The Royal Saxon prison hulk

In 1861 work started on building a new jail at Stonecutters Island, in Hong Kong harbour off Kowloon and this was finished by 1864.

However, there was increasing pressure on prison facilities in the early 1860s, transportation to the Andaman Islands, in the Indian Ocean was suspended, and a new debtors’ ward was introduced at the jail. So, to relieve pressure an old hulk, the Royal Saxon, was put into service as a floating prison.

Arrangements were made and 280 prisoners serving long sentences were loaded onto the ship which was anchored off Stonecutters’ Island. During the day the convicts worked in the quarries on the island. Usually, the hulk was guarded by a gunboat and military guard. However, sometimes these had to be withdrawn and the result was that friends of the prisoners made attempts to rescue them.

On July 23, 1868, there was a tragic accident when a boat carrying 38 prisoners was overturned and they all drowned. On April, 21, 1864, about a hundred prisoners managed to escape after over-powering the guards. The use of the Royal Saxon as a prison was subsequently abandon.

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