NEWGATE DOWN TO 1818.
Newgate still overcrowded--Some statistics--Description of
interior--The various "sides" and wards--Their dimensions and
uses--Debtors in Middlesex, generally paltry debts and colossal
costs--Various debtors' prisons in London described--The King's
Bench--The Fleet--The Marshalsea--The Compters, Ludgate, Giltspur
Street, and Borough--Debtors in Newgate--Fees
extorted--Garnish--Scanty food--Little bedding--Squalor and
wretchedness prevail throughout--Constant quarrels and
fighting--Discipline maintained only by prisoner wardsmen--Their
tyranny and extortion--A new debtors' prison
indispensable--Building of Whitecross Street--The criminal
side--Indiscriminate association of all classes--The middle yard
greatly crowded with transports awaiting deportation, and with whom
mere children were constantly mixed--Deterioration rapid--Mock
courts for trials of new-comers who would not adopt the ways of the
gaol--Case of a decent man completely ruined--Greater ease in the
master felons' side--Fees--The best accommodation was in the state
side, and open to all who could pay--High fees charged--Cobbett in
state side, and the Marquis of Sligo--The press yard--Recklessness
of the condemned--Cashman--The condemned cells--Summary of glaring
defects in Newgate--Scanty diet--Irons--Visitors admitted in
crowds, including low females--Crimes constantly being hatched in
Newgate--The Corporation roused to reform Newgate--Appoint
committee to examine other gaols--Its report, and many useful
recommendations--Few are carried out.
Under the conditions referred to in the previous chapter, with criminals
and misdemeanants of all shades crowding perpetually into its narrow
limits, the latter state of Newgate was worse than the first. The new
gaol fell as far short of the demands made on it as did the old. The
prison population fluctuated a great deal, but it was almost always in
excess of the accommodation available, and there were times when the
place was full to overflowing. Neild[22] gives some figures which well
illustrate this. On the 14th June, 1800, there were 199 debtors and 289
felons in the prison. On the 27th April, in the following year, these
numbers had risen to 275 and 375 respectively, or 650 in all. For two
more years these high figures were steadily maintained, and in 1803 the
total rose to 710. After that they fell as steadily, till, 1808, the
lowest point was touched of 197 debtors and 182 felons, or 379 in all.
The numbers soon increased, however, and by 1811 had again risen to 629;
and Mr. Neild was told that there had been at one time 300 debtors and
900 criminals in Newgate, or 1200 prisoners in all. Previous to that
date there had been 700 or 800 frequently, and once, in Mr. Akerman's
time, 1000. Trustworthy evidence is forthcoming to the effect that these
high figures were constantly maintained for many months at a time. The
inadequacy of the gaol was noticed and reported upon again and again by
the grand juries of the city of London, who seldom let a session go by
without visiting Newgate. In 1813 the grand jury made a special
presentment to the Court of Common Council, pointing out that on the
debtors' side, which was intended for only 100, no less than 340 were
crowded, to the great inconvenience and danger of the inmates. On the
female side matters were much worse; "the apartments set apart for them,
being built to accommodate 60 persons, now contain about 120." Returns
laid before the House of Commons showed that 6439 persons had been
committed to Newgate in the three years between 1813 and 1816, and this
number did not include the debtors, a numerous class, who were still
committed to Newgate pending the completion of the White Cross Street
prison.
In order to realize the evils entailed by incarceration in Newgate in
these days, it is necessary to give some account of its interior as it
was occupied and appropriated in 1810. Full details of the arrangements
are to be found in Mr. Neild's 'State of Prisons in England, Scotland,
and Wales,' published in 1812. The gaol at that date was divided into
eight separate and more or less distinct departments, each of which had
its own wards and yard. These were--
i. The male debtors' side.
ii. The female debtors' side.
iii. The chapel yard.
iv. The middle yard.
v. The master felons' side.
vi. The female felons' side.
vii. The state side.
viii. The press yard.
i. The male debtors' side consisted of a yard forty-nine feet by
thirty-one, leading to thirteen wards on various floors, and a day room.
Of these wards, three were appropriated to the "cabin side," so called
because they each contained four small rooms or "cabins" seven feet
square, intended to accommodate a couple of prisoners apiece, but often
much more crowded.[23] Two other wards were appropriated to the master's
side debtors; they were each twenty-three feet by fourteen and a half,
and supposed to accommodate twenty persons. The eight remaining wards
were for the common side debtors, long narrow rooms--one thirty-six
feet, six twenty-three feet, and the eighth eighteen, the whole about
fifteen feet wide. The various wards were all about eleven feet in
height, and were occupied as a rule by ten to fifteen people when the
prison was not crowded, but double the number was occasionally placed in
them. The day room was fitted with benches and settles after the manner
of the tap in a public-house.
ii. The female debtors' side consisted of a court-yard forty-nine by
sixteen feet, leading to two wards, one of which was thirty-six feet by
fifteen, and the other eighteen by fifteen; and they nominally held
twenty-two persons. A high wall fifteen feet in height divided the
females' court-yard from the men's.
