CHAPTER I.

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[Illustration: _The Prison Gate._]

THE

CHRONICLES OF NEWGATE

BY

ARTHUR GRIFFITHS

MAJOR LATE 63RD REGIMENT; ONE OF H. M. INSPECTORS OF PRISONS

AUTHOR OF “THE MEMORIALS OF MILLBANK,” ETC., ETC.

[Illustration]

_IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I._

LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL

(LIMITED)

1884

[_All rights reserved._]

Bungay:

CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

PREFACE.

When I undertook the work of which these two volumes are the result, I

scarcely realized the extent of the task before me. Now at the

termination of my labours, which have extended over a period of nearly

five years, I cannot give my work to the public without regret that it

has not been accompanied by deeper study and more widespread research.

But I have, in truth, been almost overwhelmed by the mass of materials

at hand. These always increased enormously with every digression, and I

found at length that I _must_ be satisfied with what I had instead of

seeking for more. Even with this restriction I have often been compelled

to reject much, to epitomize and perhaps unduly abbreviate what I have

used. A really copious and detailed history of Newgate would be a most

voluminous affair. This well-known prison, which has stood for centuries

upon the same site, is in itself an epitome of the criminal history of

England; to have traced its chronicles down from epoch to epoch, closely

and minutely, would have been wearisome to the reader. There is a family

resemblance in crimes in all ages; when, therefore, the more prominent

cases have been selected for description, a general impression will have

been conveyed of the whole. I have followed this principle throughout,

and have endeavoured to present a general, but not too detailed, picture

of the various criminal periods through which Newgate has passed.

But the claims of Newgate on the public interest are not limited to the

melancholy histories of those whom it has held in durance. Newgate, as

the annexe of the Old Bailey, or great criminal law court of this city,

has ever been closely connected with the administration of justice in

this country. In its records are to be read the variations of our

Statute Book. We may trace at Newgate the gradual amelioration of the

penal code, from the days of its pitiless ferocity, to the time when,

thanks to the incessant protests of humanitarian and philanthropist, a

milder system of punishment became the rule. All this has found more

than a passing mention in my pages. Again, Newgate, the city jail, the

chief prison of the chief town in the kingdom, might have been expected

to lead the van in prison reform; that it remained constantly, from the

first and almost to the last, one of the worst-kept prisons in the

kingdom, reflects but little credit upon those responsible for its

management. The fact, however, that crying evils were constantly present

in the great jail, brings Newgate at once into close connection with the

whole subject of prison reform. To represent Newgate as it existed even

before Howard commenced his crusade, and long afterwards, has naturally,

therefore, fallen within the scope of my work. Nor have I confined

myself strictly to this prison, but I have endeavoured to trace the slow

progress of improvement throughout the whole country from first to last.

I cannot conclude these brief remarks without adding a few words of

thanks to those who have assisted me in my undertaking. I have received

much valuable information from Sidney Smith, Esq., the last Governor of

Newgate; from Mr. Mapperson, its last chief warder; and from many other

officials of the prison. But most of all am I indebted to my friend,

William Linton, Esq., formerly Governor of Petworth and Nottingham

prisons, who has long rendered me the most cordial assistance and

co-operation. I am also very grateful to my friend, Colonel Goff, for

many of the original illustrations which embellish the book.

_November, 1883._

[Illustration]

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER I.

MEDIEVAL NEWGATE 22

CHAPTER II.

NEWGATE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 60

CHAPTER III.

NEWGATE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (DOWN TO THE GREAT

FIRE) 96

CHAPTER IV.

NEWGATE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (AFTER THE GREAT FIRE) 143

CHAPTER V.

IN THE PRESS-YARD 199

CHAPTER VI.

EXECUTIONS 231

CHAPTER VII.

ESCAPES 286

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GAOL CALENDAR 317

CHAPTER IX.

THE GAOL CALENDAR (_continued_) 375

CHAPTER X.

THE GAOL FEVER 424

CHAPTER XI.

THE NEW GAOL 454

[Illustration]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOL. I.

PAGE

THE PRISON GATE _Frontispiece_

THE GAOLER 5

THE THEW, OR PILLORY FOR WOMEN 33

ANCIENT PILLORY IN PARIS _To face_ p. 36

PORTRAIT OF RICHARD WHITTINGTON _To face_ p. 54

DEATH-BED OF WHITTINGTON 57

SKEFFINGTON’S GYVES 75

TORTURE IN THE TOWER _To face_ p. 76

THE TORTURE OF THE BOOT 81

HENRIETTA MARIA DOING PENANCE AT TYBURN _To face_ p. 112

THE GATE 145

“MULLED SACK” 173

TITUS OATES IN THE PILLORY 193

ROBERT OCKAM IN THE PILLORY 235

IN THE TORTURE CHAMBER _To face_ p. 246

THE NEW GALLOWS IN THE OLD BAILEY _To face_ p. 283

MR. AKERMAN 307

FARO’S DAUGHTERS 335

BACK PREMISES OF THE KEEPER’S APARTMENT _To face_ p. 338

ARRESTING THE HANGMAN ON A CHARGE OF MURDER 358

JAMES MACLANE 400

WILLIAM PARSONS 408

NEWGATE IN FLAMES _To face_ p. 468

CHRONICLES OF NEWGATE.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.[1]

Brief survey of Newgate--The first gaol--Its antiquity--Its inmates

and general condition--Whittington’s prison--Rebuilt after the

Fire--Misgovernment, neglect, and injustice--Capital convicts and

executions--First dawn of reform--A new Newgate built by

Dance--State of interior continues deplorable--Mrs. Fry--The first

inspectors of prisons--Amelioration long insisted upon introduced

at last--Newgate closed in 1880.

In antiquity and varied interest Newgate prison yields to no place of

durance in the world. A gaol has stood on this same site for almost a

thousand years. The first prison was nearly as old as the Tower of

London, and much older than the Bastille. Hundreds of thousands of

“felons and trespassers” have from first to last been incarcerated

within. To many it must have been an abode of sorrow, suffering, and

unspeakable woe, a kind of terrestrial inferno, to enter which was to

abandon every hope. Imprisonment was often lightly and capriciously

inflicted in days before our liberties were fully won, and innumerable

victims of tyranny and oppression have been lodged in Newgate. Political

troubles also sent their quota. The gaol was the halfway-house to the

scaffold or the gallows for turbulent or short-sighted persons who

espoused the losing side; it was the starting-place for that painful

pilgrimage to the pillory or whipping-post which was too frequently the

punishment for rashly uttered libels and philippics against constituted

power. Newgate, again, was on the high road to Smithfield; in times of

intolerance and fierce religious dissensions numbers of devoted martyrs

went thence to suffer for conscience’ sake at the stake. For centuries a

large section of the permanent population of Newgate, as of all gaols,

consisted of offenders against commercial laws. While fraudulent

bankrupts were hanged, others more unfortunate than criminal were

clapped into gaol to linger out their lives without the chance of

earning the funds by which alone freedom could be recovered. Debtors of

all degrees were condemned to languish for years in prison, often for

the most paltry sums. The perfectly innocent were also detained. Gaol

deliveries were rare, and the boon of arraignment and fair trial was

strangely and unjustly withheld, while even those acquitted in open

court were often haled back to prison because they were unable to

discharge the gaoler’s illegal fees. The condition of the prisoners in

Newgate was long most deplorable. They were but scantily supplied with

the commonest necessaries of life. Light scarcely penetrated their dark

and loathsome dungeons; no breath of fresh air sweetened the fetid

atmosphere they breathed; that they enjoyed the luxury of water was due

to the munificence of a Lord Mayor. Their daily subsistence was most

precarious. Food, clothing, fuel were doled out in limited quantities as

charitable gifts; occasionally prosperous citizens bequeathed small

legacies to be expended in the same articles of supply. These bare

prison allowances were further eked out by the chance seizures in the

markets; by bread forfeited as inferior or of light weight, and meat

declared unfit to be publicly sold. All classes and categories of

prisoners were herded indiscriminately together: men and women, tried

and untried, upright but misguided zealots with hardened habitual

offenders. The only principle of classification was a prisoner’s ability

or otherwise to pay certain fees; money could purchase the squalid

comfort of the master’s side, but no immunity from the baleful

companionship of felons equally well furnished with funds and no less

anxious to escape the awful horror of the common side of the gaol. The

weight of the chains, again, which, till quite recently, innocent and

guilty alike wore, depended upon the price a prisoner could pay for

“easement of irons,” and it was a common practice to overload a

new-comer with enormous fetters and so terrify him into lavish

disbursement. The gaol at all times was so hideously overcrowded that

plague and pestilence perpetually ravaged it, and the deadly infection

often spread into the neighbouring courts of law.

