of Emeritus Professor R.V.S. Wright and subsequently
re-interred at Fawkner Cemetery. The remains of two other individuals, who
had been incompletely exhumed from the hospital yard during 1937 were also
reburied at Fawkner.
At the time of writing, the task of interpreting the archaeology of the
former Police garage site - and compilation of the report - is progressing
in parallel with the last of the watching brief.
(full citation: Hewitt, G. (2002). 'La Trobe University and the Former
Police Garage Site in Melbourne', _Australasian Society for Historical
Archaeology Newsletter_ 32(2):5-6.)
You can get in touch with Geoff at: [log in to unmask]
Alasdair Brooks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Alasdair Brooks
Department of Archaeology
La Trobe University
Plenty Road
Bundoora VIC 3083
Australia
Phone - 03 9479 3269
E-mail - [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The buffalo tastes the same
on both sides of the border"
Sitting Bull
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