iii. The chapel yard was about forty-three feet by twenty-five. It had
been for some time devoted principally to felons of the worst types,
those who were the oldest offenders, sentenced to transportation, and
who had narrowly escaped the penalty of death. This arrangement was,
however, modified after 1811, and the chapel yard was allotted to
misdemeanants and prisoners awaiting trial. The wards in this part were
five in number, all in dimensions twenty feet by fifteen, with a sixth
ward fifteen feet square. These wards were all fitted with barrack-beds,
but no bedding was supplied. The chapel yard led to the chapel, and on
the staircase were two rooms frequently set apart for the king's
witnesses, those who had turned king's evidence, whose safety might have
been imperilled had they been lodged with the men against whom they had
informed. But these king's witnesses were also put at times into the
press yard among the capital convicts, seemingly a very dangerous
proceeding, or they lodged with the gatesmen, the prisoner officers who
had charge of the inner gates.
iv. The middle yard was at first given up to the least heinous
offenders. After 1812 it changed functions with the chapel yard. It was
fifty feet by twenty-five, and had five wards each thirty-eight by
fifteen. At one end of the yard was an arcade, directly under the
chapel, in which there were three cells, used either for the confinement
of disorderly and refractory prisoners, or female convicts ordered for
execution.
v. The master felons' side consisted of a yard the same size as the
preceding, appropriated nominally to the most decent and better-behaved
prisoners, but really kept for the few who had funds sufficient to gain
them admission to these more comfortable quarters. Here were also lodged
the gatesmen, the prisoners who had charge of the inner gates, and who
were intrusted with the duty of escorting visitors from the gates to the
various wards their friends occupied.
vi. The state side was the part stolen from the female felons' side. It
was large and comparatively commodious, being maintained on a better
footing than any other part of the prison. The inmates were privileged,
either by antecedents or the fortunate possession of sufficient funds to
pay the charges of the place. Neild takes it for granted that the former
rather than the latter prevailed in the selection, and tells us that in
the state side "such prisoners were safely associated whose manners and
conduct evince a more liberal style of education, and who are therefore
lodged apart from all other districts of the gaol." The state side
contained twelve good-sized rooms, from twenty-one by eighteen feet to
fifteen feet square, which were furnished with bedsteads and bedding.
vii. The press yard was that part set aside for the condemned. Its name
and its situation were the same as those of the old place of carrying
out the terrible sentence inflicted on accused persons who stood
mute.[24] The long narrow yard still remained as we saw it in Jacobite
times, and beyond it was now a day room for the capital convicts or
those awaiting execution. Beyond the press yard were three stories,
condemned cells, fifteen in all, with vaulted ceilings nine feet high to
the crown of the arch. The ground floor cells were nine feet by six;
those on the first floor were rather larger on account of a set-off in
the wall; and the uppermost were the largest, for the same reason.
Security was provided for in these condemned cells by lining the
substantial stone walls with planks studded with broad-headed nails;
they were lighted by a double-grated window two feet nine inches by
fourteen inches; and in the doors, which were four inches thick, a
circular aperture had been let in to give ventilation and secure a free
current of air. In each cell there was a barrack bedstead on the floor
without bedding.
viii. The female felons were deprived of part of the space which the
architect had intended for them. More than half their quadrangle had
been partitioned off for another purpose, and what remained was divided
into a master's and a common side for female felons. The two yards were
adjoining, that for the common side much the largest. There were nine
wards in all on the female side, one of them in the attic, with four
casements and two fireplaces, being allotted for a female infirmary, and
the rest being provided with barrack beds, and in dimensions varying
from thirty feet by fifteen to fifteen feet by ten.
The eight courts above enumerated were well supplied with water; they
had dust-bins, sewers, and so forth, "properly disposed,"[25] and the
city scavenger paid periodical visits to the prison. The prisoners had
few comforts, beyond the occasional use of a bath at some distance,
situated in the press yard, to which access was granted rarely and as a
great favour. But they were allowed the luxury of drink--if they could
pay for it. A recent reform had closed the tap kept by the gaoler within
the precincts, but there was still a "convenient room" which served, and
"near it a grating through which the debtors receive their beer from the
neighbouring public-houses. The felons' side has a similar
accommodation, and this mode of introducing the beverage is adopted
because no publican as such can be permitted to enter the interior of
this prison."[26] The tap-room and bar were just behind the felons'
entrance lodge, and beyond it was a room called the "wine room," because
formerly used for the sale of wine, but in which latterly a copper had
been fixed for the cooking of provisions sent in by charitable persons.
"On the top of the gaol," continues Neild, "are a watch-house and a
sentry-box, where two or more guards, with dogs and firearms, watch all
night. Adjoining the felons' side lodge is the keeper's office, where
the prison books are kept, and his clerk, called the clerk of the
papers, attends daily."[27]
Having thus briefly described the plan and appropriation of the prison,
I propose to deal now with the general condition of the inmates, and the
manner of their life. Of these the debtors, male and female, formed a
large proportion. The frequency and extent of processes against debtors
seventy or eighty years ago will appear almost incredible in an age when
insolvent acts and bankruptcy courts do so much to relieve the
impecunious, and imprisonment for debt has almost entirely
disappeared.[28] But at the time of which I am writing the laws were
relentless against all who failed to meet their engagements. The number
of processes against debtors annually was extraordinary. Neild gives, on
the authority of Mr. Burchell, the under sheriff of Middlesex, a table
showing the figures for the year ending Michaelmas 1802. In that period
upwards of 200,000 writs had been issued for the arrests of debtors in
the kingdom, for sums varying from fourpence to £500 and upwards.
