Convicts and prisons
In 1841 convicts moved into the barracks they themselves had built on the plateau of Cockatoo Island. Their conditions were primitive with up to 500 repeat offenders and other prisoners crammed into three barracks.
Prisoners built the Fitzroy Dock over a decade from 1847 and also carved storage silos out of the sandstone. They provided all the services required to run the penal settlement: gatekeepers, overseers, mechanics, wardsmen, watermen and gardeners.
The penal settlement was regularly the subject of official enquiries into the conditions of prisoners' accommodation and its administration. Finally, in 1869 the settlement was closed and the prisoners transferred to Darlinghurst Gaol. It was replaced by an Industrial School for Girls and a Reformatory and the island was renamed Biloela (an Aboriginal word for cockatoo).
In 1888 the former convict prison reverted to a gaol for both male and female prisoners and remained so until 1908 when Long Bay Gaol opened. For forty years from 1871, the ship Vernon and her successor Sobraon were anchored off Cockatoo Island as training vessels for homeless or orphaned boys. The boys grew vegetables on the island.
