Originally built in the foreign-controlled Shanghai International Settlement, following the Chinese Communist Revolution it was run by the Ministry of Public Security.

In 1901, however, with the growing size of the International Settlement and, in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, a fear the Qing government could no longer control its citizens, the Shanghai Municipal Council drew up plans for a modern-style jail based on Singaporean and Canadian designs.

[2] Originally comprising 450 cells across two four-storey blocks, the prison was expanded after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, when the previously Chinese-run International Mixed Courts of the Settlement were abandoned by the Qing government and taken over by the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC).

[3] The execution chamber is considered unique in pre-Second World War China in that it carried out death by hanging, with the body dropping through a trapdoor directly into the prison hospital's morgue.

This was agreed in theory, though the British staff were unwilling to enforce Chinese discipline as provided in the guidelines, as this was considered harsh – even by the prison's own rough standards.

Tuberculosis was found in nearly 65% of long-term prisoners, suicide was not uncommon, and discipline was enforced through physical punishment by use of long batons.

[5] After the First Battle of Shanghai ended with the de facto control of Hongkou, Ward Road Gaol found itself located in the middle of the Japanese-controlled sector of the International Settlement.

In 1945 the Axis Powers surrendered and Tilanqiao Prison was brought under the control of Chiang Kai-shek 's Kuomintang government.

The KMT used the prison to detain several hundred Japanese war criminals and a number of Chinese who had been part of Wang Jingwei's government.

[8][9] Nevertheless, human rights groups and Western governments argue the prison continues to engage in torture, deprivation and cruelty.