Looking out to sea, something of the magnitude of the Harbour of Refuge project is captured in this scene of the North Breakwater on 28 July 1950. This is less than half of the main project construction, ultimately 1,500ft in length compared to the South Breakwater’s 2,850ft. One of the Admiralty-owned Hunslet Engine Co-built 0-6-0Ts is at rest with three wagons near the breakwater’s 40 ton Titan crane; it is very likely Prince of Wales as during the 1950s it enjoyed a long spell on the self-contained railway of the North Breakwater. The load appears to be containers of Portland Cement used to stabilise the breakwater foundations prior to the laying of concrete blocks. Divers were employed in the dangerous work of positioning these underwater. The superstructure here extended down for 69ft below low water, with at least another seven feet of concrete foundation beneath that.
Maud Railway Museum Collection
STEAM DAYS
In the mid-19th century the east coast of Scotland was notorious for the large number of ships wrecked and the lives lost every year on its rocky coastline caused by storms that could arise with little warning but much ferocity. At the same time the Admiralty was concerned about the lack of shelter for Naval vessels, a Royal Commission was set up and in 1852 it recommended that a National Harbour of Refuge be built at Peterhead, a busy whaling and fishing port with ambitions to expand. Because of the massive costs, of which two-thirds would be sought from the local harbour board, the project did not proceed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Meanwhile, south of the border major public works were being undertaken using convict labour at locations such as Chatham Dockyard, Dartmoor, Portsmouth, and on the Isle of Portland in Dorset. Following the appointment of a new Board of Commissioners for Prisons in 1877, John Hill Burton, the Scottish representative, noted that although his country contributed to the costs of maintaining convicts, England had the entire benefit as over 600 Scottish prisoners were employed there. The proposal to build a Harbour of Refuge in eastern Scotland was accordingly revived and in 1882 another commission was set up to look at various potential locations from Eyemouth to Wick. Two years later it reiterated that Peterhead Bay would be the most suitable and a site was selected for a new prison to house the potential labour force, this being about 1½ miles south of the town centre.
With appreciation and thanks to my colleagues from the Great North of Scotland Railway Association and Maud Railway Museum Trust and in particular Des Byrne, for their assistance with this article, and also to the staff of Peterhead Prison and of Aberdeenshire Library and Information Services for help provided over the years in researching this unusual railway.
The Treasury gave the go-ahead for the project and the Admiralty appointed Sir John Coode as the first Engineer-in-Chief. The Peterhead Harbour of Refuge Act was approved by Parliament in 1886 and preparations began. According to the traditions of the time, the initial contractors built the first cell block for about 200 men, the perimeter wall and various extraneous buildings, and the inmates would subsequently be employed on completing the remaining two cell blocks and staff housing.
On 7 August 1888 the first batch of 20 convicts, all sentenced to a lengthy term of penal servitude, arrived just before noon at Peterhead station. They were met by ‘an immense crowd of all sorts of people, crushing and pushing for a good place’ - a celebrity welcome! The men, accompanied by four warders, had travelled in the Caledonian Railway’s special prison carriage that had been attached to the 7.20am train from Perth to Aberdeen, where it was immediately added to the Great North of Scotland Railway’s 10.15am Buchan line train. Chained together in groups of five, the men, dressed in the standard coarse linen prison uniform of the day, marked with arrows, were taken to their new home by two horse-drawn buses flanked by local policemen and armed guards. This was to become a familiar sight in Peterhead over the ensuing months and years.
The reporter for the local newspaper was able to look inside the prison carriage and gave a detailed account of the interior. ‘There was a space in the centre immediately fronting the door reserved for the warders cushioned and comparatively nice, but at either end of the van where the convicts were stowed, the fixtures had a striking resemblance to a wild beast’s cage in a menagerie - only smaller. Each end has two compartments one on either side of the carriage with a passage in the centre. In each of these compartments five convicts are accommodated, all of course chained, and the chain being fixed to a staple in the centre of the apartment. The front of the compartment is solid wood panels up to the height of three feet after which there are bars to the top of the carriage.’ Incongruously he added the ‘atmosphere of the carriage was warm and comfortable the door reserved for the warders cushioned and comparatively nice, but at either end of the van where the convicts were stowed, the fixtures had a striking resemblance to a wild beast’s cage in a menagerie - only smaller. Each end has two compartments one on either side of the carriage with a passage in the centre. In each of these compartments five convicts are accommodated, all of course chained, and the chain being fixed to a staple in the centre of the apartment. The front of the compartment is solid wood panels up to the height of three feet after which there are bars to the top of the carriage.’ Incongruously he added the ‘atmosphere of the carriage was warm and comfortable.’