I.R.A. prisoners on board a British Battleship in Portland Harbour, Autumn 1921.

On the conversion of Portland Prison to a Borstal Institution in 1921 most of the I.R.A. Prisoners there were transferred to Dartmoor Prison. They were conveyed from Portland to a Battleship in Portland Harbour and thence to Plymouth en route to Princetown; all had been sentenced to varying terms of Penal Servitude – some had been in Portland Prison for a considerable time. The photograph shows a group of I.R.A. Prisoners on one of the Admiralty Tenders docking at Plymouth, after taking the Prisoners off the Battleship in Plymouth Harbour. The transfer was effected in either August 1921 or September 1921, as I remember looking across the harbour at the Stooks of corn in the fields. Most likely it was August. The Prisoners, with one exception, are handcuffed in Pairs - the odd Man Out being handcuffed to a Warder. Apart from the Sailors, the Uniformed people are of course Prison Warders. For the journey the Prisoners had to change from the Standard Convict Uniform into their own civilian clothes, which were issued temporarily for the occasion. The then Standard Convict haircut will be apparent. The lapse of time does not permit me to recall more than two people in the group.