Outram Prison started out initially as Pearl’s Hill Prison, which was designed by John Turnbull Thomson and completed in 1847. Despite extensions made to the facility in 1879, the prison was still unable to cope with the growing inmate population. To address the problem of overcrowding, a separate jail was constructed next to it in 1882, called Her Majesty’s Service (HMS) Criminal Jail. The two jails were jointly administered and became known collectively as the Outram Prison. The prison complex was rebuilt in 1929 and demolished in 1968 to make way for the Outram Park housing project.