Fifteen thousand of these were issued in Middlesex alone, which at that
time was reckoned as only a fifteenth of Great Britain. The number of
arrests actually made was 114,300 for the kingdom, and 7020 for
Middlesex. Barely half of these gave bail bonds on arrests, and the
remainder went to prison. Quite half of the foregoing writs and arrests
applied to sums under £30. Neild also says that in 1793, 5719 writs and
executions for debts between £10 and £20 were issued in Middlesex, and
the aggregate amount of debts sued for was £81,791. He also makes the
curious calculation that the costs of these actions if undefended would
have amounted to £68,728, and if defended, £285,950; in other words,
that to recover eighty odd thousand pounds, three times the amount would
be expended.
An elaborate machinery planned for the protection of the trader, and
altogether on his side, had long existed for the recovery of debts.
Alfred the Great established the Court Baron, the Hundred Court, and the
County Court, which among other matters entertained pleas for debt. The
County Court was the sheriff's, who sat there surrounded by the bishop
and the magnates of the county; but as time passed, difficulties and
delays in obtaining judgment led to the removal of causes to the great
Court of King's Bench, and the disuse of the inferior courts. So much
inconvenience ensued, that in 1518 the Corporation obtained from
Parliament an act empowering two aldermen and four common councilmen to
hold Courts of Requests, or Courts of Conscience, to hear and determine
all causes of debt under 40_s._ arising within the city. These courts
were extended two centuries later to several large provincial towns, and
all were in full activity when Neild wrote, and indeed supplied the bulk
of the poor debtors committed to prison. These courts were open to many
and grave objections. The commissioners who presided were "little
otherwise than self-elected,[29] and when once appointed continued to
serve _sine die_;"[30] they were generally near in rank to the parties
whose causes they decided. Often a commissioner had to leave the bench
because he was himself a party to the suit that was _sub judice_. The
activity as well as the futility of these courts may be estimated from
the statement given by Neild, that 1312 debtors were committed by them
to Newgate between 1797 and 1808, and that no more than 197 creditors
recovered debts and costs. The latter indeed hung like millstones round
the neck of the unhappy insolvent wretches who found themselves in
limbo. Costs were the gallons of sack to the pennyworth of debt. Neild
found at his visit to Newgate in 1810, fourteen men and women who had
lain there ten, eleven, and thirteen years for debts of a few shillings,
weighted by treble the amount of costs. Thus, amongst others, Thomas
Blackburn had been committed on October 15th for a debt of 1_s._ 5_d._,
for which the costs were 6_s._ 10_d._ Thomas Dobson, on 22nd August,
1799, for 1_s._, with costs of 8_s._ 10_d._; and Susannah Evans, in
October the same year, for 2_s._, with costs of 6_s._ 8_d._ Other cases
are recorded elsewhere, as at the Giltspur Street Compter, where in 1805
Mr. Neild found a man named William Grant detained for 1_s._ 9_d._, with
costs of 5_s._, and John Lancaster for 1_s._ 8_d._, with costs of 7_s._
6_d._ "These surely, I thought," says Mr. Neild, "were bad enough! But
it was not so." He recites another most outrageous and extraordinary
case, in which one John Bird, a market porter, was arrested and
committed at the suit of a publican for the paltry sum of 4_d._, with
costs of 7_s._ 6_d._ Bird was, however, discharged within three days by
a subscription raised among his fellow-prisoners.
Mr. Buxton, in his 'Inquiry into the System of Prison Discipline,'
quotes a case which came within his own knowledge of a boy sent to
prison for non-payment of one penny. The lad in question was found in
Coldbath Fields prison, to which he had been sent for a month in default
of paying a fine of forty shillings. He had been in the employ of a
corn-chandler at Islington, and went into London with his master's cart
and horse. There was in the City Road a temporary bar, with a collector
of tolls who was sometimes on the spot and sometimes not. The boy
declared he saw no one, and accordingly passed through without paying
the toll of a penny. For this he was summoned before a magistrate, and
sentenced as already stated. The lad was proved to be of good character
and the son of respectable parents. Mr. Buxton's friends at once paid
the forty shillings, and the boy was released.
The costs in heavier debts always doubled the sum; if the arrest was
made in the country it trebled it. Neild gives a list of the various
items charged upon a debt of £10, which included instructions to sue,
affidavit of debt, drawing præcipe (£1 5_s._), capias, fee to officer on
arrest, affidavit of service, and many more, amounting in all to
twenty-seven, and costing £11 15_s._ 8_d._, within ten days.[31]
Before dealing with the debtors in Newgate, I may refer incidentally to
those in other London prisons, for Newgate was not the only place of
durance for these unfortunate people. There were also the King's Bench,
the Fleet, and the Marshalsea prisons especially devoted to them, whilst
Ludgate, the Giltspur Street, and Borough Compters also received
them--the latter two being also a prison for felons and vagrants
arrested within certain limits.