The foregoing is an imperfect but by no means overcoloured picture of

Newgate as it existed for hundreds of years, from the twelfth century,

indeed, to the nineteenth. The description is supported by historical

records, somewhat meagre at first, perhaps, but becoming more and more

ample and better substantiated as the period grows less remote. We have

but scant information as to the first gate-house gaol. Being part and

parcel of the city fortifications, it was intended mainly for defence,

and the prison accommodation which the fate afforded with its dungeons

beneath, and garrets above, must have been of the most limited

description. More pains were no doubt taken to keep the exterior strong

and safe against attack, than to render the interior habitable, and we

may conclude that the moneys willed by Whittington for the

re-edification of Newgate were principally expended on the restoration

and improvements of the prison. “Whit’s palace,” as rebuilt by

Whittington’s executors, lasted for a couple of centuries, and was

throughout that period the principal gaol for the metropolis. Reference

is constantly made to it in the history of the times. It was the natural

receptacle for rogues, roysterers, and masterless men. It is described

as a hot-bed of vice, a nursery of crime. Drunkenness, gaming,

profligacy of the vilest sort, went forward in the prison without let or

hindrance. Contemporary petitions, preserved in the State papers, penned

by inmates of Newgate pining for liberty, call their prison-house a

foul and noisome den. The gaoler for the time being was certain to be a

brutal partisan of the party in power, especially bitter to religious or

political opponents who fell into his hands. But too frequently also he

was a rapacious, extortionate, over-reaching despot, whose first and

only thought was to turn the prisoners into profit, and make all the

money he could out of those whom the law put completely in his power.

[Illustration]

With occasional, but not always sufficient, repairs, but without

structural alterations, Whittington’s Newgate continued to serve down to

the seventeenth century. About 1629 it was in a state of utter ruin, and

such extensive works were undertaken to re-edify it that the security of

the gaol was said to be endangered, and it was thought better to pardon

most of the prisoners before they set themselves free. Lupton, in his

‘London Carbonadoed,’ speaks of Newgate as “new-fronted and new-faced”

in 1638. Its accommodations must have been sorely tried in the

troublous years which followed. It seems to have been in the time of the

Commonwealth when “our churches were made into prisons,” and demands for

space had greatly multiplied, that Newgate was increased by the addition

of the buildings belonging to the Phœnix Inn in Newgate Street. The

great fire of 1666 gutted, if not completely destroyed, Newgate, and its

reconstruction became imperative. Some say Wren was the architect of the

new prison, but the fact is not fully substantiated. Authentic and

detailed information has, however, been preserved concerning it; it is

figured in a familiar woodcut which may be seen in every modern history

of London, while a full description of the interior, both plan and

appropriation, has been left by an anonymous writer, who was himself an

inmate of the gaol[2]. The prison was still subordinated to the gate,

which was an ornate structure, with great architectural pretensions. But

as a writer in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ well put it about a century

ago, “The sumptuousness of the outside but aggravated the misery of the

wretches within.” Some effort was made to classify, and the Newgate of

that day contained five principal divisions or sides: there was the

master’s side, for debtors and felons respectively; the common side, for

those same two classes of prisoners; and lastly the press yard, for

prisoners of note. The right to occupy the master’s side was a luxury

dearly purchased, but the accommodation obtained, albeit indifferent,

was palatial to that provided for the impecunious on the common side.

The only inmates of the Newgate prison I am now describing who were

comparatively well off, were those admitted to the press yard; a

division composed of “large and spacious rooms” on all the three floors

of the prison, and deemed by a legal fiction to be part of the

governor’s house.

How desperate was the case of the bulk of the inmates of Newgate will be

amply set forth as my narrative proceeds. A few brief facts will suffice

here to give a general idea of this foul prison house. The whole place

except the press yard was so dark that candles, “links or burners,” were

used all day long; the air was so inconceivably disgusting, that the

ventilator on the top of the prison could exercise no remedial effect.

That malignant disease, the gaol fever, was chronic, and deaths from it

of frequent occurrence. Doctors could be got with difficulty to attend

the sick in Newgate, and it was long before any regular medical officer

was appointed to the prison. Evil was in the ascendant throughout;

wickedness and profligacy prospered; the weakest always went to the

wall. Tyranny and oppression were widely practised: not only were the

gaolers extortionate, but their subordinates, the inferior turnkeys,

even the bed-makers, and the gate-keeper’s wife levied black mail on the

pretence of affording relief, and with threats or actual ill-usage when

payment was withheld. Certain favoured prisoners wielded recognized

authority over their fellows. Unwritten but accepted customs suffered

the general body to exact “garnish,” or “chummage,” from new comers,

fees for the privilege of approaching the fire, and generally for

immunity from persecution, the sums thus raised being forthwith expended

in strong drink. The “cellarmen” were selected prisoners who could sell

candles at their own prices, and got a percentage upon the liquors

consumed, with other advantages. Other prisoners were employed in the

distribution of food; in the riveting and removing of shackles; even in

the maintenance of discipline, and when so acting were armed with a

flexible weapon, “to the great terror and smart of those who dispute

their authority.” Into these filthy dens, where misery stalked rampant

and corruption festered, unhappy prisoners brought their families, and

the population was greatly increased by numbers of innocent persons,

women, and even children, to be speedily demoralized and utterly lost.

Lunatics raving mad ranged up and down the wards, a terror to all they

encountered. Common women were freely admitted; mock marriages were of

constant occurrence, and children were frequently born within the

precincts of the gaol. There was but little restriction upon the

entrance of visitors. When any great personage was confined in Newgate,

he held daily levees and received numbers of fashionable folk. Thus

Count Konigsmark, when arrested for complicity in the murder of Mr.

Thynne, “lived nobly” in the keeper’s house, and was daily visited by

persons of quality. When political prisoners, Jacobite rebels, or

others were incarcerated, their sympathizers and supporters came to

“comfort them” by sharing their potations. Even a notorious highwayman

like Maclane, according to Horace Walpole, entertained great guests, and

it was the “mode” for half the world to drive to Newgate and gaze on him

in the “condemned hold.”

In sharp contrast with the privations and terrible discomforts of the

poorer sort was the wild revelry of these aristocratic prisoners of the

press yard. They had every luxury to be bought with money, freedom alone

excepted, and that was often to be compassed by bribing dishonest

officials to suffer them to escape. They kept late hours, collecting in

one another’s rooms to roar out seditious songs over innumerable bowls

of punch. At times they exhibited much turbulence, and refused to be

locked up in the separate chambers allotted to them. No attempt was made

to coerce them, or oblige them to observe due decorum and submit to the

discipline of the prison. Yet while they thus experienced ill-placed and

unjust leniency, others far less culpable were ground down till they

were “slowly murdered there by the intolerable horrors of the place.”

As a general rule the movement of offenders through Newgate was pretty

rapid. The period of imprisonment for debtors might be often

indefinitely prolonged, and there was the well-known case of Major

Bernardi and his companions, who were detained for forty years in

Newgate without trial or the chance of it. Some, too, languished

awaiting transfer to the West Indian or American plantations by the

contractors to whom they were legally sold. But for the bulk of the

criminal prisoners there was one speedy and effectual system of removal,

that of capital punishment. Executions were wholesale in those times.

The code was sanguinary in the extreme. The gallows tree was always

heavily laden. There was every element of callous brutality in the

manner of inflicting the extreme penalty of the law. From the time of

sentence to the last dread moment the convict was exhibited as a show,

or held up to public contempt and execration. Heartless creatures

flocked to the gaol chapel to curiously examine the aspect of condemned

malefactors. Men who had but a short time to live mingled freely with

their fellow-prisoners, recklessly carousing, and often making a boast

that they laughed to scorn and rejected the well-meant ministrations of

the ordinary.

The actual ceremony was to the last degree cold-blooded and wanting in

all the solemn attributes fitting the awful scene. The doomed was

carried in an open cart to Tyburn or other appointed place; the halter

already encircled his neck, his coffin was at his feet, by his side the

chaplain or some devoted amateur philanthropist and preacher striving

earnestly to improve the occasion. For the mob it was a high day and

holiday; they lined the route taken by the ghastly procession,

encouraging or flouting the convict according as he happened to be a

popular hero or unknown to criminal fame. In the first case they cheered

him to the echo, offered him bouquets of flowers, or pressed him to

drink deep from St. Giles’s Bowl; in the latter they pelted him with

filth and overwhelmed him with abuse. The most scandalous scenes

occurred on the gallows. The hangman often quarrelled with his victim

over the garments, which the former looked upon as a lawful perquisite,

and which the latter was disposed to distribute among his friends; now

and again the rope broke, or the drop was insufficient, and Jack Ketch

had to add his weight to the hanging body to assist strangulation.

Occasionally there was a personal conflict, and the hangman was obliged

to do his office by sheer force. The convicts were permitted to make

dying speeches, and these orations were elaborated and discussed in

Newgate weeks before the great day; while down in the yelling crowd

beneath the gallows spurious versions were hawked about and rapidly

sold. It was a distinct gain to the decency and good order of the

metropolis when Tyburn and other distant points ceased to be the places

of execution, and hangings were exclusively carried out in front of

Newgate, just over the debtors’ door. But some of the worst features of

the old system survived. There was still the melodramatic sermon, in the

chapel hung with black, before a large congregation collected simply to

stare at the convicts squeezed into one pew, who in their turn stared

with mixed feelings at the coffin on the table just before their eyes.

There was still the same tumultuous gathering to view the last act in

tragedy, the same bloodthirsty mob swaying to and fro before the gates,

the same blue-blooded spectators, George Selwyn or my Lord Tom Noddy,

who breakfasted in state with the gaoler, and so got a box seat or

rented window opposite at an exorbitant rate. The populace were like

degenerate Romans in the amphitheatre waiting for the butchery to begin.

