wrote an 1853 letter to the Adelaide Observer, advocating prisoners be usefully employed, and further that a reserve beside Dry Creek could be used for this purpose. The reserve had an abundant supply of stone that prisoners could convert into building and road material. September that year saw Hare move, in the council, that £5,000 be set aside to enable a prison be constructed next to a quarry, whether at Dry Creek or elsewhere. This would enable the labour of the prisoners to remunerate the country. Hare later became superintendent of the prison and maintained a colourful register describing prisoners. 19th century Twenty five prisoners were sent to the Dry Creek site to work in the quarries in July 1854, living at night in an iron house. Dry Creek prison was officially declared a gaol on 10 August 1854 and an act then passed commuting sentences, formerly of transportation to New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land, into imprisonment with hard labour, though transport to the latter had been stopped by the Imperial Government in 1852. The Prison began as an iron house with surrounding palisade and became known as The Stockade, a name retained in 2007 by the adjacent Stockade Botanical Park. Hare requested construction of a stone building, and by October 1854 this was completed using locally quarried bluestone, with accommodation for 60 prisoners. In its early years rock-cracking, hard labour and solitary confinement were the notable features of life at the prison. It was seen that hard worked prisoners would not wish to return to the prison, with solitary confinement giving them time to reflect on past misdeeds. From inception prisoners main task was the breaking of one cubic yard of rock per day. Until the middle of the 20th century the prisons department's philosophy remained punitive with much reliance on obedience to rules and regulations. The first batch of 24 convicts was sent to the prison from Adelaide gaol on 9 February 1855 wearing the characteristic broad arrow pattern prison clothes of the time, and the first escape from the prison took place October 1855 with 8 escapees. The prisoners were captured, chained in solitary confinement within the prison, then subsequently punished with 50 lashes for the escape and other disciplinary issues. For the prison, water supply was a constant issue, with carriage required from distant Port Adelaide. A well was bored in 1856 through of