The junction of the Murray and the Darling Rivers are the traditional lands of the Paakantyi and Maraura peoples. There is an extensive and rich archaeological heritage that documents their occupation of the lower Darling and Murray River areas; regionally this occupation dates back some 45,000 years, and there are numerous locations along the Murray and Darling Rivers that contain evidence of Aboriginal occupation from around 20,000 years ago up to the present.
In 1829 the New South Wales Government dispatched an exploratory party to trace the Murrumbidgee River under the leadership of Charles Sturt. Sturt, the first European to venture into the Murray - Darling region, followed the Murrumbidgee to its junction with the Murray River, then downstream to its junction with the Darling River. Sturt encountered large numbers of Aboriginal people near the Murray/Darling junction, but his expedition featured generally peaceful, though wary, meetings and interactions. Subsequent expeditions in the region, like that led by Major Thomas Mitchell in 1836, were marred by violence. In 1836 Mitchell commenced his 3rd expedition into the interior of Australia with the aim of completing a survey of the Darling River. Between Euston and Mildura, at a location now known as Mount Dispersion, the exploratory group were followed by a group of up to 180 Aboriginals. Mitchell organised an ambush and at least seven Aboriginals were killed, with 70 or 80 shots fired.
In 1838 Joseph Hawdon and Charles Bonney, the first of the 'overlanders', drove cattle from New South Wales to Adelaide along the northern bank of the Murray River, crossing the lower Darling River en route. Other overlanders began to follow the same route, and the Murray/Darling junction became an established campsite known as Hawdon's Ford. The settlement was later referred to as the Darling Junction. Small scale conflicts between overlanders and Aboriginal people developed as more and more overlanders passed through, grazed, and damaged the traditional lands of the Barkindji, Paakantyi and Maraura peoples. These conflicts with overlanders escalated, culminating in the infamous 1841 Rufus River Massacre, at Lake Victoria, where some 35 Aborigines were shot by Police and overlanders.
Conflict between Aboriginal people and overlanders/ pastoralists slowed after this massacre. Aboriginal people were dispossessed of their lands and were forced to join the workforce of the expanding pastoral industry. In the 1840's, squatters became established over the land along the Darling and Murray Rivers and gradually expanded their holdings westwards from the Murrumbidgee and north eastwards from South Australia.
Moorna Station, just downstream of the Murray/Darling junction, was established in 1847 and became the base for government administration in the area. The Lower Darling Land District was created in 1847 and subdivided north-south along the Darling River into the Albert and Lower Darling land districts in 1851. The first Crown Land Commissioners for the district were appointed in November 1851 (Stephen Cole, Lower Darling District and Patrick Brougham to the Albert District) and were based at Moorna, along with the Court of Petty Sessions and Native Police. Moorna township was surveyed in 1859 and town lots auctioned, but when the Land Commissioner and native police were moved to Wentworth in circa 1859, Moorna did not develop as a town. Hawdon's Ford or Darling Junction was officially renamed Wentworth, after the New South Wales explorer and politician William Charles Wentworth, on the 21st of June 1859.
In mid-1857 Edmund Morris Lockyer was appointed second Lieutenant in the Native Police, Lower Darling District, and Alexander Tod Perry was appointed second lieutenant in the Native Police, Albert District. The first means of detention used in Wentworth was a huge tree trunk at the corner of Adelaide and Darling St. with a bullock chain and ring bolt, to which prisoners were handcuffed. The next lockup was a slab hut, located at the southern end of Darling Street opposite the end of Darling St. This lockup or the Wentworth police Watch-house was used to confine prisoners with sentences of fourteen days or less, and was proclaimed to be a prison on the 1st of December 1870.
By the 1860s the lockup was enlarged to three rooms but it was apparent that a new gaol was needed. In late 1875 the gaol could not shelter all 12 prisoners, and 3 were chained outside. Passionate pleas to the Colonial Secretary described the overcrowded conditions in the gaol as a 'disgrace', 'shameful', and as the 'Wentworth Black Hole". There are reports of some improvements to prisoner accommodation during 1877 after which the Gaol was reported to house three separated and nine associated prisoners.
