by Barrie Jones
Chapter IX. Henry describes his experience of hard labour in Portland prison, and also examples of incidents between convicts and prison warders in the quarries.
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 19th March 1910, page 11.
Chapter IX
On a Monday morning in the month of May 1899, I was told off on parade to join No. 27 party, and after going through the usual search drill, I was marched out to the stone cutters’ yard, situated near the free men’s quarry at Portland. The distance from the prison to the quarry is not very great, and as the last gang passed through the gates, a company of soldiers, armed with rifles and fixed bayonets, closed in and followed the convicts straight to the quarries, where they break off into sentries. There were civil guards there also. At the stone yard, I was supplied with a set of mason’s tools, and instructed in the art of masonry, which I took great interest in. I continued this work for nearly four years, and finally I was pronounced a first-class mason. I helped to build the new stone prison at Portland, and also made the circular stones for the air shafts of the same. I had several changes of labour during that time, for I got transferred to the quarry party; I was employed also in No. 7 party under a warder, who was a good old fatherly sort of man, and who did not believe in taking a poor convict’s dinner from him (reporting him) for the most trivial of offences.
In the year 1901, a young convict employed in No. 54 party, in the quarry at Portland, a very quiet chap, who had very little to say, to anyone, one Saturday morning, after sweating and nearly killing himself with hard work, forfeited his two days food by simply asking one comrade to give him a lift with a stone which was beyond his strength. The officer in charge of the gang reported him to the Governor, and he was awarded the dietary punishment mentioned. This was not the first time the that the officer had taken liberties with him, but the convict had made up his mind, after being driven to desperation, to have his revenge. On the following Monday morning, after suffering his punishment, he came out to the quarry as usual, and said not a single word to anyone, and just as they were taking the tools out of the box, the officer happened to turn his head aside, when with a dash and quite unexpected by anyone, the convict caught up an iron drill and brought it with terrific force down on the head of the officer until he was streaming with blood. The whistles were blowing all over the place, and several guards left their posts, and rushed with fixed bayonets to the rescue, but the convict caught up another drill, and broke several of their bayonets. At last, he was overpowered, and taken back to the prison. He was tried before the committee and sentenced to two dozen with the “cat.” As for the officer he received compensation and was dismissed from service. A similar assault was committed upon an assistant warder by a young “lifer.” This officer used his cutlass when he was not supposed to have used it; he also was reduced and was not allowed to wear side arms for twelve months.
Convicts sometimes met with serious accidents in the quarry. I can recollect a serious affair which happened in 1901, when one of the great stone-lifting cranes (or jibs) fell to the ground and caused serious internal injuries to two poor chaps. Stretchers were brought and they were conveyed to the prison infirmary, and their groans were pitiful in the extreme. Another case was that of a man who broke his leg, and the only compensation he received was six weeks deducted from his sentence of ten years. Sometimes convicts make terrible assaults upon their fellow convicts. I can well remember a case of a convict who was being called a one-eyed _____, took up a stone pick, and struck it right underneath the heart of a man. The former convict was taken out, and tried by civil power, and received the sentence of eighteen months. The leniency of his sentence was owing to the great provocation he had received. The chap whom he had assaulted was given up by two doctors for dead, but he got round after all, so that was an instance of small faith in medical aid. Sometimes mutinies are threatened among convicts, and a mutiny nearly happened in 1901, when about eighty convicts absolutely refused to go out to the quarries owing to receiving for their breakfast sour bread. The mutiny was checked by each man receiving a ten-ounce white loaf apiece.
To be continued…….