An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

Be­fore the re­moval of the gar­ri­son in 1854, the Roy­al Gaol had been in down­town Scar­bor­ough, in a cramped stone build­ing best suit­ed for about 20 per­sons but ac­com­mo­dat­ing 50, both male and fe­male.

The roof leaked bad­ly and the Su­per­in­ten­dent, Kaye Row­land, was at great pains to best care for the in­mates. With the gar­ri­son gone in 1854, it was de­cid­ed to move the gaol to Fort George, in the build­ings oc­cu­pied for­mer­ly as bar­racks. The Pub­lic Works De­part­ment un­der­took hasty ren­o­va­tions and the move was ef­fect­ed. It was de­scribed in 1866 as fol­lows:

"While the colony was un­der the rule of Gov­er­nor Short­land, an act was passed to con­vert the mil­i­tary prison and cells at Fort King George in­to a con­vict prison; and Mr Keens, while he ad­min­is­tered the gov­ern­ment, sought to ren­der the build­ings at the Fort more avail­able for the pub­lic ser­vice by con­vert­ing the mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal there in­to a com­mon gaol, by which ac­com­mo­da­tion might be pro­vid­ed for all class­es of pris­on­ers un­der one es­tab­lish­ment.

"But it was re­served for Mr Drys­dale's Gov­ern­ment to ma­ture this very ex­cel­lent arrange­ment, by which all per­sons suf­fer­ing im­pris­on­ment were re­moved from the con­fined and un­healthy prison at Scar­bor­ough to the airy and ca­pa­cious build­ings at Fort King George, where clas­si­fi­ca­tion, so nec­es­sary to dis­ci­pline and good or­der, could be well per­fect­ed, and im­pris­on­ment be ren­dered a pun­ish­ment.

"The pris­on­ers were al­so in­debt­ed to Gov­er­nor Drys­dale in pro­vid­ing them with the means of re­li­gious con­so­la­tion: un­der his man­age­ment a chap­lain of the jail was for the first time ap­point­ed, and this pas­toral care is still af­ford­ed to in­mates of the prison, in­deed it may be con­sid­ered per­ma­nent."

The gaol re­ceived reg­u­lar vis­its from the Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer who both resided and prac­ticed at the mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal in Fort George as well as from a min­is­ter of St An­drew's An­gli­can Church, which formed the chap­lain­cy of the prison.

In 1877 the prison had its great­est in­take, com­pris­ing al­most the en­tire vil­lage of Rox­bor­ough. The man­ag­er of the es­tate was at­tacked and ap­par­ent­ly killed for he was chased in­to the high woods and nev­er seen again. The es­tate house was burnt down.

As un­rest spread, the five po­lice­men in the vil­lage, led by Cpls Bel­man­na and Reid, came to the fore. A scuf­fle en­sued be­tween the po­lice and ri­ot­ers, and al­leged­ly, a civil­ian was shot. This was the spark to the pow­der keg and the po­lice fled and bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves in the sta­tion (still in the same lo­ca­tion atop a hill to­day). The crowd sur­round­ed the build­ing, threat­en­ing to burn it with all in­side if Bel­man­na was not hand­ed over. A small band of mili­tia from Scar­bor­ough ar­rived on the scene, but was re­pulsed, send­ing them pack­ing back with the news to au­thor­i­ties that a very se­ri­ous threat was at hand. Bel­man­na had been seized by the in­sur­rec­tion­ists. He was beat­en bad­ly and mu­ti­lat­ed. A woman, called Ti Pig­gi (be­cause of her porcine ap­pear­ance) was said to have gouged out Bel­man­na's eyes and then stabbed him fa­tal­ly. The oth­er four po­lice­men in the sta­tion were al­so brought out to face the wrath of the mob. All were beat­en, stripped and hu­mil­i­at­ed.

For a week, the ri­ot­ers held sway un­til a war­ship hove in­to sight. Its cap­tain, Adams, re­alised that the risk to a land­ing par­ty of marines would be too great, nor was he in­clined to whole­sale slaugh­ter of the ri­ot­ers by shelling the vil­lage with the great can­nons of the ship. Us­ing great tact, Cap­tain Adams sent a boat ashore with an emis­sary, who thanked the ri­ot­ers for 'keep­ing the peace' and not de­stroy­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty. He in­vit­ed the mob aboard to be dec­o­rat­ed for their ser­vice. The ri­ot­ers fell for the ploy and went aboard by the dozen. When he was sat­is­fied that the ship could hold no more, the in­sur­rec­tion­ists were clapped in irons and tak­en to Scar­bor­ough to stand tri­al. Many were ex­iled for life and oth­ers were sen­tenced to life in prison. As a re­sult, the colo­nial au­thor­i­ties re­alised that To­ba­go, weak­ened by re­ces­sion and un­rest, had to be al­lied to an­oth­er colony. This led to the po­lit­i­cal an­nex­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1889.

Pris­on­ers from To­ba­go were sent thus to Car­rera Is­land in Trinidad, re­duc­ing over­crowd­ing at Fort George. The gaol re­mained at Fort George un­til the large and ex­ten­sive po­lice com­plex at Ba­co­let was erect­ed in the 1950s. There, a fair­ly am­ple prison block was con­struct­ed and since the long-term pris­on­ers were sent to Gold­en Grove in Trinidad, the Scar­bor­ough Jail was closed, end­ing an ex­is­tence of al­most a cen­tu­ry. To­day the build­ings have been re­stored as part of the Fort George his­tor­i­cal com­plex.