The King's Bench was a national prison, in which were confined all
debtors arrested for debt or for contempt of the court of the King's
Bench. The population generally amounted to from five hundred to seven
hundred, the accommodation being calculated for two hundred. Every
new-comer was entitled to a "chummage" ticket, but did not always get
it, being often obliged to pay a high rent for a bed at the coffee-house
or in some room which was vacated by its regular occupant. No fixed
rates or rules governed the hiring out of rooms or parts of a room, and
all sorts of imposition was practised. The best, or at least the most
influential prisoners, got lodging in the State House, which contained
"eight large handsome rooms." Besides those actually resident within the
walls, another two hundred more or less took advantage of "the rules,"
and lived outside within a circumference of two miles and a half. In
these cases security was given for the amount of the debt, and a heavy
fee at the rate of £8 per £100, with £4 for every additional hundred.
Besides these, a number had the privilege of a "run on the key," which
allowed a prisoner to go into the rules for the day. The foregoing
rentals and payments for privileges, together with fees exacted on
commitment and discharge, went to the marshal or keeper of the prison,
whose net annual income thus entirely derived from the impecunious
amounted to between three and four thousand pounds. The office of
marshal had been hereditary, but in the 27th Geo. II. the right of
presentation was bought by the Crown for £10,500. The marshal was
supposed to be resident either within the prison or the rules. He seems
to have felt no responsibility as to the welfare or comfort of those in
charge, and out of whom he made all his money. The prison was always in
"the most filthy state imaginable."[32] The half or wholly starved
prisoners fished for alms or food at the gratings. When they were sick
no more notice was taken of them than of a dog. A man dying of liver
complaint lay on the cold stones without a bed or food to eat.
Dissolute habits prevailed on all sides; drunkenness was universal,
gambling perpetual. The yards were taken up with rackets and five
courts, and here and there were "bumble puppy grounds," a game in which
the players rolled iron balls into holes marked with numbers. How to
make most profit out of the wretched denizens of the gaol was the
marshal's only care. He got a rent for the coffee-house and the
bake-house; the keeper of the large tap-room called the Brace, because
it was once kept by two brothers named Partridge, also paid him toll.
The sale of spirits was forbidden, but gin could always be had at the
whistling shops, where it was known as Moonshine, Sky Blue, Mexico, and
was consumed at the rate of a hogshead per week.
The Fleet, which stood in Farringdon Street, was a prison for debtors
and persons committed for contempt by the courts of Chancery, Exchequer,
and Common Pleas. It was so used for the date of the abolition of the
Star Chamber in the 16th Charles I. The shameful malpractices of
Bambridge, the warden of the Fleet at the commencement of the eighteenth
century, are too well known to need more than a passing reference. A
committee of the House of Commons investigated the charges against
Bambridge, who was proved to have connived at the escape of some
debtors, and to have been guilty of extortion to others. One Sir William
Rich, Bart., he had loaded with heavy irons. In consequence of these
disclosures, both Bambridge and Huggin, his predecessor in the office,
were committed to Newgate, and many reforms instituted. But the
condition of the prison and its inmates remained unsatisfactory to the
last. It contained generally from six to seven hundred inmates,[33]
while another hundred more or less resided in the rules outside. The
principle of "chummage" prevailed as in the King's Bench, but a number
of rooms, fifteen more or less, were reserved for poor debtors under the
name of Bartholomew Fair. The rentals of rooms and fees went to the
warden, whose income was £2372. The same evils of overcrowding,
uncleanliness, want of medical attendance, absence or neglect of divine
service, were present as in the King's Bench, but in an exaggerated
form. The Committee on Gaols[34] reported that "although the house of
the warden looked into the court, and the turnkeys slept in the prison,
yet scenes of riot, drunkenness, and disorder were most prevalent." The
state of morals was disgraceful. Any woman obtained admission if sober,
and if she got drunk she was not turned out. There was no distinct place
for the female debtors, who lived in the same galleries as the men.
Disturbances were frequent, owing to the riotous conduct of intoxicated
women. Twice a week there was a wine and beer club held at night, which
lasted till two or three in the morning. In the yard behind the prison
were places set apart for skittles, fives, and tennis, which strangers
frequented as any other place of public amusement.
Matters were rather better at the Marshalsea. This very ancient prison,
which stood in the High Street, Southwark, was used for debtors arrested
for the lowest sums within twelve miles of the palace of Whitehall; also
for prisoners committed by the Admiralty Court. At one time the
Marshalsea was the receptacle of pirates, but none were committed to it
after 1789. The court of the Marshalsea was instituted by Charles I. in
the sixth year of his reign, to be held before the steward of the royal
household, the knight marshal, and the steward of the court, with
jurisdiction to hold pleas in all actions within the prescribed limits.
