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History of the 'Marrickville Lock-up'

This information has been adapted from an article written by Mark Matheson in the Heritage magazine (Nov 2001, p. 38).

Policing in Marrickville commenced in August 1866, five years after it was made a municipality when a single constable was sent to patrol the semi-rural district on foot. There was inadequate accommodation and, when necessary, prisoners were chained to trees. A policeman’s lot at that time (according to an 1895 memoir by Constable Redgrave) involved ‘straying swine, furious driving, gaming on Sunday, offending against decency, the riding of beasts on footway, runaway seamen, chalking walls and dogs attacking private places’. A second constable was appointed to the area in 1874, by which time Inspector-General Edmund Fosbery complained there was petty theft, control of licensed premises and tote-shops and numerous cases of ‘aggravated assault and other outrages by the so called “larrikin class”’.

Accommodation for Marrickville police became critical in 1892 when there were six constables stationed there. Newtown had a grand courthouse with good police accommodation for police but only five cells. If Marrickville had excess prisoners requiring incarceration, special trams had to be despatched from Sydney for them. A temporary cell was constructed in 1892 costing £54/10s while awaiting completion of the new lock-up.

Gladstone Street was a paddock when the site was purchased for £400 from the Police Department’s consolidated revenue. There was only one house in the street at the time. The constables’ horses were pastured in the paddock rather than in a lock-up yard. Architect W. Vernon signed off on the drawings in February 1895 and building commenced in July 1895. It cost £3,369/2/4 and opened for business in 1897.

Marrickville’s lock-up contained a charge room, strong room, store room and a muster room for fifteen officers. There were five cells for prisoners on remand, with ablutions to be done in three airing yards open to the sky except for a metal grille. There was a padded cell and an isolation punishment cell wherein they would endure the ‘physical and mental pain of absolute darkness’. Two walled passageways ran down both sides of the lock-up allowing fresh air but no view of the sky or communication with the outside world.  It was constructed of brick with a slate roof. The façade has giant rusticated blocks, presumably local sandstone, with trachyte front steps.  There was no internal decoration apart from two fireplaces of grey streaked marble.  There were rippled iron ceilings, cell-doors of wood and iron with ‘efficient and suitable’ locks and hinge flaps. It has since undergone much addition and renovation, the second part of the building was built in 1920.

In 1996, the NSW Police service vacated the premises to move into their new police station located in Despointes Street, Marrickville.  The building was empty for a number of years and reopened in 1999 as a community centre.