.. Police Stations in New South Wales A Graduate Project submitted in part fulfilment of the award of the degree of Master of the Built Environment (Building Conservation) by the University of New South Wales Cornelius Breen O'Donnell, 1993 Table of Contents Candidate's Statement page 1 Methodology 2 Acknowledgments 3 Abstract 5 PART I: POLICE AND POLICING 6 SECTION I: 1788 - 1862 6 Introduction 6 Chapter 1 * Background 7 Chapter 2 * Policing in Sydney 10 *1788-1833 *1833-1862 Cha:gter 3 * Policing beyond Sydney 14 *1788-1833 *1833-1862 Summary 22 SECTION II: 1862 - 1915 23 Introduction 23 Chapter 1 * Background 24 Chapter 2 * Policing Sydney 30 Chapter 3 * Policing the frontier 32 Summarv 36 SECTION III: 1915 - 1983 37 Introduction 37 Chapter 1 * Background 38 Chapter 2 * Policing 41 Summary 42 PART II: ACCOMMODATING THE POLICE 43 Introduction 43 Chapter 1 * Temporary quarters 44 Chapter 2 * The design of police buildings 50 Chapter 3 * The design of The Police Station 55 Chapter 4 * Accommodating police 59 Chapter 5 * Comparison with other government agencies 65 Summary 70 PART III: CASE STUDY- POLICING IN THE EASTERN SUBURBS 71 Introduction 71 Chapter 1 * Development of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney 74 Chapter 2 * Policing in the Eastern Suburbs 81 Chapter 3 * Darlinghurst Police Station 84 Chapter 4 * Rose Bay Police Station 86 Chapter 5 * Botany Police Station 89 Chapter 6 * Randwick Police Station 92 Chapter 7 * Paddington Police Station 94 Chapter 8 * Vaucluse Police Station 97 Chapter 9 * Mascot Police Station 98 Chapter 10 * Bondi Police Station 100 Chapter 11 * Daceyyille Police Station 102 General Conclusion 104 * Discussion of the Significance of Police Stations 104 * Further areas of study 106 Bibliography 107 Definitions of terms 110 --. , - ..---, /'- � . ; ; I t • from top: Moarna Police Station (n.d.), Bowral Police Station (c1886), Dapto Police Station (n.d.) Candidate's Statement I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of the university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgment is made in the text. Cornelius Breen O'DONNELL page 1 Methodology There is not to my knowledge any literature which covers the same detail subject area as this document. Much of the information in this dissertation comes from Police Department Annual Reports, and from original correspondence in the Archives Office of New South Wales (AONSW). The author has inspected all of the buildings of the case study, and is familiar with a broad cross-section of police stations across the State. It is hoped that this project may form the basis for the historical theme required under Section 170 of the Heritage Act, 1977-. Enquiries with the Department of Planning have revealed that the NSW Police Service is one of the few agencies which have commenced the preparation of a Heritage and Conservation Register ( as required under the Act). According to the Department of Planning, no other agency has yet prepared an historic theme. page 2 Acknowledgments Acknowledgment is hereby given to the "Police Source Book" by Bruce Swanton, Garry Hannigan and David Biles, "Police Source Book 2" by Bruce Swanton and Garry Hannigan, and "Mounted Police in NSW" by John O'Sullivan, which form the basis for the text of the various chapters on 'Background' and 'Policing'. Other documents extensively quoted from are a number of Conservation Reports forparticular properties prepared by various consultants for the NSW Police Service. These reports are listed in the Bibliography at the end of this document. Thanks are due to a number of people and organisations for their assistance and encouragement in the preparation of this project: Mr Robert Browne, Director of Police Properties, NSW Police Service; Mr Bob Irving for the conduct of the Master of the Built Environment course, and for his encouragement of this study; Mr Don Godden, my tutor, for his encouragement and criticism; and Mr Don Coleman (Public Works Department); Mr Stewart Sharp (CityRail); Mr Gary Tower (NSW Fire Brigades); Mr P Tonkin; Ms Mary McPherson (Department of School Education); Mr Lindsay Haraldson (Department of Courts Administration); Mr Caleb Williams (Police and Justice Museum); and the librarians of the Archives Office of New South Wales, the State Library of New South Wales, and the NSW Police Service. Illustration credits Police and Justice Museum - Figures 4, 5(1ower), 6, 15, 17, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 33, 61 Public Works Department - Figures 11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 22, 28, 30, 39, 40, 42, 44, 49, 54, 55, 57, 59, 62, 64 Department of School Education - Figure 38 page 3 Archives Office of NSW (AONSW) - Figures 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 18, 19, 20 Peter Tonkin - Figures 34 (AONSW), 35, 36, 37 Author - Figures 23, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 