Justice and Police Museum: Step into Sydney's Dark Side
Every city has its seedy underbelly, and Sydney’s has been chronicled in fascinating detail at the Justice and Police Museum overlooking Circular Quay. One of Sydney’s most interesting and unique historic attractions, the Justice and Police Museum examines the social history of law, policing and crime in New South Wales.
Rather fittingly, the museum is housed in a handsomely restored sandstone building that once existed as a Water Police Court (1856) and a Water Police Station (1858), imposing its authority on the city’s unruly waterfront. The building’s interior still retains a sort of grim, gloomy atmosphere, with heavy blocks of sandstone, spiked gates and a ghostly corridor lined with cells.
The exhibits showcase some of Sydney’s most spectacular crimes with grisly realism. Walk through a gallery of creepy criminal death masks, haunting mugshots and cabinets full of spine-chilling murder weapons. There are weird and wonderful relics and sensational newspaper clippings detailing many of Sydney’s most infamous criminal cases, including the Shark Arm Murder and the Pyjama Girl Mystery.
There’s also a gallery of bushranger memorabilia, with original artefacts associated with legendary bushrangers, including Ned Kelly, Ben Hall and Captain Moonlight. Visitors to the museum can also get a feel for the pomp and power of the law in the original 19th century courtroom, and the crime and punishment room which houses leather lashes, cuffs, manacles, gags and a hangman’s noose.
Posted on Jan 27, 2011 by Fiona Davies