They fought and struggled desperately for front places: people fell and

were trampled to death, hoarse roars came from thousands of brazen

throats, which swelled into a terrible chorus as the black figures of

the performers on the gallows stood out against the sky. “Hats off!”

“Down in front!” these cries echoed and re-echoed in increasing volume,

and all at once abruptly came to an end--the bolt had been drawn, the

drop had fallen, and the miserable wretch had gone to his long home.

The policy which had brought about the substitution of Newgate for

Tyburn no doubt halted halfway, but it was enlightened, and a

considerable move towards the private executions of our own times. It

was dictated by the more humane principles which were gradually making

head in regard to criminals and crime. Many more years were to elapse,

however, before the eloquence of Romilly was to bear fruit in the

softening of our sanguinary penal code. But already John Howard had

commenced his labours, and his revelations were letting in a flood of

light upon the black recesses of prison life. It is to the credit of

the authorities of the City of London that they recognized the necessity

for rebuilding Newgate on a larger and more improved plan before the

publication of Howard’s reports. The great philanthropist made his first

journey of inspection towards the end of 1773; in the following year he

laid the information he had obtained before the House of Commons, and in

1777 published the first edition of his celebrated ‘State of Prisons.’

As early as 1755 the Common Council had condemned Newgate in no measured

terms; declared it to be habitually overcrowded with “victims of public

justice, under the complicated distresses of poverty, nastiness, and

disease,” who had neither water, nor air, nor light in sufficient

quantities; the buildings were old and ruinous, and incapable of any

“improvement or tolerable repairs.” It was plainly admitted that the

gaol ought to be at once pulled down. But as usual the difficulty of

providing funds cropped up, and the work, though urgent, was postponed

for some years. The inadequacy of the prison was so obvious, however,

that the matter was presently brought before a committee of the House of

Commons, and the necessity for rebuilding clearly proved. A committee of

the Corporation next met in 1767 to consider ways and means, and they

were fortified in their decision to rebuild by convincing evidence of

the horrible condition of the existing prison. A letter addressed to the

committee by Sir Stephen Jansen stigmatizes it as “an abominable sink of

beastliness and corruption.” He spoke from full knowledge, having been

sheriff when the prison was decimated by gaol fever. In the same year

Parliamentary powers were obtained to raise money to rebuild the place,

and the new Newgate was actually commenced in 1770, when Lord Mayor

Beckford, father of “Vathek” Beckford, laid the first stone. Its

architect was George Dance, and the prison building, which still stands

to speak for itself, has been counted one of his finest works. Howard,

who gives this historic prison the first place in his list, must have

visited it while the new buildings were in progress. The plan did not

find favour with him, but he enters into no particulars, and limits his

criticisms to remarking, “that without more than ordinary care the

prisoners in it will be in great danger of gaol fever.” According to

modern notions the plan was no doubt faulty in the extreme. Safe

custody, a leading principle in all prison construction, was compassed

at the expense of most others. The prison façade is a marvel of strength

and solidity, but until reappropriated in recent years its interior was

a limited confined space, still darkened, and deprived of ventilation,

by being parcelled out into courts, upon which looked the narrow windows

of the various wards.

The erection of the “new and commodious gaol,” as it is described in an

Act of the period, proceeded rapidly, but three or four years after

Howard’s visit it was still uncompleted. This Act recites what had been

done, referring to the valuable, extensive areas, which had been taken

in for the construction of this great prison, and provides additional

funds. In 1780, however, an unexpected catastrophe happened, and the new

buildings were set on fire by the Lord George Gordon rioters, and so

much damaged that the most comprehensive repairs were indispensable.

These were executed in 1782. Many years were to elapse before any

further alterations or improvements were made.

It was soon evident that Dance’s Newgate, imposing and appropriate as

were its outlines and façade, by no means satisfied all needs. The

progress of enlightenment was continuous, while complaints that would

have been stifled or ignored previously were now occasionally heard. Yet

the wretched prisoners continued to be closely packed together.

Transportation had now been adopted as a secondary punishment, and

numbers who escaped the halter were congregated in Newgate waiting

removal beyond the seas. The population of the prison had amounted to

nearly six hundred at one time in 1785. According to a presentment made

by the Grand Jury in 1813, in the debtors’ side, built for one hundred,

no less than three hundred and forty were lodged; in the female felons’

ward there were one hundred and twenty in space intended for only sixty.

These females were destitute and in rags, without bedding, many without

shoes. In later years the figures rose still higher, and it is

authoritatively stated that there were as many as eight, nine, even

twelve hundred souls immured within an area about three-quarters of an

acre in extent. We have the evidence of trustworthy persons that

grievous abuses still continued unchecked. All prisoners were still

heavily ironed until large bribed had been paid to obtain relief. All

manner of unfair dealing was practised towards the prisoners. The daily

allowance of food was unequally divided. Bread and beef were issued in

the lump, and each individual had to scramble and fight for his share.

Prisoners had no bedding beyond a couple of dirty rugs. Exorbitant gaol

fees were still demanded on all sides; the Governor eked out his income

by what he could extort, and his subordinates took bribes wherever they

could get them. It was customary to sell the place of wardsman, with its

greater ease and power of oppression, to the highest bidder among the

prisoners. Unlimited drinking was allowed within the walls; the prison

tap, with the profits on sales of ale and spirits, was a part of the

Governor’s perquisites. All this time there was unrestrained

intercommunication between the prisoners; the most depraved were free to

contaminate and demoralize their more innocent fellows. Newgate was

then, and long continued, a school and nursery for crime. It was

established beyond doubt that burglaries and robberies were frequently

planned in the gaol, while forged notes and false money were often

fabricated within the walls and passed out into the town.

The disclosure of these frightful evils led to a Parliamentary inquiry

in 1814, and the worst facts were fully substantiated.[3] The prison

was not water-tight, rain came in through the roof; broken windows were

left unglazed; it was generally very dirty; the gaoler admitted that

with its smoked ceilings and floors of oak, caulked with pitch, it never

could look clean. The prisoners were not compelled to wash, and

cleanliness was only enforced by a general threat to shut out visitors.

Sometimes a more than usually filthy person was stripped, put under the

pump, and forced to go naked out into the yard. The poor debtors were in

terrible straits, herded together, and dependent upon the casual

charities for supplies. Birch, the well-known tavern-keeper, and others,

sent in broken victuals, generally the stock meat which had helped to

make the turtle-soup for civic feasts. The chaplain took life very easy,

and, beyond preaching to those who cared to attend chapel, ministered

but little to the spiritual wants of his charge. His indifference was

strongly condemned in the report of the Commons Committee. The chapel

congregation was generally disorderly: prisoners yawned, and coughed,

and talked enough to interrupt the service; women were in full view of

the men, and many greetings, such as “How do you do, Sall?” often passed

from pew to pew. No attempt was made to keep condemned convicts, male or

female, separate from other prisoners; they mixed freely with the rest,

saw daily any number of visitors, and had unlimited drink.

It was a little before the publication of the Committee’s Report that

that noble woman, Mrs. Fry, first visited Newgate. The awful state of

the female prison, as she found it, is described in her memoirs. Three

years elapsed between her first visit and her second. In the interval,

the report last quoted had borne some fruit. An Act had been brought in

for the abolition of gaol fees; gaol committees had been appointed to

visit and check abuses, and something had been done to ameliorate the

condition of the neglected female outcasts. Yet the scene within was

still dreadful, and permanent amelioration seemed altogether beyond

hope. What Mrs. Fry quickly accomplished against tremendous

difficulties, is one of the brightest facts in the whole history of

philanthropy. How she persevered in spite of prediction of certain

failure; how she won the co-operation of lukewarm officials; how she

provided the manual labour for which these poor idle hands were eager,

and presently transformed a filthy den of corruption into a clean and

whitewashed workroom, in which sat rows of women, recently so desperate

and degraded, stitching and sewing orderly and silent: these

extraordinary results with the most unpromising materials will be found

detailed in a subsequent page.[4]

There was no one, unfortunately, to undertake the same great work upon

the male side. “The mismanagement of Newgate had been for years

notorious,” says the Hon. H. G. Bennet, in a letter addressed to the

Common Council, “yet there is no real reform. The occasional humanity

of a sheriff may remedy an abuse, redress a wrong, cleanse a sewer, or

whitewash a wall, but the main evils of want of food, air, clothing,

bedding, classification, moral discipline remain as before.” But

appeals, however eloquent, were of small avail. Time passed, and at last

there was a general impetus towards prison reform. The question became

cosmopolitan. Close inquiry was made into the relative value of systems

of punishment at home and abroad. Millbank Penitentiary was erected at

the cost of half a million, to give full scope to the experiment of

reformation. Public attention was daily more and more called to prison

management. Yet through it all Newgate remained almost unchanged. It was

less crowded, perhaps, since having been relieved by the opening of the

Giltspur Street Compter, and that was all that could be said. In 1836,

when the newly-appointed Government inspectors made their first report,

the internal arrangements of Newgate were as bad as ever. These

inspectors were earnest men, who had made prisons and prison management

a study. One was the Rev. Whitworth Russell, for many years chaplain of

Millbank; the other Mr. Crawford, who had written an admirable State

paper upon the prisons of the United States, the result of long personal

investigation.