59, 61, 64, 66, 67 State Library of NSW - Figure 5 (upper) (Hood Collection) Perumal Murphy Wu, after Mitton, op cit - Figure 3 NSW Police Service - Figure 29 Jeans 1972, op cit - Figure 1, 2 page 4 Abstract This project was undertaken to identify any underlying theme or themes in the buildings used by the New South Wales Police. Research revealed the poor status of the police of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Comparison with the development of the court system in the early days of the Colony led to the conclusion that The Court was the image of The Law in the Colony, and thus considerable efforts and expense were accepted in the construction of imposing Court Houses not only in Sydney, but throughout towns and the hinterlands of the developing state. Police stations are generally a modest form of building. They are usually recognisable by a plan form of a residence with cell/s, with office accommodation supporting the police function. The amount of office accommodation is often a single room. In larger stations, and especially from the 1920's onwards, an increasing amount of office accommodation is provided. However, it is significant to the 'invisibility' of police stations that public space is absolutely minimal, a situation which continued until the current decade. There are really only three distinctive police building types: The first two of these characterise the police role of detention of suspects and are, firstly the Watch-House (cell block), and its successors, used from the earliest days of the Colony. Cell and exercise yard blocks were also commonly attached, with exercise yards, to police station/residences. This generates the second distinctive form of police building. The majority of police stations still in use in New South Wales originated as this plan. The shed-like Call Box, introduced in the 1930's as part of a new concept in policing, and used until the 1980's is the third distinctive form of police building. page 5 PART I: POLICE AND POLICING SECTION I: 1788 - 1862 Introduction From 1788, there were a number of approaches to policing New South Wales, with various schemes in place over the period to attempt to address the needs of the wide range of tasks, and more particularly, the large area covered by the small population. What was common amongst most of the earliest schemes was their limited effectiveness. This was due to a number of factors, but principally to the composition of the police forces. They were largely formed of unpaid or underpaid staff, often convicts. Added to these factors, the difficulty of policing such a widely scattered population meant that the reputation of the police was poor. Until the Passage of the Police Regulation Act of 1862, there was no integrated police system forthe state, but instead a number of unco-ordinated, and sometimes antagonistic, forces. In this Section, these various separate systems will be examined. page 6 Chapter 1 * Background: Policing as we know it is a relatively recent activity. Until the passage of the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 in England, partly due to sustained lobbying by Sir Robert Peel, policing had usually been an activity largely undertaken by the voluntary efforts of private citizens. Larger disturbances tended to be dealt with by government using military or para-military organisations. The draconian nature of laws reflected the low chances of detection and apprehension. Peel developed the principles that police are citizens employed by their fellows to maintain laws the general community accepts. This is very different from the nature of a military or para-military organisation, compelling an unwilling populace into obedience. The significance of this legislation is that it marks the origin of the modern concept of police. The key themes developed by Sir Robert Peel in London and which underpin the model for the New South Wales legislation are that police are the alternative to repression by military force, and because police don't have either the numbers or the fire-power to repress a population, enforcement of the law is dependant on public approval of police actions and behaviour. Police are identified as citizens paid by other citizens to undertake on a full-time basis those duties which are incumbent on all citizens (quoted in NSW Police Service c1981, p6-7). Although local legislation modelled on the London law was passed in 1833, and put New South Wales' Police Forces on a legislative basis for the first time, the times of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Sydney and New South Wales are very much a tale of controlling the frontier, with a capital and a few settlements slowly emerging towards the end of that period, where an established population might begin to develop those notions of 'community' implicit in underpinning Peel's notion of the community-based police.