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Names

New South Wales Police stations (Justice & Police Museum Collection)

IDs

Offline Only

Descriptions

A collection of around 700 photographs and 700 files which contain hand drawn sketches and official documentation relating to police station buildings throughout New South Wales.

In 1912 the New South Wales police issued a circular to all stations instructing that a photograph of each police station and a hand drawn sketch detailing the size of the building were to be provided to the Properties section. A similar project was undertaken by the police in the 1920s and the museum holds a limited number of photographs from this later period.
A selection of police property files exist within the collection and these contain gazettal notices, details of the cost of building police stations and plans that show how each space was used. Insight into the management and treatment of prisoners can be gleaned by examining drawings of cells.
The photographs of the police stations often provide a rare snapshot of a community. Images, such as that of the Hill End Police Station, show a rag-tag bunch of local children posing for the photographer against the paling fence of the station. Stations were generally situated in the commercial hub of a town and details about the surrounding streetscape are sometimes captured in the image. Married police lived in regional stations with their family and the official picture often doubled as a family portrait . The blurring of the officer's public duty and private life is clearly articulated in this collection where bedrooms often abut holding cells.

Subjects

Police stations; Policing

Coverage Spatial

New South Wales; Australia

Coverage Temporal

1912

1930

Dates

2012-05-30 23:45

2011-12-19 13:07