The court was chiefly used for the recovery of small debts under £10,
but its business was much reduced by the extension of the Courts of
Conscience. The prison was a nest of abuses, like its neighbour the
King's Bench, and came under the strong animadversion of the Gaol
Committee of 1729. As the business of the Marshalsea Court declined, the
numbers in its prison diminished. The population, as reported by the
committee in 1814, averaged about sixty, and the prison, although wives
and children resided within the walls, was not overcrowded. Their
conduct too was orderly on the whole. Drunkenness was not common,
chiefly because liquor was not to be had freely, although the tapster
paid a rent of two guineas a week for permission to sell it. The
inmates, who euphemistically styled themselves "collegians," were
governed by rules which they themselves had framed, and under which
subscriptions were levied and fines imposed for conduct disapproved of
by the "college." A court of the collegians was held every Monday to
manage its affairs, at which all prisoners were required to attend. A
committee of collegians was elected to act as the executive, also a
secretary or accountant to receive monies and keep books, and a master
of the ale-room, who kept this the scene of their revels clean, and saw
that boiling water was provided for grog. Bad language, quarrelling,
throwing water over one another was forbidden on pain of fine and being
sent to Coventry; but the prevailing moral tone may be guessed from the
penalty inflicted upon persons singing obscene songs _before_ nine p.m.
Yet the public opinion of the whole body seems to have checked
dissipation. The poorer prisoners were not in abject want, as in other
prisons, owing to many charitable gifts and bequests, which included
annual donations from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Steward of
the Household, the steward and officers of the Marshalsea Court, and
others. Legacies had also been left to free a certain number of debtors,
notably that of £100 per annum left by a Mr. Henry Allnutt, who was long
a prisoner in the Marshalsea, and came into a fortune while there. His
bequest, which was charged upon his manor at Goring, Oxon, and hence
called the Oxford Charity, was applied only to the release of poor
debtors whom £4 each could free. The supreme control of the Marshalsea
was vested in the marshal of the royal household; but although he drew a
salary of £500 a year, he did nothing beyond visiting the prison
occasionally, and left the administration to the deputy marshal. The
latter's salary, with fees, the rent of the tap and of the chandler's
shop, amounted to about £600 a year.
The compters of Ludgate, Giltspur Street, and the Borough were
discontinued as debtors' prisons (as was Newgate also) on the opening of
Whitecross prison for debtors in 1815. Ludgate to the last was the
debtors' prison for freemen of the city of London, clergymen, proctors,
attorneys, and persons specially selected by the Corporation. At one
time the Ludgate debtors, accompanied by the keeper, went outside and
beyond the prison to call on their creditors, and try to arrange their
debts, but this practice was discontinued. There were fifteen rooms of
various sizes, and as the numbers imprisoned rarely exceeded
five-and-twenty, the place was never overcrowded, while the funds of
several bequests and charities were applied in adding to the material
comfort of the prisoners. The Giltspur Street Compter received sheriffs'
debtors, also felons, vagrants, and night charges. It was generally
crowded, as debtors who would have gone to the Poultry Compter were sent
to Giltspur Street when the former was condemned as unfit to receive
prisoners.[35] The demands for fees were excessive in Giltspur Street.
Those who could not pay were thrown into the wards with the night
charges, and denied admission to the "charity wards," which partook of
all the benefits of bequests and donations to poor debtors. The Borough
Compter was in a disgraceful state to the last. The men's ward had an
earth, or rather a mud, floor, and was so unfit to sleep on that it had
not been used for many years, so that the men and women associated
together indiscriminately. The rooms had no fireplaces, so it mattered
little that no coals were allowed. There were no beds or bedding, no
straw even. In one room Mr. Neild found a woman ill of a flux shut up
with three men; the latter raised eighteenpence among them to pay for a
truss of straw for the poor woman to lie on. Neild found the prisoners
in the Borough Compter ragged, starving, and dirty.
I come now to the debtors in Newgate. The quarters they occupied were
divided, as I have said,[36] into three principal divisions--the
master's side, the cabin side, and the common side. Payment of a fee of
3_s._ gained the debtor admission to the two first named; those who
could pay nothing went, as a matter of course, to the common side; a
further fee was, however, demanded from the new-comer before he was made
free of either the master's or the cabin side. This was the
reprehensible claim for "garnish," which had already been abolished in
all well-conducted prisons, but which still was demanded in Newgate.
Garnish on the cabin side was a guinea at entrance for coals, candles,
brooms, &c., and a gallon of beer on discharge; on the master's side it
was thirteen and fourpence, and a gallon of beer on entrance, although
Mr. Newman, in his evidence in 1814, said it was more, and gave the
garnish for the common side at that sum, which is five shillings more
than Mr. Neild says was extorted on the common side. Numerous tyrannies
were practised on all who would not and could not pay the garnish. They
were made to wash and swab the ward, or they were shut out from the ward
fireplace, and forbidden to pass a chalked line drawn on the floor, and
so were unable either to warm themselves or to cook their food. Besides
these fees, legitimate and illegitimate, there were others which must be
paid before release. The sheriff demanded 4_s._ 6_d._ for his liberate,
the gaoler 6_s._ 10_d._ more, and the turnkey 2_s._; and thus when the
debtor's debt had been actually paid, or when he had abandoned his
property to the creditors, and, almost destitute, looked forward to his
liberty, he was still delayed until he had paid a new debt arising "only
out of a satisfaction of all his former debts." The fees were not always
extorted, it is true; nor was non-payment made a pretext for further
imprisonment, thanks to the humanity of the gaoler, or the funds
provided by various charities.
