Matchstick Model of Steam Engine

The slow and laborious process of matchstick model making would have enabled the prisoner to occupy long stretches of time as he served his life sentence. Matchsticks were cheap and available to purchase through the Prison shop.
There are two matchstick artworks in the collection that are attributed to the prisoner; a Matchstick Boat (R1995.4), and a Model of Fremantle Prison Gatehouse (R02.186). The gatehouse model used approximately 44,000 matches and took approximately 500 hours to complete. There are two other matchstick models in the Fremantle Prison collection, namely (2002.92) Matchstick Board Artwork and (2024.66) Matchstick Table, however they are by different prisoners and of a different style to this train. There are many objects in the collection made by prisoners during their sentence, namely murals, artworks including drawings and paintings, as well as furniture and craft.