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Photography | Rock | Mary’s June 2025 Prompt
The View from Moondyne Joe’s Cell
June Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Rock”
Surrounded by rock on all sides.
Arriving in Australia via the convict vessel Pyreness, Joseph Bolitho Johns (Moondyne Joe) was facing ten years’ imprisonment, but good behaviour saw him granted his Ticket-of-Leave. Unfortunately, he did not continue his good behaviour, and police arrested him in 1861 for branding a brumby (wild horse), locking him into this cell at Newcastle Convict Hiring Depot.
Not one to let the stone walls cage him, Monndyne Joe, broke either the door hinges or the lock (reports vary!) and escaped, taking the brumby along with the Resident Magistrate’s saddle and bridle.
It was the first time he escaped from a goal cell … but not the last.
Once recaptured, Moondyne Joe spent some time at the Convict Establishment (now Fremantle Prison). It was a place Moodyne Joe kept returning to, and escaping from, giving him notoriety and his place as Western Australia’s most famous bushranger.
This goal cell, pictured above, is small and quite gloomy. They built the Newcastle Convict Hiring Depot from stone, adding a shingled roof. A stone wall encloses the…
