From the loft

Photographed 3 July 1924 at the State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay NSW

When researching the criminal backgrounds of the women photographed at Long Bay Gaol it is common to find convictions for drunkenness on their criminal record. The connection between criminal behaviour and alcohol or drug addiction has long been established and many different methods of dealing with the problem have been trialed. In 1924 when Annie Matthews was gaoled it was common to detain alcoholics at the Shaftesbury Institution at South Head.

Annie Matthews was born in 1867 and lived most of her life in the working class suburb of Paddington. She had been previously imprisoned for stealing, vagrancy and drunkenness. Her convictions for drunkenness were so numerous that officials didn’t note them individually but resorted to writing on her record in red ink ‘Over 200 convictions for drunkenness’. At the time when this photograph was taken she was convicted of drunkenness and confined indefinitely under the Inebriates Act, 1900. It is probable that she was transferred from the gaol to be detained at the Shaftesbury Institution for Inebriates.

In January 1908 the Shaftesbury Reformatory for Girls was transferred to the management of the Department of Prisons and was renamed the Shaftesbury Institution. Male and female alcoholics could be detained there instead of serving time in the prison system. It was argued at the time that alcoholics should be treated, not punished, and that the institution was the ideal environment in which to ‘cure’ the detainee. The staff was to assist the women to regain ‘their womanly self-respect’ through education and work. By 1927 a government medical officer noted that 62% of the alcoholics housed in the institution suffered mental illness and were unlikely ever to be cured. In 1929 the Shaftesbury Institution was closed.