The Dunedin Gaol is built on a triangular section of land, an acre and three quarters in extent, fronting Stuart, Castle, High, and Gaol Streets; and is very centrally situated, near the railway station. On the acute angle of the allotments the local police barracks were very appropriately erected in 1895. The site was first occupied for the purposes of a gaol as far back as 1861, when the older portion of the premises—a two-storey stone building with a centre tower—was completed. Two years after its establishment the number of prisoners was 134, of whom 120 were males. Additional buildings of wood were afterwards added, and made the gaol capable of accommodating 150 prisoners. Some years afterwards considerable alterations were made in the interior arrangements, whereby the sanitary condition of the gaol was greatly improved, at the expense, however, of the accommodation, which was reduced to its previous capacity. A portion of the Artillery barracks at Taiaroa Heads is used as a supplementary gaol. In January, 1895, owing to the need for increased accommodation, a new brick building was commenced on the Castle street frontage. This building consists of two departments, the administrative, of two stories, and the prison, three stories in height, with cells for fifty-two men and twenty women.

Mr. Samuel Charles Phillips , Gaoler of the Dunedin Gaol, was born in 1836 at Reading, Berks, England, where he was educated. He was apprenticed to a tailor in London, but, finding the occupation uncongenial, enlisted in 1853 in the Osmanli Horse Artillery for service with the Turkish Contingent, destined for Seutari, near Constantinople. When peace was proclaimed in 1856, he returned to London, and afterwards went to Canada. In the following year Mr. Phillips joined the 100th Regiment of Foot, ordered to India to assist in quelling the Mutiny. Peace being declared, he returned with his regiment to England, and later went out to Gibraltar, where he left the army and joined the convict prison service, with which he remained till May, 1875, on the abolition of the department. Again transferred to England, Mr. Phillips was appointed to Pentonville prison, pending a suitable vacaney elsewhere. Within a few months he received the appointment of gaoler at Lyttelton, with general supervision over the Canterbury gaols, and arrived to take up his duties in May, 1876, While he held this appoinment, the prison buildings now in use at Lyttelton were erected by prison labour. Mr. Phillips remained at Lyttelton till December, 1882, when he was transferred to the position he now holds at Dunedin. Since his arrival in Otago he has been an active member of Trinity Wesleyan church, of which he is a steward. Mr. Phillips was married in 1864 to a daughter of Mr. R. W. Campiar. of Gibraltar, but previously of Kent, England.