The report framed a strong indictment against the Corporation, who were

mainly responsible. Well might the inspectors close it with an

expression of poignant regret, not unmixed with indignation, at the

frightful picture presented of the existing state of Newgate.[5] The

charges were unanswerable, the only remedy immediate and searching

reform. As a matter of fact various abuses and irregularities were put

an end to the following year, but the alterations, so said the

inspectors in a later report, only introduced the outward semblance of

order. “The master evil, that of gaol association, and consequent

contamination, remained in full activity.” Year after year the

inspectors repeated their condemnatory criticisms, but were unable to

effect any radical change. For quite another decade, Newgate continued a

by-word with prison reformers. In 1850, Colonel, afterwards Sir Joshua

Jebb, told the select committee on prison discipline, that he considered

Newgate, from its defective construction, one of the worst prisons in

England. Captain Williams, a prison inspector, was of the same opinion,

and called Newgate quite the worst prison in his district. The fact was,

limitation of area rendered it quite impossible to reconstitute Newgate

and bring it up to the standard of modern prison requirements. Either

great additions must be made to the site, an operation likely to be

exceedingly costly, or a new building must be erected elsewhere. These

points had already been discussed repeatedly and at length by gaol

committees and the Court of Aldermen, and a decision finally arrived at,

to erect a new prison on the Tufnell Park Estate, in the north of

London. And this, now known as Holloway Prison, was opened in 1852.

Newgate, relieved of the unnatural demands upon its accommodation, was

easily and rapidly reformed. It became now simply a place of detention

for city prisoners, an annexe of the Old Bailey, filled and emptied

before and after the sessions. Considerable sums were expended in

reconstructing the interior and providing the largest possible number of

separate cells for the confinement of the limited number of prisoners

who now required to be accommodated. As such it continued to serve until

the year 1880, when, under the principles of concentration which formed

the basis of the Prison Act of 1877, it was closed. It was found the

House of Detention at Clerkenwell had sufficient space to accommodate

all prisoners awaiting trial at the Central Criminal Court, and that

Newgate prison was not wanted except when the sessions were actually

sitting. It ceased, therefore, to be used except as a temporary

receptacle at such times, but it is also still the metropolitan place of

execution.

CHAPTER I.

MEDIÆVAL NEWGATE.

Earliest accounts of Newgate prison--The New Gate, when built and

why--Classes of prisoners incarcerated--Of high degree, as well as

all categories of common criminals--Brawlers, vagabonds, and

‘roarers’ committed to Newgate; also those who sold adulterated

food--Exposure in pillory and sometimes mutilation preceded

imprisonment--The gradual concession of privileges to the

Corporation--Lord Mayor constituted perpetual justice of the

peace--Corporation obtains complete jurisdiction over Newgate--The

sheriffs responsible for the good government of prisons on

appointment--Counted prisoners held keys, and the cocket or seal of

Newgate--Forbidden to farm the prison or sell the post of

keeper--The rule in course of time contravened, and keepership

became purchaseable--Conflict of authority between sheriffs and

Corporation as to appointment of keeper--Condition of the prisoners

in mediæval times--Dependent on charity for commonest necessaries;

food, clothing, and water--A breviary bequeathed--Gaol falls into

ruin and is rebuilt by Whittington’s executors in 1422--This

edifice two centuries later is restored, but destroyed in the great

Fire of 1666.

The earliest authentic mention of Newgate as a gaol or prison for felons

and trespassers occurs in the records of the reign of King John. In the

following reign, A.D. 1218, Henry III. expressly commands the sheriffs

of London to repair it, and promises to reimburse them for their outlay

from his own exchequer. This shows that at that time the place was

under the direct control of the king, and maintained at his charges. The

prison was above the gate, or in the gate-house, as was the general

practice in ancient times. Thus Ludgate was long used for the

incarceration of city debtors. To the gate-house of Westminster were

committed all offenders taken within that city; and the same rule

obtained in the great provincial towns, as at Newcastle, Chester,

Carlisle, York, and elsewhere. Concerning the gate itself, the New Gate

and its antiquity, opinions somewhat differ. Maitland declares it to be

“demonstrable” that Newgate was one of the four original gates of the

city; “for after the fire of London in 1666,” he goes on to say, “in

digging a foundation for the present Holborn bridge, the vestigia of the

Roman military way called Watling Street were discovered pointing

directly to this gate; and this I take to be an incontestable proof of

an original gate built over the said way in this place.” Maitland in

this conjecture altogether departs from the account related by Stowe.

The latter gives a precise and circumstantial description of the

building of Newgate, which he calls the fifth principal gate of the

city. There is, however, every reason to suppose that a gate had existed

previously hereabouts in the city wall, and the site of the new gate is

identical with one which was long called Chamberlain’s Gate, because

that official had his court in the Old Bailey hard by. According to

Stowe, Newgate was erected about the time of Stephen or the first Henry

under the following circumstances. After the destruction of the old

cathedral church of St. Paul in 1086, Mauritius, Bishop of London,

resolved to build an entirely new edifice upon the site, intending to

construct a work so grand that “men judged it would never be performed,

it was so wonderful to them for height.”[6] In pursuance of his great

scheme the Bishop enclosed a large space of ground for cemetery and

churchyard, and in doing so stopped up and obstructed the great

thoroughfare from Aldgate in the east to Ludgate in the west. The

traffic now was driven to choose between two long detours: one passing

to the northward of the new cemetery wall, and so by Paternoster Row,

Ave Maria Lane, and Bowyer Row, to Ludgate; the other, still more

circuitous, by Cheape and Watling Street, thence southward through Old

Change, west through Carter Lane, up Creadlam north, and finally

westward again to Ludgate. These routes, as Stowe observes, were “very

cumbersome and dangerous both for horse and man. For remedy whereof a

new gate was made and so called, by which men and cattle, with all

manner of carriages, might pass more directly (as before) from Aldgate

through West Cheape to St. Paul’s on the north side, through St.

Nicholas Shambles and Newgate market to Newgate, and from thence to any

part westward over Holborn Bridge, or turning without the gate into

Smithfield and through Iseldon (Islington) to any part north and by

west.”

Of that ancient Newgate, city portal and general prison-house combined,

but scant records remain. A word or two in the old chroniclers, a

passing reference in the history of those troublous times, a few brief

and formal entries in the city archives--these are all that have been

handed down to us. But we may read between the lines and get some notion

of mediæval Newgate. Foul, noisome, terrible are the epithets applied to

this densely-crowded place of durance.[7] It was a dark, pestiferous

den, then, and for centuries later, perpetually ravaged by deadly

diseases.

Its inmates were of all categories. Prisoners of State and the most

abandoned criminals were alike committed to it. Howel, quoted by

Pennant, states that Newgate was used for the imprisonment of persons of

rank long before the Tower was applied to that purpose. Thus Robert de

Baldock, Chancellor of the realm in the reign of Edward II., to whom

most of the miseries of the kingdom were imputed, was dragged to Newgate

by the mob. He had been first committed to the Bishop’s prison, but was

taken thence to Newgate as a place of more security; “but the unmerciful

treatment he met with on the way occasioned him to die there within a

few days in great torment from the blows which had been inflicted on

him.” Again, Sir Thomas Percie, Lord Egremond, and other people of

distinction, are recorded as inmates in 1457. But the bulk of the

prisoners were of meaner condition, relegated for all manner of crimes.

Some were parlous offenders. There was but little security for life or

property in that old London, yet the law made constant war against the

turbulent and reckless roughs. Stowe draws a lively picture of the state

of the city at the close of the twelfth century. One night a brother of

Earl Ferrers was slain privately in London. The king (Edward I.) on

hearing this “swore that he would be avenged on the citizens.” It was

then a common practice in the city for “an hundred or more in company of

young and old to make nightly invasions upon the houses of the wealthy,

to the intent to rob them, and if they found any man stirring in the

city they would presently murder him, insomuch that when night was come

no man durst adventure to walk in the streets.” Matters at length came

to a crisis. A party of citizens young and wealthy, not mere rogues,

attacked the “storehouse of a certain rich man,” and broke through the

wall. The “good man of the house” was prepared and lay in wait for them

“in a corner,” and saw that they were led by one Andrew Bucquinte, who

carried a burning brand in one hand and a pot of coals in the other,

which he essayed to kindle with the brand. Upon this the master, crying

“Thieves!” rushed at Bucquinte and smote off his right hand. All took

to flight “saving he that had lost his hand,” whom the good man in the

next morning delivered to Richard de Lucy, the king’s justice. The thief

turned informer, and “appeached his confederates, of whom many were

taken and many were fled.” One, however, was apprehended, a citizen “of

great countenance, credit, and wealth, named John Senex, or John the

Old, who, when he could not acquit himself by the water dome, offered

the king 500 marks for his acquittal; but the king commanded that he

should be hanged, which was done, and the city became more quiet.”