There was this much honest forbearance in Newgate in these days, that
debtors who could afford the cabin and master's side were not permitted
to share in the prison charities. These were lumped together into a
general fund, and a calculation made as to the amount that might be
expended per week from the whole sum, so that the latter might last out
the year. It generally ran to about six pounds per week. The money,
which at one time had been distributed quarterly, and all went in drink,
was after 1807, through the exertions of the keeper[37] of the gaol,
spent in the purchase of necessaries. But this weekly pittance did not
go far when the debtors' side was crowded, as it often was; notably as
when numbers filled Newgate in anticipation of Lord Redesdale's bill for
insolvent debtors, and there were as many as three hundred and fifty
prisoners in at one time. The city also allowed the poor debtors
fourteen ounces of bread daily, and their share of eight stone of meat,
an allowance which never varied, issued once a week, and divided as far
as it would go--a very precarious and uncertain ration. The bread was
issued every alternate day; and while some prisoners often ate their
whole allowance at once, others who arrived just after the time of
distribution were often forty-eight hours without food. The latter might
also be six days without meat. Share in the weekly allowance of meat
might also be denied to debtors who had not paid "garnish," as well as
in the weekly grant from the charitable fund. Hence starvation stared
many in the face,[38] unless friends from outside came to their
assistance, or the keeper made them a special grant of 6_d._ per diem
out of the common stock; or the sixpenny allowance was claimed for the
creditors, which seldom happened, owing to the expense the process
entailed. The poor debtors were not supplied with beds. Those who could
pay the price might hire them from each other, or from persons who made
a trade of it, or they might bring their beds with them into the prison.
Failing any of these methods, seeing that straw was forbidden for fear
of fire, they had to be satisfied with a couple of the rugs provided by
the city, the supply of which was, however, limited, and there were not
always enough to give bedding to all. The stock was diminished by theft;
female visitors carried them out of the prisons, or the debtors
destroyed them when the weather was warm, and they were not in great
demand, in order to convert them into mop-heads or cleaning-rags.
Sometimes rugs were urgently required and not forthcoming; a severe
winter set in, the new stock had not been supplied by the contractors,
and the poor debtors perished of cold. Again, there was no regular
allowance of fuel. Coals were purchased out of the garnish money and the
charitable fund; so were candles, salt, pepper, mops and brooms. But the
latter could have been of little service. Dirt prevailed everywhere;
indeed the place, with its oak floors caulked with pitch, and smoked
ceilings, could not be made even to look clean while there was no
obligation of personal cleanliness on individuals, who often came into
the prison in filthy rags. Only now and again, in extreme cases, an
unusually nasty companion was stripped, haled to the pump, and left
under it in a state of nature until he was washed clean.
The squalor and uncleanness of the debtors' side was intensified by
constant overcrowding. Prisoners were committed to it quite without
reference to its capacity. No remonstrance was attended to, no steps
taken to reduce the number of committals, and the governor was obliged
to utilize the chapel as a day and night room. Besides this, although
the families of debtors were no longer permitted to live with them
inside the gaol, hundreds of women and children came in every morning to
spend the day there, and there was no limitation whatever to the numbers
of visitors admitted to the debtors' side. Friends arrived about nine
a.m., and went out at nine p.m., when as many as two hundred visitors
have been observed leaving the debtors' yards at one time. The day
passed in revelry and drunkenness. Although spirituous liquors were
forbidden, wine and beer might be had in any quantity, the only
limitation being that not more than one bottle of wine or one quart of
beer could be issued at one time. No account was taken of the amount of
liquors admitted in one day, and debtors might practically have as much
as they liked, if they could only pay for it. No attempt was made to
check drunkenness, beyond the penalty of shutting out friends from any
ward in which a prisoner exceeded. Quarrelling among the debtors was not
unfrequent. Blows were struck, and fights often ensued. For this and
other acts of misconduct there was the discipline of the refractory
ward, or "strong room" on the debtors' side. Bad cases were removed to a
cell on the felons' side, and here they were locked in solitary
confinement for three days at a time.
Order throughout the debtors' side was preserved and discipline
maintained by a system open to grave abuses, and which had the
prescription of long usage, and which was never wholly rooted out for
many years to come. This was the pernicious plan of governing by
prisoners, or of setting a favoured few in authority over the many. The
head of the debtors' prison was a prisoner called the steward, who was
chosen by the whole body from six whom the keeper nominated. This
steward was practically supreme. All the allowances of food passed
through his hands; he had the control of the poor-box for chance
charities, he collected the garnish money, and distributed the weekly
grant from the prison charitable fund. In the latter duties he was,
however, supervised by three auditors, freely chosen by the prisoners
among themselves. The auditors were paid a shilling each for their
services each time the poor-box was opened. The steward was also
remunerated for his trouble. He had a double allowance of bread,
deducted, of course, from the already too limited portion of the rest,
and no doubt made the meat also pay toll. Under the steward there were
captains of wards, chosen in the same way, and performing analogous
duties. These subordinate chiefs were also rewarded out of the scanty
prison rations. The same system was extended to the criminal side, and
cases were on record of the place of wardsman being sold for
considerable sums. So valuable were they deemed, that as much as fifty
guineas was offered to the keeper for the post.