On the 1st of January 1877, a letter from the Controller General of Prisons to the Colonial Secretary requested that a site be dedicated for the projected new gaol at Wentworth. On the 30th of April 1877, the Comptroller General wrote to the Colonial architect "having conferred with the inspector of Police I am of the opinion that the Gaol should be designed as one of the class now building at Young. If it were practicable to erect only a portion of the designed buildings at the present time, it would be desirable-but provision for a Hospital, Surgery and bath house should be made". By the 23rd of April 1878 a plan has been drawn up and by the 14th of August 1878 a "Reservation of 2 acres being portion no. 47 of site for Wentworth Gaol" was completed.
James Johnstone Barnet (1827 - 1904) was made acting Colonial Architect in 1862 and appointed Colonial Architect from 1865 - 1890. He was born in Scotland and studied in London under Charles Richardson, RIBA, and William Dyce, Professor of Fine Arts at King's College, London. He was strongly influenced by Charles Robert Cockerell, leading classical theorist at the time and by the fine arts, particularly works of painters Claude Lorrain and JRM Turner. He arrived in Sydney in 1854 and worked as a self-employed builder. He served as Edmund Blacket's clerk of works on the foundations of the Randwick (Destitute Childrens') Asylum. Blacket then appointed Barnet as clerk-of-works on the Great Hall at Sydney University. By 1859 he was appointed second clerk of works at the Colonial Architect's Office and in 1861 was Acting Colonial Architect. Thus began a long career. He dominated public architecture in NSW, as the longest-serving Colonial Architect in Australian history. Until he resigned in 1890 his office undertook some 12,000 works, Barnet himself designing almost 1000. They included those edifices so vital to promoting communication, the law and safe sea arrivals in colonial Australia. Altogether there were 169 post and telegraph offices, 130 courthouses, 155 police buildings, 110 lockups and 20 lighthouses, including the present Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head, which replaced the earlier one designed by Francis Greenway. Barnet's vision for Sydney is most clearly seen in the Customs House at Circular Quay, the General Post Office in Martin Place and the Lands Department and Colonial Secretary's Office in Bridge Street. There he applied the classicism he had absorbed in London, with a theatricality which came from his knowledge of art.
The gaol was erected in 1879 by Whitcombe Bros. of Hay. The contract price is believed to have been fourteen thousand pounds and bricks were locally produced by Joseph Fritsch. Malmsbury bluestone was transported by rail to Kerang then by bullock wagon for use in the gaol. The gaol was erected to include a quadrangle, cell block (with ten male and two female cells), kitchen, hospital, storeroom, block, gaol warden's residence and two observation towers. The kitchen block was described as showing evidence of careful planning in preparation of meals for prisoners. Next to the kitchen was the bathroom equipped with a bath and shower on a concrete base. The gaol included a well-stocked library. The staff consisted of three warders and there was as many as 18 prisoners locked up at any one time.
With the erection of other gaols at Silverton (1889), Broken Hill (1892) and Goulburn (1884) the need for a gaol at Wentworth declined. The gaol closed after the two final prisoners, who had been sentenced on 9 February 1928, were transferred to the Broken Hill Gaol on 27 February 1928 (Anonymous, 1928) . In 1935 the hospital block was remodelled and converted into additional class rooms for Wentworth Central School. Over a hundred pupils used the gaol, which also became of interest to visitors / tourists in the 1950s. In 1963 the students left the gaol when new school classrooms were constructed.
In the mid-1970s some restoration works were undertaken by EA Farmer, Government Architect. In 1981 Mr. Peter Kiely took over the lease and ran the gaol as a tourist attraction, retaining the cottage as a residence, and from 2000 Mr. Paul Swarbrick has been the leasee. The cottage is currently used as an entry and shop for selling old wares.
Source: New South Wales Heritage Register.