Long before this, however, Edward I. had dealt very sharply with

evil-doers. By the suspension of corporation government following that

king’s conflict with the city authority, “all kinds of licentiousness

had got leave to go forward without control.” At length the frequency of

robberies and murders produced the great penal statute of the 13 Edward

I. (1287). By this Act it was decreed that no stranger should wear any

weapon, or be seen in the streets after the ringing of the couvre-feu

bell at St. Martin’s-le-Grand; that no vintners and victuallers should

keep open house after the ringing of the said bell under heavy fines and

penalties; that “whereas it was customary for profligates to learn the

art of fencing, who were thereby emboldened to commit the most

unheard-of villanies, no such school should be kept in the city for the

future upon the penalty of forty marks for every offence.” Most of the

aforesaid villanies were said to be committed by foreigners who from all

parts incessantly crowded to London; it was therefore ordered that no

person not free of the city should be suffered to reside therein; and

even many of those that were were obliged to give security for their

good behaviour.[8]

The ‘Liber Albus,’ as translated by Riley, gives the penalties for

brawling and breaking the peace about this date. It was ordained that

any person who should draw a sword, _misericorde_ (a dagger with a thin

blade used for mercifully despatching a wounded enemy), or knife, or any

arm, even though he did not strike, should pay a fine to the city of

half a mark, or be imprisoned in Newgate for fifteen days. If he drew

blood the fine was twenty shillings, or forty days in Newgate; in

striking with the fist two shillings, or eight days’ imprisonment, and

if blood was drawn forty pence, or twelve days. Moreover, the offenders

were to find good sureties before release, and those on whom the offence

was committed had still “recovery by process of law.”

Nor were these empty threats. The laws and ordinances against prowlers

and vagabonds, or “night-walkers,” as they were officially styled, were

continually enforced by the attachment of offenders. Many cases are

given in the memorials of London. Thus, 4 Edw. II. A.D. 1311: Elmer de

Multone was attached on indictment as a common night-walker in the ward

of Chepe; “in the day,” it was charged, “he was wont to entice persons

and strangers unknown to a tavern and there deceive them by using false

dice.” He was furthermore indicted “in Tower ward for being a cruiser

and night-walker against the peace, as also for being a common

‘rorere.’[9] Multone was committed to prison. Others met with similar

treatment. John de Rokeslee was attached as being held suspected of evil

and of beating men coming into the city;” “Peter le Taverner, called

Holer,” the same, and for going with sword and buckler and other arms;

John Blome was indicted “as a common vagabond[10] for committing

batteries and other mischiefs in the ward of Aldresgate and divers other

wards.” “A chaplain,” our modern curate, Richard Heryng, was attached on

similar charges, but was acquitted. Not only were the “roarers”

themselves indicted when taken in this act, but also those who harboured

them, like John Baronu mentioned in the same document as attached “for

keeping open house at night, and receiving night-walkers and players at

dice.” The prohibition against fencing-masters was also rigorously

enforced, as appears by the indictment of “Master Roger le Skirmisour,

for keeping a fencing school for divers men, and for enticing thither

the sons of respectable persons so as to waste and spend the property of

their fathers and mothers upon bad practices, the result being that

they themselves become bad men. Master Roger, upon proof of a jury that

he was guilty of the trespasses aforesaid, was committed to Newgate.”

[Illustration]

Incarceration in Newgate, however, was meted out promptly for other

offences than those against which the last-mentioned legislation was

directed. Priests guilty of loose living, Jews accused rightly or

wrongly, now of infanticide, of crucifying children, now of coining and

clipping, found themselves in the gaol for indefinite periods. People,

again, who adulterated or sold bad food were incontinently clapped into

gaol. Thus William Cokke of Hesse (or Hayes) was charged with carrying a

sample of wheat in his hand in the market within Newgate, and following

one William, the servant of Robert de la Launde Goldmsith, about from

sack to sack, as the latter was seeking to buy wheat, telling him that

such wheat as the sample could not be got for less than twenty-one pence

per bushel, whereas on the same day and at the same hour the same

servant could have bought the same wheat for eighteen pence. Cokke, when

questioned before the Mayor, Recorder, and certain aldermen,

acknowledged that he had done this to enhance the price of wheat to the

prejudice of all the people. He was in consequence committed to gaol,

and sentenced also to have the punishment of the pillory. The same fate

overtook Alan de Lyndeseye and Thomas de Patemere, bakers, who were

brought before the bench at Guildhall, and with them “bread they had

made of false, putrid, and rotten materials, through which persons who

bought such bread were deceived and might be killed.” The fear of

imprisonment, again, was before the eyes of all who sought to interfere

with the freedom of the markets. Thus it is recorded in the ordinances

of the cheesemongers, that “whereas the hokesters (hucksters) and other

who sell such wares by retail do come and regrate such cheese and butter

before prime rung, and before that the commonalty had been served, may

it be ordained that no such hokesters shall buy of any foreigner before

the hour of prime on pain of imprisonment at the will of the Mayor.”

Similar penalties were decreed against “regrating” fish and other

comestibles for the London markets.

In 1316 Gilbert Peny was bound in the third time in default for selling

bread deficient in weight. He had been twice drawn on the hurdle, and it

was therefore now adjudged that he should be drawn once more, and should

then forswear the trade of a baker in the city for ever. One of many

similar cases is that of William Spalyng, who, for selling putrid beef

at “les Stokkes,” the stocks market near Walbrook, was put upon the

pillory, and the carcases were burnt beneath. Another who made shoes of

unlawful material had them forfeited. Bakers who stole dough from the

moulding-boards of other bakers were exposed on the pillory with the

dough hung about their necks[11].

[Illustration]

Richard le Forester, for attempting to defraud with a false garland or

metal chaplet for the head, was sentenced to stand in the pillory, and

afterwards to forswear the city for a year and a day. Traders convicted

of having blankets vamped in foreign parts with the hair of oxen and of

cows were punished, and the blankets were burnt under the pillory on

Cornhill. Similarly, false gloves, braces, and pouches were burnt in the

High Street of Chepe near the stone cross there. John Penrose, a

taverner, convicted of selling unsound wine, was adjudged to drink a

draught of the said wine, and the remainder was then poured out on his

head. Alice, wife of Robert de Cranstom, was put in the thew, or pillory

for women, for selling ale by short measure; and so was Margery Hore for

selling putrid soles, the fish being burnt, and the cause of her

punishment proclaimed. Two servants of John Naylere were placed in the

stocks upon Cornhill for one hour, and their sacks burnt beside them,

for selling a deficient measure of charcoal, while their master’s three

horses were seized and detained by the Mayor’s sergeant until he

(Naylere) came and answered for the aforesaid falsity and deceit.

William Avecroft, having unsound wine, the sheriffs were ordered to pour

all the wine in the street and wholly make away with it, according to

the custom of the city.

The ‘Liber Albus’ contains other ordinances against brawlers and loose

livers. The former, whether male or female, were taken to the thew, a

form of pillory, carrying a distaff dressed with flax and preceded by

minstrels. The latter, whether male, female, or clerics, were marched

behind music to Newgate, and into the Tun in Cornhill.[12] Repeated

offences were visited with expulsion, and the culprits were compelled to

forswear the city for ever. The men on exposure had their heads and

beards shaved, except a fringe on their heads two inches in breadth;

women who made the penance in a hood of “rag” or striped cloth had their

hair cut round about their heads. Worse cases of both sexes were shaved

like “an appealer,” or false informer. The crime of riotous assembling

was very sharply dealt with, as appears from the proclamation made in

the King’s (Edward III.) departure for France. It was then ordained that

“no one of the city, of whatsoever condition he shall be, shall go out

of the city to maintain parties, such as taking leisure, or holding days

of love (days of reconciliation between persons at variance), or making

other congregations within the city or without in disturbance of the

peace of our lord the king, or in affray of the people, and to the

scandal of the city.” Any found guilty thereof were to be taken and put

into the prison of Newgate, and there retained for a year and day; and

if he was a freeman of the city, he lost his freedom for ever.

The city authorities appear to have been very jealous of their good

name, and to have readily availed themselves of Newgate as a place of

punishment for any who impugned it. A certain John de Hakford, about the

middle of the fourteenth century, was charged with perjury in falsely

accusing the chief men in the city of conspiracy. For this he was,

presumably upon proof, remanded by the Mayor and aldermen to Newgate,

there to remain until they shall be better advised as to their judgment.

A little later on, Saturday the morrow of St. Nicholas (6 Dec., 1364),

this judgment was delivered, to the effect that the said John shall

remain in prison for one whole year and a day, and the said John within

such year shall four times have the punishment of the pillory, that is

to say, one day in each quarter of the year, beginning on the Saturday

aforesaid, and in this manner: “The said John shall come out of Newgate

without hood or girdle, barefoot and unshod, with a whetstone hung by a

chain from his neck and lying on his breast, it being marked with the

words ‘a false liar,’ and there shall be a pair of trumpets trumpeting

before him in his way to the pillory, and there the cause of this

punishment shall be solemnly proclaimed, and the said John shall remain

in the pillory for three hours of the day, and from thence shall be

taken back to Newgate in the same manner, there to remain until his

punishment be completed in manner aforesaid.” This investiture of the

whetstone was commonly used as a punishment for misstatement;[13] for it

is recorded in 1371 that one Nicholas Mollere, servant of John

Toppesfield, smith, had the punishment of the pillory and whetstone for

“circulating lies,” amongst others that the prisoners at Newgate were to

be taken to the Tower of London, and that there was to be no longer a

prison at Newgate.