Enough has been said, probably, to prove that there was room for
improvement in the condition and treatment of debtors in the prisons of
the city of London. This gradually was forced upon the consciousness of
the Corporation, and about 1812 application was made to Parliament for
funds to build a new debtors' prison. Authority was given to raise money
on the Orphans' Fund to the extent of £90,000. A site was purchased
between Red Lion and White Cross streets, and a new prison planned,
which would accommodate the inmates of Newgate and of the three
compters, Ludgate, Giltspur Street, and the Poultry, or about four
hundred and seventy-six in all. The evils of association for these
debtors were perpetuated, although the plan provided for the separation
of the various contingents committed to it. There was no lack of air and
light for the new gaol, and several exercising yards. The completion of
this very necessary building was, however, much delayed for want of
funds, and it was not ready to relieve Newgate till late in 1815. The
reforms which were to be attempted in that prison, more particularly as
regarded the classification of prisoners, and which were dependent on
the space to be gained by the removal of the debtors, could not be
carried out till then. It is to be feared that long after the opening of
White Cross Street prison, Newgate continued to be a reproach to those
responsible for its management.
I pass now to the criminal side of Newgate, which consisted of the six
quarters or yards already enumerated and described.[39] The inmates of
this part, as distinguished from the debtors, were comprised in four
classes:--(1) those awaiting trial; (2) persons under sentence of
imprisonment for a fixed period, or until they shall have paid certain
fines; (3) transports awaiting removal to the colonies, and (4) capital
convicts, condemned to death and awaiting execution. At one time the
whole of these different categories were thrown together pell-mell,
young and old, the untried with the convicted. An imperfect attempt at
classification was, however, made in 1812, and a yard was as far as
possible set apart for the untried, or class (1), with whom, under the
imperious demand for accommodation, were also associated the
misdemeanants, or class (2). This was the chapel yard, with its five
wards, which were calculated to hold seventy prisoners, but often held
many more. A further sub-classification was attempted by separating at
night those charged with misdemeanours from those charged with felony,
but all mingled freely during the day in the yard. The sleeping
accommodation in the chapel-yard wards, and indeed throughout the
prison, consisted of a barrack bed, which was a wooden flooring on a
slightly inclined plane, with a beam running across the top to serve as
a pillow. No beds were issued, only two rugs per prisoner. When each
sleeper had the full lateral space allotted to him, it amounted to one
foot and a half on the barrack bed; but when the ward was obliged to
accommodate double the ordinary number, as was frequently the case, the
sleepers covered the entire floor, with the exception of a passage in
the middle. All the misdemeanants, whatever their offence, were lodged
in this chapel ward. As many various and, according to our ideas,
heinous crimes came under this head, in the then existing state of the
law, the man guilty of a common assault found himself side by side with
the fraudulent, or others who had attempted abominable crimes. In this
heterogeneous society were also thrown the unfortunate journalists to
whom I have already referred,[40] and on whom imprisonment in Newgate
was frequently adjudged for so-called libels, or too out-spoken comments
in print. It was particularly recommended by the Committee on Gaols in
1814 that some other and less mixed prison should be used for the
confinement of persons convicted of libels. But this suggestion was
ignored. Indeed the partial classification attempted seems to have been
abandoned within a year or two. The Hon. H. G. Bennet, who visited
Newgate in 1817, saw in one yard, in a total of seventy-two prisoners,
thirty-five tried and thirty-seven untried. Of the former, three were
transports for life, four for fourteen years, and three of them persons
sentenced to fines or short imprisonment--one for little more than a
month. Two of the untried were for murder, and several for
house-breaking and highway robbery. Nor were the misdemeanants and bail
prisoners any longer separated from those whose crimes were of a more
serious character. Mr. Bennet refers to a gentleman confined for want of
bail, who occupied a room with five others--two committed by the
Bankruptcy Commissioner, one for perjury, and two transports. Persons
convicted of publishing libels were still immured in the same rooms with
transports and felons.
The middle yard, as far as its limits would permit, was appropriated to
felons and transports. The wards here were generally very crowded. Each
ward was calculated to hold twenty-four, allowing each individual one
foot and a half; "a common-sized man," says the keeper, Mr. Newman, "can
turn in nineteen inches."[41] These twenty-four could just sleep on the
barrack bed; when the number was higher, and it often rose to forty, the
surplus had to sleep on the floor. The crowding was in consequence of
the delay in removing transports. These often remained in Newgate for
six months, sometimes a year, in some cases longer; in one, for seven
years--that of a man sentenced to death, for whom great interest had
been made, but whom it was not thought right to pardon. Occasionally the
transports made themselves so useful in the gaol that they were passed
over. Mr. Newman admitted that he had petitioned that certain "trusty
men" might be left in the gaol. Constantly associated with these
convicted felons were numbers of juveniles, infants of tender years.
