DiscoverLate Night Live — Full program podcastWho was the oldest prisoner in history? Plus the breathtaking Birrundudu drawings revealed
Who was the oldest prisoner in history? Plus the breathtaking Birrundudu drawings revealed

Who was the oldest prisoner in history? Plus the breathtaking Birrundudu drawings revealed

Update: 2025-11-27
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Author and journalist Gideon Haigh uncovers the intriguing tale of Australian man William Richard Wallace - the oldest prisoner in recorded history. Wallace was a convicted murderer and spent most of his life in the J Ward facility for the criminally insane in Ararat, Victoria. He died behind bars at 106, in 1989. And the story of the extraordinary Birrundudu drawings - a collection of some 800 crayon drawings on brown paper, created by 16 Aboriginal stockmen in the remote Northern Territory in 1945, during a three-month encounter with two German anthropologists. 

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Who was the oldest prisoner in history? Plus the breathtaking Birrundudu drawings revealed

Who was the oldest prisoner in history? Plus the breathtaking Birrundudu drawings revealed

Australian Broadcasting Corporation