Again in 1383, William Berham for slandering the Mayor was adjudged to

be put upon the pillory on the same day, there to stand for one hour of

the day with one large whetstone hung from his neck in token of the lie

he told against the Mayor, and another smaller whetstone in token of a

lie told against a lesser personage. After that he was to be taken back

to Newgate, and thence for the five following days

[Illustration: ANCIENT PILLORY IN PARIS.]

to be taken to the pillory, before noon on one day and after noon on the

next, and there exposed with the whetstone as before. A few years later

one Robert Stafferstone for slandering an alderman was adjudged to be

imprisoned in Newgate for the next forty days, “unless he should find

increased favour.” This favour he did subsequently find, and “upon his

humiliation he was committed to prison until the morrow, namely, Palm

Sunday, and on the same Sunday should be taken from the prison to his

house, and from thence proceed between the eighth and ninth hour, before

dinner, with his head uncovered, and attended by an officer of the city,

carrying a lighted wax candle weighing two pounds through Walbrook

Bokelersbury, and so by Conduit and Chepe to St. Lawrence Lane in the

Old Jewry, and on to the chapel of the Guildhall, where he was to make

offering of the candle. That done, all further imprisonment was to be

remitted and forgiven.”

A sharper sentence was meted out about the same date to William Hughlot,

who for a murderous assault upon an alderman was sentenced to lose his

hand, and precept was given to the sheriffs of London to do execution of

the judgment aforesaid. Upon this an axe was brought into court by an

officer of sheriffs, and the hand of the said William was laid upon the

block there to be cut off. Whereupon John Rove (the alderman aggrieved),

in reverence of our lord the king, and at the request of divers lords,

who entreated for the said William, begged of the Mayor and aldermen

that the judgment might be remitted, which was granted accordingly. The

culprit was, however, punished by imprisonment, with exposure on the

pillory, wearing a whetstone, and he was also ordered to carry a lighted

wax candle weighing three pounds through Chepe and Fleet Streets to St.

Dunstan’s church, where he was to make offering of the same.

But, however sensitive of their good name, the Mayor and aldermen of

those times seem to have been fairly upright in their administration of

the law. The following case shows this. A man named Hugh De Beone,

arraigned before the city coroner and sheriff for the death of his wife,

stood mute, and refused to plead, so as to save his goods after

sentence. For thus “refusing his law of England,” the justiciary of our

lord the king for the delivery of the gaol of Newgate, committed him

back to prison, “there in penance to remain until he should be

dead.”[14]

The punishment inflicted, the goods thus saved were handed over to the

defunct criminal’s executor as appears from the following. “Be it

remembered that on Saturday next before the Feast of the Apostles Simon

and Jude (28 October), in the eleventh year of King Edward, after the

conquest, the third, came John Fox, citizen and vintner of London,

before Gregory de Nortone, Recorder, and Thomas de Margus, chamberlain

of the Guildhall of London, into the chamber of the Guildhall aforesaid,

and acknowledged that he had received of Walter de Moedone and Ralph de

Uptone, late sheriffs of London, the goods and chattels underwritten in

the presence of John de Shirborne, coroner, and the Sheriff of London

aforesaid, on the oath of Edward de Mohaut, pellifer,[15] and others.”

The inventory of goods is curious, and is perhaps worth quoting at

length. There were--

One mattress, value 4_s._; six blankets and one serge, 13_s._ 6_d._; one

green carpet, 20_s._; one torn coverlet, with shields of cendale, 4_s._;

one coat, and one surcoat, of _worstede_, 40_d._; one robe perset,

furred, 20_s._; one robe of medly, furred, one mask, one old fur, almost

consumed by moths, 6_d._; one robe of scarlet, furred, 16_s._; one robe

of perset, 7_s._; one surcoat, with a hood of ray, 2_s._ 6_d._; one

coat, with a hood of perset, 1_s._ 6_d._; one surcoat, and one coat of

ray, 6_s._ 1_d._; one green hood of cendale, with edging, 6_d._; seven

linen sheets, 5_s._; one table-cloth, 2_s._; three table-cloths, 1_s._

6_d._; and a great many other articles, including “brass pots,”

“aundirons,” “tonour,” “iron herce,” “savenapes,” bringing the total

value to £12 18_s._ 4_d._

Long years elapsed between the building of Newgate and the date when the

city gained complete jurisdiction over the prison. King Henry III.’s

orders to repair the gaol at his own charge has been mentioned already.

Forty years later the same monarch pretended to be keenly concerned in

the good government of Newgate. Returning from Bordeaux when his son

Edward had married the King of Spain’s sister, Henry had passed through

Dover and reached London on St. John’s day. The city sent to

congratulate him on his safe arrival, the messengers taking with them a

humble offering of one hundred pounds. The avaricious king was

dissatisfied, and instead of thanking them, intimated that if they would

win his thanks they must enlarge their present; whereupon they gave him

“a valuable piece of plate of exquisite workmanship, which pacified him

for the present.” But Henry was resolved to squeeze more out of the

wealthy burgesses of London. An opportunity soon offered when a clerk

convict, one John Frome, or Offrem,[16] charged with murdering a prior,

and committed for safe custody to Newgate, escaped therefrom. The

murdered man was a cousin of Henry’s queen, and the king, affecting to

be gravely displeased at this gross failure in prison administration,

summoned the mayor and sheriffs to appear before him and answer the

matter. The mayor laid the fault from him to the sheriffs, forasmuch as

to them belonged the keeping of all prisoners within the city. The mayor

was therefore allowed to return home, but the sheriffs remained

prisoners in the Tower “by the space of a month or more”; and yet they

excused themselves in that the fault rested chiefly with the bishop’s

officers, the latter having, at their lord’s request, sent the prisoner

to Newgate, but being still themselves responsible with the bishop for

his safe keeping. These excuses did not satisfy the king, who,

“according to his usual justice,” says Noorthouck, “demanded of the

city, as an atonement of the pretended crime, no less than the sum of

three thousand marks.” The fine was not immediately forthcoming,

whereupon he degraded both the sheriffs, and until the citizens paid up

the enormous sum demanded, he caused the chief of them to be seized and

clapped into prison.

The city was ready enough, however, to purchase substantial privileges

in hard cash. Many of its early charters were thus obtained from

necessitous kings. In this way the Corporation ransomed, so to speak,

its ancient freedom and the right of independent government.

In 1327 a further point was gained. The support of the citizens had been

freely given to Queen Isabella and her young son in the struggle against

Edward II. On the accession of Edward III. a new charter, dated in the

first year of his reign, was granted to the city of London. After

confirming the ancient liberties, it granted many new privileges; chief

among them was the concession that the Mayor of London should be one of

the justices for gaol delivery of Newgate, and named in every commission

for that purpose. The king’s marshal might in future hold no court

within the boundary of the city, nor were citizens to be called upon to

plead beyond them for anything done within the liberties. No market

might be kept within seven miles of London, while the citizens were

permitted to hold fairs and a court of “pye powder” therein; in other

words, a court for the summary disposal of all offences committed by

hawkers or pedlers, or perambulating merchants, who have _les pieds

poudrés_, or are “dusty-footed.”[17] Other privileges were obtained from

the king during his reign. A second charter granted them the bailiwick

of Southwark, a village which openly harboured “felons, thieves, and

other malefactors,” who committed crimes in the city and fled to

Southwark for sanctuary; and a third guaranteed them against the

competition of foreign merchants, who were forbidden to sell by retail

in the city, to keep any house, or act as broker therein. Again, the

election of the mayor was established on a more settled plan, and vested

in the mayor and aldermen for the time being. Another charter conceded

to the Corporation the honour of having gold and silver maces borne

before the chief functionary, who about this period became first

entitled to take rank as Lord Mayor. The vast wealth and importance of

this great civic dignitary was to be seen in the state he kept up. The

Lord Mayor even then dispensed a princely hospitality, and one eminent

citizen in this reign, Henry Picard by name, had the honour of

entertaining four sovereigns at his table, viz. the kings of England,

France, Scotland, and Cyprus, with the Prince of Wales and many more

notables. This Picard was one of the Guild of Merchant Vintners of

Gascony, a Bordeaux wine merchant, in fact, and a Gascon by birth,

although a naturalized subject of the English king. The Vintners gave

the city several lord mayors.

Richard II. was not so well disposed towards the city. Recklessly

extravagant, wasteful and profuse in his way of living, he was always in

straits for cash. The money needed for his frivolous amusements and

ostentatious display he wrung from the Corporation by seizing its

charters, which were only redeemed by the payment of heavy fines. The

sympathies of the city were therefore with Henry Bolingbroke in the

struggle which followed. It was able to do him good service by warning

him of a plot against his life, and Henry, now upon the throne, to show

his gratitude, and “cultivate the good understanding thus commenced with

the city, granted it a new charter.” The most important clause of

Henry’s charter was that which entrusted the citizens, their heirs and

successors, with the custody “as well of the gates of Newgate and

Ludgate, as all other gates and posterns in the same city.” The same

clause gave them the office of gathering the tolls and customs in Cheap,

Billingsgate, and Smithfield there rightfully to be taken and

accustomed;[18] “and also the tronage, that is to say, the weighing of

lead, wax, pepper, allom, madder, and other like wares, within the said

city for ever.” The great concession was, however, in the reign of

Edward IV., whose charter was the fullest and most explicit of any

previously granted. By this the mayor, recorder, and aldermen who had

been Lord Mayor were constituted perpetual justices of the peace of the

city; they were also appointed justices of _oyer_ and _terminer_; their

customs were to be accepted as established beyond controversy by the

declaration of the mayor through the recorder; they were exempted from

serving as jurors, and so forth, beyond the city. The borough of

Southwark was once more clearly placed under the jurisdiction of the

city; the citizens were entitled to the goods and chattels of traitors

and felons, and the privilege of the annual Southwark Fair, with the pie

powder court, was confirmed.

