LEARNING A TRADE EVERY PRISONER AT WORK ▪ The St Helena Island Community ▪ www.sthelenacommunity.com.au July 2019 Trades The prison on St Helena was built by prisoner labour. Self-sufficiency was a necessity in the earliest times, so prisoners grew their own food, created construction resources and built their houses and cells. Later, the need to make a profit for the government expanded the trades industry to new areas, ensuring that every prisoner was set to work. Gangs of prisoners would be set to a specific work task outside – making lime from coral and shells, milking the cows and producing sugar. Unique pioneer industries saw prisoners picking mulberries for the silk worm industry, making rope from hemp and processing olives for olive oil. Inside the stockade, prisoners were selected to learn a trade such as making boots, clothing, saddles, hammocks, sails and bookbinding. Warder / Trade Instructors taught the men the skills they needed and a bulk supply of labour meant St Helena produce was sold all around Queensland. Learning a trade also offered the chance for a prisoner to reform, having skills he could utilise when released. Inside view of the Saddler’s workshop around 1911. Prisoners learnt the trade of saddle making from Warder Trade Instructors. In the