Mettray Penal Colony

From the entrance to the Colony a large central square, dominated symbolically by a chapel on one side, lies at the end of a long tree-lined avenue.

A replica of a sailing ship, complete with masts and rigging, was set in the square and used for training boys, many of whom would enter the navy on leaving Mettray.

Demetz believed in the healing properties of nature and his motto was ameliorer l’homme par la terre et la terre par l’homme, sous le regard de Dieu which translated means improve man by the land and the land by man, under the watch of God.

The Colony's mission was to reform, through manual agricultural work and through prayer, the young inmates; many of whom had already been corrupted by their stay in traditional prisons.

At first the Colony thrived and Demetz's work attracted favorable notice in England, and following the passage of the first Youthful Offenders Act (1854), which greatly stimulated the building of reform and industrial schools, he became the hero of the British philanthropic world.

Some were employed in trades, or in the orchards and vineyards, but the majority performed hard agricultural labour including digging and crushing stones for roads.

In his book The Miracle of the Rose (1946), the French writer Jean Genet described his experience of nearly three years of detention in the Colony (between 2 September 1926 and 1 March 1929) which ended when he joined the Foreign Legion at age 18.

This criticism combined with financial problems lead to the Colony's closure in 1937, by which time more than 17,000 boys had passed its doors, and it had become the most well-known institution of its kind.