By this time the gate and prison must have passed under the control of

the civic authorities. They had, however, already enjoyed the privilege

of contributing to its charges. This appears from an entry as far back

as September 1339, in the account of expenditure of Thomas de Maryus,

chamberlain. The item is for “moneys delivered to William Simond,

Sergeant of the Chamber, by precept of the mayor and aldermen, for

making the pavement within Newgate, £7 6_s._ 8_d._” How complete became

the power and responsibility of the Corporation and its officers is to

be seen in the account given in the ‘Liber Albus’ of the procedure when

new sheriffs were appointed.[19] They were sworn on appointment, and

with them their officers, among whom were the governor of Newgate and

his clerk. After dinner on the same day of appointment the old and new

sheriffs repaired to Newgate, where the new officials took over all the

prisoners “by indenture” made between them and the old.[20] They were

also bound to “place one safeguard there at their own peril,” and were

forbidden to “let the gaol to fenn or farm.” Other restrictions were

placed upon them. It was the sheriffs’ duty also, upon the vigil of St.

Michael, on vacating their office, to resign into the hands of the mayor

for the time being the keys of Newgate, the Cocket or Seal of Newgate,

and all other things pertaining unto the said sheriffwick.[21] All the

civic authorities, mayor, sheriffs, aldermen, and their servants,

including the gaoler of Newgate, were forbidden to brew for sale, keep

an oven, or let carts for hire; “nor shall they be regrators of

provisions, or hucksters of ale, or in partnership with such.” Penalties

were attached to the breach of these regulations. It was laid down that

any who took the oath and afterwards contravened it, or any who would

not agree to abide by the ordinance, should be forthwith “ousted from

his office for ever.” It was also incumbent upon the sheriffs to put “a

man sufficient, and of good repute, to keep the gaol of Newgate in due

manner, without taking anything of him for such keeping thereof, by

covenant made in private or openly.” Moreover, the gaoler so appointed

swore before the Lord Mayor and aldermen that “neither he nor any of

them shall take fine or extortionate charge from any prisoner by putting

on or taking off his irons, or shall receive moneys extorted from such

prisoners.” He was permitted to levy fourpence from each upon release,

“as from ancient time has been the usage, but he shall take fees from no

person at his entrance there;” indeed, he was warned that if he

practised extortion he would be “ousted from his office,” and punished

at the discretion of the mayor, aldermen, and common council of the

city.

It will be made pretty plain, I think, in subsequent pages, that these

wise and righteous regulations were both flagrantly ignored and

systematically contravened. The rule against farming out the prison may

have been observed, and it may not be clearly proved that the sheriffs

ever took toll from the gaoler. But the spirit of the law, if not its

letter, was broken by the custom which presently grew general of making

the gaolership a purchaseable appointment. The buying and selling of

offices, of army commissions, for instance, as we have seen practised

within recent years, at one time extended also to the keeperships of

gaols. It is recorded in the Calendar of State papers that one Captain

Richardson agreed for his place as keeper of Newgate for £3000. A larger

sum, viz. £5000, was paid by John Huggins to Lord Clarendon, who “did by

his interest” obtain a grant of the office of keeper of the Fleet prison

for the life of Huggins and his son. One James Whiston, in a book

entitled ‘England’s Calamities Discovered, or Serious Advice to the

Common Council of London,’[22] strongly remonstrates against this

practice, which he stigmatizes as “bartering justice for gold.” His

language is plain and forcible. “Shall the public houses built at the

city charges [it appears that at that time Ludgate, Newgate, the Fleet,

and the Compters were all put up to the highest bidder] be sold for

private lucre?... He that sells a gaoler’s place sells the liberty, the

estate, the person, nay, the very lives of the prisoners under his

jurisdiction.” “Purchased cruelty,” the right to oppress the prisoners,

that is to say, in order to recover the sums spent in buying the place,

“is now grown so bold that if a poor man pay not extortionary fees and

ruinous chamber-rent, he shall be thrown into holes and common sides to

be devoured by famine, lice, and disease. I would fain know,” he asks,

“by what surmise of common sense a keeper of a prison can demand a

recompense or fee from a prisoner for keeping him in prison?... Can he

believe that any person can deserve a recompense for opening the door of

misery and destruction?... But now such is the confidence of a

purchaser, that to regain his sum expended he sells his tap-house at

prodigious rates, ... he farms his sheets to mere harpies, and his great

key to such a piece of imperious cruelty (presumably his chief turnkey)

as is the worst of mankind.” Following the same line of argument, he

says “it will perhaps be thought impertinent to dispute a gaoler’s

demands for admitting us into his loathsome den, when even the common

hangman, no doubt encouraged by such examples, will scarce give a

malefactor a cast of his office without a bribe, demands very formally

his fees, forsooth, of the person to be executed, and higgles with him

as nicely as if he were going to do him some mighty kindness.”

Eventually an act was passed specifically forbidding the sale of such

places. This statute affirms that “none shall buy, sell, let, or take to

farm, the office of under-sheriff, gaoler, bailiff, under pain of £500,

half to the king and half to him that shall sue.”

Before leaving the subject of the sheriffs’ jurisdiction in regard to

Newgate, it may be interesting to refer to a conflict between them and

the Corporation as to the right to appoint the gaoler. It is recorded in

the State papers, under date March 1, 1638, that Isaac Pennington and

John Wollaston were elected and sworn sheriffs for the ensuing year.

They went, according to ancient custom, to Newgate, where, having

received the keys and the charge of the prisoners from the former

sheriffs, they substituted for the actual keeper one James Francklin,

who about the 15th of the following October died. Accordingly the

sheriffs appointed and settled Henry Wollaston as keeper of the gaol,

who peaceably executed the duties of that place for six weeks. The rest

of the story is best told in the language of the record. After that time

“the Lord Mayor and aldermen, never charging Wollaston with any

miscarriage, sent for him to their court at Guildhall, and demanded of

him the keys of the said prison, who refusing to deliver them to any

without the consent of the sheriffs, was then detained until some

officers were sent from the said court, who forcibly brought the

officer’s servants intrusted with the said keys and prisoners by the

said Wollaston, and, without the knowledge or consent of the said

sheriffs, delivered them to Richard Johnson, a young man not free of the

city, clerk to the recorder, whom they (the sheriffs, from whom this

protest comes) consider to be very unfit for such a trust. For redress,

the sheriffs by all fair means have applied themselves divers times to

the Lord Mayor and court of aldermen, who refuse to restore the said

Wollaston. The sheriffs conceive that the trust and keeping of the said

gaol, both by law and reason, ought to be in their disposition, and that

it is inseparable, incident to, and of common right belonging to their

office, they being liable to punishments for any escapes, and

amerciaments for non-appearance of prisoners in Her Majesty’s courts of

justice, with many other such like damages and fears.”

How the case was finally settled does not appear. But the matter was one

in which the king (Charles I.) would probably claim to have a voice. The

appointment might be in the gift and actually made by the Corporation,

but the city authorities were often invited by the Court to put in some

royal nominee, a request which might easily be interpreted into a

command. Thus in April 1594, the Lords of the Council addressed the

mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs, soliciting them to appoint Richard

Hutchman, one of Her Majesty’s sergeants-at-arms, keeper of Newgate,

_vice_ Dios, deceased. In June the Corporation reply that they regret

they cannot appoint Hutchman. The Lords’ Council now issue a peremptory

order to place him in office, which was done, but the Corporation was

not to be beaten. Next year a fresh representation is made to the Lords

in Council, stating the reasons why the city authorities had dismissed

Mr. Hutchman from his place.

Another State paper, dated 1633, gives a draft of a letter recommending

one A. B. for the appointment of keeper, vacant by the “nomination of

one not deemed to have been legally put in.” Some seventy years later,

according to another authority, the question was definitely settled. In

this (dated 1708) it is set forth that “the keeper of the prison holds

that place of great trust under the queen (Anne), giving about £8000

security, and the prison is turned over to each of the new sheriffs when

sworn in by delivering them a key. The place is in the gift of the Lord

Mayor and aldermen.”

Let us return to Mediæval Newgate. Whatever the authority, whether royal

or civic, the condition of the inmates must have been wretched in the

extreme, as the few brief references to them in the various records will

sufficiently prove. The place was full of horrors; the gaolers rapacious

and cruel. In 1334 an official inquiry was made into the state of the

gaol, and some of the atrocities practised were brought to light.

