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DISTRIBUTION OF JAIL BUILDINGS, SINGAPORE.

Plate X.

Shortly after the transfer of the Straits Settlements to the Crown, which occurred on the 1st April, 1867, the Governor, then Sir Harry St. George Ord, called upon Major McNair, who had been appointed Colonial Engineer and Comptroller of the Indian Convicts, to prepare plans for a Government House to be erected near Mount Sophia, somewhat under two miles from the town. The plans were approved by the Governor, and passed by the Legislative Council early in 1868. The land on which it stands cost $43,800, and the building, furniture, and laying out of the grounds, $115,000, and the work, with convict labour, was finished for the reception of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh[8] in December, 1869.

Description of the Singapore Convict Jail.

We have already incidentally referred to the plans of Captain Man for the erection of a permanent jail for the Indian convicts, which he had agreed to construct wholly by convict labour. The enclosure wall already existed, within which the original temporary buildings and thatched huts had been run up for their shelter. Only one solid building was within it, part of which was used as a hospital and the remainder for the confinement of convicts in irons. The next permanent building to be erected was quarters for the chief warder, and then came the solid gateways and guard-rooms. After these were built the wards for the fourth and fifth classes, or convicts in irons, then Nos. 1 and 2 wards, all shown on the plan ([Plate X].) attached. Then a work-yard was enclosed by a solid wall, and offices built near the outer entrance to it, for the offices of the engineer and Superintendent of Convicts. While this wall was under construction by one gang, other gangs were employed in erecting within the main enclosure a refractory ward and punishment cells, and other minor buildings required in the way of store rooms, filter rooms,[9] chain room, and a receiving room for fresh arrivals; and the effectual drainage of the whole prison.

It was only when all these buildings were actually completed, in the year 1860, that the establishment assumed the character of a prison; and the convicts themselves were not slow to realize the fact, for it became a proverb amongst them that "an open campong, or village, had become a closed cage."