Prison Collection

The Fremantle Prison Collection

The Fremantle Prison Collection comprises approximately 20,000 objects, all of which relate to the Fremantle Prison site, its history, and the experiences of those who lived, worked, and were incarcerated here. 

Fremantle Prison seeks to collect, document and interpret the history of the site through preserving, managing and researching the Collection. Conservation and maintenance of the Collection for future generations will allow Fremantle Prison to document the experience of incarceration over a period of 136 years and support academic and curatorial research into the history of Fremantle Prison specifically, and the penal and carceral history of Western Australia more broadly.

• View Collections WA | Fremantle Prison for information about items in the Fremantle Prison Collection, including details on specific objects.

Collection Provenance

Items currently held in the Fremantle Prison Collection have been acquired in several ways. They may have been transferred from the Fremantle Prison Museum, which was run jointly by the Department of Corrections and the Fremantle City Council from 1978 until 1992. Items in this category would include the convict material such as clothing, shackles, tools and punishment items like birches and whips.

Another large source of objects now held in the Collection is material that was left onsite by prisoners, staff, and the Department of Corrective Services when the Prison closed in October 1991. These include documents, artworks, tools and furnishings.

Other materials stem from excavations for archaeological exploration or research.  Two notable such examples are the excavation of the basement of the main cell block in 1993, and the cellar of No. 14 The Terrace in 2009. 

The Prison also accepts donations from former staff of the Prison, their families or other members of the public. In very rare cases the Prison may purchase material for the Collection.

Collection Policy

Our Collection Policy guides the way we care for this significant heritage resource, ensuring consistency and best practice in preserving the artefacts and stories that shape Fremantle Prison’s rich history.

Assessing an object’s significance is a core requirement of the Fremantle Prison Significance Assessment process. Significance extends beyond an object’s physical characteristics, focusing on its relevance and meaning to the history of Fremantle Prison.

•  Fremantle Prison | Significance Assessment 

Prison Art

Fremantle Prison holds a significant collection of prisoner art, including works on canvas, board, and paper; graffiti; murals in cells, yard walls, and in the chapels.

Most of these were created in the last decades of the Prison’s operational life, however the frescoes drawn by James Walsh on a cell’s walls are the only known artworks by a convict in the Prison.

View some of these unique artworks by arranging an exclusive Art Tour, available by request.