Prisoners detained on minor charges were cast into deep dungeons, and

there associated with the worst criminals. All were alike threatened,

nay tortured, till they yielded to the keepers’ extortions, or consented

to turn approvers and swear away the lives of innocent men. These poor

prisoners were dependent upon the charity and good-will of the

benevolent for food and raiment. As far back as 1237 it is stated that

Sir John Pulteney gave four marks by the year to the relief of prisoners

in Newgate. In the year 1385 William Walworth, the stalwart mayor whose

name is well remembered in connection with Wat Tyler’s rebellion, gave

“somewhat” with the same good object. “So have many others since,” says

the record. The water supply of the prison, Stowe tells, was also a

charitable gift. “Thomas Knowles, grocer, sometime Mayor of London, by

license of Reynold, prior of St. Bartholomew’s in Smithfield, and also

of John Wakering, master of the hospital of St. Bartholomew, and his

brethren, conveyed the waste of water at the cistern near unto the

common fountain and Chapel of St. Nicholas (situate by the said

hospital) to the gaols of Ludgate and Newgate, for the relief of the

prisoners.”

In 1451, by the will of Phillip Malpas, who had been a sheriff some

twelve years previous, the sum of £125 was bequeathed to “the relief of

poor prisoners.” This Malpas, it may be mentioned here, was a courageous

official, ready to act promptly in defence of city rights. In 1439 a

prisoner under escort from Newgate to Guildhall was rescued from the

officer’s hands by five companions, after which all took sanctuary at

the college of St. Martin’s-le-Grand.[23] “But Phillip Malpas and Robert

Marshal, the sheriffs of London, were no sooner acquainted with the

violence offered to their officer and the rescue of their prisoner, than

they, at the head of a great number citizens, repaired to the said

college, and forcibly took from thence the criminal and his rescuers,

whom they carried in fetters to the Compter, and thence, chained by the

necks, to Newgate.”

For food the prisoners were dependent upon alms or upon articles

declared forfeit by the law. Thus some bread of light weight, seized on

the 10th August 1298, was ordered to be given to the prisoners in

Newgate. Again, the halfpenny loaf of light bread of Agnes Foting of

Stratford was found wanting 7 shillings (or 4⅕ oz.) in weight;

therefore it was adjudged that her bread should be forfeited, and it

also was sent unto the gaol. All food sold contrary to the statutes of

the various guilds was similarly forfeited to the prisoners. The

practice of giving food was continued through succeeding years, and to a

very recent date. A long list of charitable donations and bequests might

be made out, bestowed either in money or in kind. A customary present

was a number of stones of beef. Some gave penny loaves, some oatmeal,

some coals. Without this benevolence it would have gone hard with the

poor population of the Gatehouse gaol. It was not strange that the

prison should be wasted by epidemics, as when in 1414 “the gaoler died

and prisoners to the number of sixty-four;” or that the inmates should

at times exhibit a desperate turbulence, taking up arms and giving

constituted authority much trouble to subdue them, as in 1457 when they

broke out of their several wards in Newgate, and got upon the leads,

where they defended themselves with great obstinacy against the sheriffs

and their officers, insomuch that they, the sheriffs, were obliged to

call the citizens to their assistance, whereby the prisoners were soon

reduced to their former state.

The evil effects of incarceration in Newgate may be further judged by

the fate which overtook the city debtors who were temporarily removed

thither from Ludgate. An effort had been made in 1419 to put pressure

upon them as a class. An ordinance was issued by Henry V. closing the

Ludgate prison for debtors. It had been found that “many false men of

bad disposition and purpose have been more willing to take up their

abode there, so as to waste and spend their goods upon the ease and

license that there is within, than pay their debts.” Wherefore it was

ordained that “all prisoners therein shall be removed and safely carried

to Newgate, there to remain each in such keeping as his own deserts

shall demand.” The order was, however, very speedily rescinded. A later

ordinance in the same year sets forth that “whereas, through the

abolition and doing away with the prison of Ludgate, which was formerly

ordained for the good and comfort of citizens and other reputable

persons, and also by reason of the fœtid and corrupt atmosphere that

is in the hateful gaol of Newgate, many persons who lately were in the

said prison of Ludgate, who in the time of William Sevenoke, late mayor,

for divers great offences which they had there compassed were committed

to the said gaol (of Newgate), are now dead, who might have been living,

it is said, if they had

[Illustration]

remained at Ludgate abiding in peace there; and seeing that every person

is sovereignly bound to support and be tender to the lives of men, the

which God hath bought so dearly with His precious blood; therefore

Richard Whittington, now mayor (1419), and the aldermen, on Saturday the

2nd November, have ordained and established that the gaol of Ludgate

shall be a prison from henceforth to keep therein all citizens and other

reputable persons whom the mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, or chamberlain of

the city shall think proper to commit and send to the same, provided

always that the warder shall be a good and loyal man, giving sufficient

surety,” &c. Ten or twelve years later a similar exodus from Ludgate to

Newgate and back again took place. “On the Tuesday next after Palm

Sunday 1431, all the prisoners of Ludgate were conveyed into Newgate by

Walter Chartsey and Robert Large, sheriffs of London, and on the 13th

April the same sheriffs (through the false suggestion of John Kingesell,

gaoler of Newgate) did fetch from thence eighteen persons, freemen, and

these were led to the Counters pinioned as if they had been felons. But

on the 16th June Ludgate was again appointed for freemen, prisoners for

debt, and the same day the same freemen entered by ordinance of the

mayor, aldermen, and commons; and by them Henry Deane, tailor, was made

keeper of Ludgate.”

One other charitable bequest must be referred to here, as proving that

the moral no less than the physical well-being of the prisoners was

occasionally an object of solicitude. In the reign of Richard II. a

prayer-book was specially bequeathed to Newgate in the following

terms:--

“Be it remembered that on the 10th day of June, in the 5th year (1382),

Henry Bever, parson of the church of St. Peter in Brad Street (St. Peter

the Poor, Broad Street), executor of Hugh Tracy, Chaplain, came here

before the mayor and aldermen and produced a certain book called a

‘Porte hors,’[24] which the same Hugh had left to the gaol of Newgate,

in order that priests and clerks there imprisoned might say their

service from the same, there to remain so long as it might last. And so

in form aforesaid the book was delivered unto David Bertelike, keeper of

the gate aforesaid, to keep it in such manner so long as he should hold

that office; who was also then charged to be answerable for it. And it

was to be fully allowable for the said Henry to enter the gaol aforesaid

twice in the year at such times as he should please, these times being

suitable times, for the purpose of seeing how the book was kept.”[25]

We are without any very precise information as to the state of the

prison building throughout these dark ages. But it was before everything

a gate-house, part and parcel of the city fortifications, and therefore

more care and attention would be paid to its external than its internal

condition. It was subject, moreover, to the violence of such disturbers

of the peace as the

[Illustration: DEATH-BED OF WHITTINGTON.]

followers of Wat Tyler, of whom it is written that, having spoiled

strangers “in most outrageous manner, entered churches, abbeys, and

houses of men of law, which in semblable sort they ransacked, they also

brake up the prisons of Newgate and of both the Compters, destroyed the

books, and set the prisoners at liberty.” This was in 1381. Whether the

gaol was immediately repaired after the rebellion was crushed does not

appear; but if so, the work was only partially performed, and the

process of dilapidation and decay must soon have recommenced, for in

Whittington’s time it was almost in ruins. That eminent citizen and

mercer, who was three times mayor, and whose charitable bequests were

numerous and liberal, left moneys in his will for the purpose of

rebuilding the place, and accordingly license was granted in 1422, the

first year of Henry VI.’s reign, to his executors, John Coventre, Jenken

Carpenter, and William Grove, “to re-edify the gaol of Newgate, which

they did with his goods.” This building, such as it was, continued to

serve until the commencement of the seventeenth century.

In 1629 a petition from the gaoler to the king sets forth[26] that “by

reason of the great ruins of the gaol it is now in hand to be repaired.”

The gaoler further states that there is great danger lest in time of

repair some of the prisoners should escape, and prays directions to the

Lord Mayor and Recorder to certify how many prisoners are capable of His

Majesty’s mercy, and to the Attorney General to prepare pardons. This

document is under-written, “Reference to Recorder to certify, and to the

Attorney General to prepare, a pardon;” following which is a

recommendation from Sir Heneage Finch (the first-named official) to

release forty-four. Subsequently the east side of Newgate was “begun to

be repaired, Sir James Campbell being mayor, and finished the year

following, Sir Robert Drury, Baronet, being mayor.” The expense was

borne wholly or partly by the locality, as the records show in 1632 an

account of the assessment of the parish of St. Stephen Walbrook, in

which “two fifteenths were to be gathered for repairing Newgate.” It is

this re-edification which is referred to in Lupton’s ‘London

Carbonadoed,’ 1638, who speaks of Newgate as new fronted and new faced.

I have been unable to ascertain any exact figure of this old Newgate,

either in its ancient or improved aspect. The structure, such as it was,

suffered so severely in the great fire of 1666 that it became necessary

to rebuild it upon new and more imposing lines.

This may be described as the third edifice: that of the twelfth century

being the first, and Richard Whittington’s the second. Of this third

prison details are still extant, and I propose to describe it fully on a

later page.[27]