When Research Comes Full Circle
- pentridgemuseum
- Jun 9
- 3 min read
How pieces of Pentridge Prison’s theatrical history resurfaced through shared knowledge and archival research.
In the 18th newsletter, I wrote about a Broad Arrow Boys programme that had recently been donated to the museum by Dr Peter White. Not long afterwards, Tim from the Coburg Historical Society (CHS) kindly got in touch and sent me copies of several more Broad Arrow Boys programmes.
While the CHS never held the original programmes, a former member had donated black-and-white copies, preserving a record of these remarkable prisoner-produced performances.
One of the programmes immediately looked familiar. After digging through my Pentridge research files, I discovered where I had seen it before.
In October 2023, I visited the State Library Victoria with my friend and fellow Pentridge Voices colleague Adrian Didlick to undertake research relating to Pentridge Prison. We were primarily looking at journals and magazines published at Pentridge when we came across a number of files and documents that had not been individually catalogued. Among them was a programme for Le Follies Burgoo, a theatrical revue presented by the Broad Arrow Boys on 3 November 1946.
At the time, I photographed the programme and filed it away with my research notes. It wasn't until Tim sent through the copies from the CHS that I realised I had already come across one of the programmes almost three years earlier.
The photocopied programmes revealed three Broad Arrow Boys productions from 1946: Black and White Antics (23 June), Konvix in Klover (1 September) and Le Follies Burgoo (3 November).
Together, they provide a fascinating glimpse into prisoner entertainment at Pentridge during the immediate post-war years.
The Broad Arrow Boys were a prisoner concert party that staged regular vaudeville-style shows featuring songs, comedy sketches, recitations and musical performances. A contemporary article published in The Herald on 5 October 1946 described audiences of 500 to 600 prisoners attending the concerts and noted that many of the sketches and performances were written by prisoners themselves.
The article also identified Warder N. Meagher, the prison bandmaster, as the person responsible for supervising rehearsals and concert preparations. Prison workshops produced costumes, decorations, stage effects and printed programmes, while prisoners contributed their talents as musicians, performers, writers, printers and stagehands. According to the article, concerts were held every two months and were regarded by prison authorities as an important welfare activity.
What I particularly enjoy about discoveries like this is the way pieces of information from different places come together. A programme donated by Dr Peter White, photocopies preserved by the Coburg Historical Society, a programme photographed during a research visit to the State Library Victoria, and a newspaper article retrieved through Trove all help tell the same story. It is a reminder that history is often reconstructed from many small pieces preserved in different places.
Equally important are the memories and experiences shared by people connected to the former prison. If you have a story to share, please get in touch through Pentridge Voices.
If you have photographs, documents or other Pentridge Prison -related material, I’d love to hear from you. Sharing even a digital copy can help preserve history and grow our collective knowledge of Pentridge.
If there is a particular aspect of Pentridge Prison's history that you would like to see featured in a future newsletter, please feel free to get in touch. I am always interested in hearing suggestions and learning what topics readers would like to know more about.
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