John Buckley Castieau

John Buckley Castieau (1831-1885) was the Prison Governor at Beechworth from 1856 to 1869. During his tenor, and for some years after, the Beechworth Gaol, famous for its huge granite walls was known as Castieau's castle. As the Governor of the Melbourne gaol in 1880 he was an official witness to the hanging of Ned Kelly. His diaries were later published (2004) as The Difficulties of My Position: The Diaries of Prison Governor John Buckley Castieau 1855–1884 (2004).. In this book a drawing from the Australian Sketcher, 14 August 1880 shows Castieau sitting with Ned Kelly during his remand and also a photo of his signature as one of the witnesses to the Kelly hanging.

The bachelor was only saved by meeting his life-long partner Polly at a Beechworth church bazaar in 1858. ‘House very much improved’, records Castieau in the aftermath of their wedding just six weeks later, ‘commenced at once a domestic life.’ Domestic life brought new obligations—six children in the 10 years after 1859, all of them raised in the environs first of Beechworth Prison and later Melbourne Gaol. It seems likely that this domestic load explains the absence of diaries for most of the 1860s, a time during which Castieau was a prominent figure in Beechworth civic life, especially its Athenaeum. On his return to Melbourne he and Polly retained their links with the town. It was Castieau who negotiated in Melbourne the design and production of the stained-glass Burke Memorial Window, with its Southern Cross motif, still in place at the Beechworth Burke Museum.

John Buckley Castieau Beechworth