There were frequently in the middle yard seven or eight children, the
youngest barely nine, the oldest only twelve or thirteen, exposed to all
the contaminating influences of the place. Mr. Bennet mentions also the
case of young men of better stamp, clerks in city offices, and youths of
good parentage, "in this dreadful situation," who had been rescued from
the hulks through the kindness and attention of the Secretary of State.
"Yet they had been long enough," he goes on to say, "in the prison
associated with the lowest and vilest criminals, with convicts of all
ages and characters, to render it next to impossible but that, with the
obliteration of all sense of self-respect, the inevitable consequence of
such a situation, their morals must have been destroyed; and though
distress or the seduction of others might have led to the commission of
this their first offence, yet the society they were driven to live in,
the language they daily heard, and the lessons they were taught in this
academy, must have had a tendency to turn them into the world hardened
and accomplished in the ways of vice and crime."
Mr. Buxton, in the work already quoted, instances another grievous case
of the horrors of indiscriminate association in Newgate. It was that of
a person "who practised in the law, and who was connected by marriage
with some very respectable families. Having been committed to
Clerkenwell, he was sent on to Newgate in a coach, handcuffed to a noted
house-breaker, who was afterwards cast for death. The first night in
Newgate, and for the subsequent fortnight, he slept in the same bed with
a highwayman on one side, and a man charged with murder on the other.
Spirits were freely introduced, and although he at first abstained, he
found he must adopt the manners of his companions, or that his life
would be in danger. They viewed him with some suspicion, as one of whom
they knew nothing. He was in consequence put out of the protection of
their internal law." Their code was a subject of some curiosity. When
any prisoner committed an offence against the community or against an
individual, he was tried by a court in the gaol. A prisoner, generally
the oldest and most dexterous thief, was appointed judge, and a towel
tied in knots was hung on each side in imitation of a wig. The judge sat
in proper form; he was punctiliously styled "my lord." A jury having
been selected and duly sworn, the culprit was then arraigned. Justice,
however, was not administered with absolute integrity. A bribe to the
judge was certain to secure acquittal, and the neglect of the formality
was as certainly followed by condemnation. Various punishments were
inflicted, the heaviest of which was standing in the pillory. This was
carried out by putting the criminal's head through the legs of a chair,
and stretching out his arms and tying them to the legs. The culprit was
then compelled to carry the chair about with him. But all punishments
might readily be commuted into a fine to be spent in gin for judge and
jury.
The prisoner mentioned above was continually persecuted by trials of
this kind. The most trifling acts were magnified into offences. He was
charged with moving something which should not be touched, with leaving
a door open, or coughing maliciously to the disturbance of his
companions. The evidence was invariably sufficient to convict, and the
judge never hesitated to inflict the heaviest penalties. The unfortunate
man was compelled at length to adopt the habits of his associates; "by
insensible degrees he began to lose his repugnance to their society,
caught their flash terms and sung their songs, was admitted to their
revels, and acquired, in place of habits of perfect sobriety, a taste
for spirits." His wife visited him in Newgate, and wrote a pitiable
account of the state in which she found her husband. He was an inmate of
the same ward with others of the most dreadful sort, "whose language and
manners, whose female associates of the most abandoned description, and
the scenes consequent with such lost wretches, prevented me from going
inside but seldom, and I used to communicate with him through the bars
from the passage." One day he was too ill to come down and meet her. She
went up to the ward and found him lying down, "pale as death, very ill,
and in a dreadfully dirty state, the wretches making game of him, and
enjoying my distress; and I learned he had been up with the others the
whole night. Though they could not force him to gamble, he was compelled
to drink, and I was obliged afterwards to let him have five shillings to
pay his share, otherwise he would have been stripped of his clothes."
Felons who could pay the price were permitted, irrespective of their
character or offences, to purchase the greater ease and comfort of the
master's side. The entrance fee was at least 13_s._ 6_d._ a head, with
half-a-crown a week more for bed and bedding, the wards being furnished
with barrack bedsteads, upon which each prisoner had the regulation
allowance of sleeping room, or about a foot and a half laterally. These
fees were in reality a substantial contribution towards the expenses of
the gaol; without them the keeper declared that he could not pay the
salaries of turnkeys and servants, nor keep the prison going at all.
Besides the gaol fees, there was garnish of half-a-guinea, collected by
the steward, and spent in providing coals, candles, plates, knives, and
forks; while all the occupants of this part of the prison supported
themselves; they had the ration of prison bread only, but they had no
share in the prison meat or other charities, and they or their friends
found them in food. All who could scrape together the cash seem to have
gladly availed themselves of the privilege of entering the master's
side. It was the only way to escape the horrors, the distress, penury,
and rags of the common yards. Idleness was not so universally the rule
in this part of the gaol. Artizans and others were at liberty to work at
their trades, provided they were not dangerous. Tailoring and shoemaking
was permitted, but it was deemed unsafe to allow a carpenter or
blacksmith to have his tools. All the money earned by prisoners was at
their own disposal, and was spent almost habitually in drink,
chambering, and wantonness.
The best accommodation the gaol could offer was reserved for the
prisoners on the state side, from whom still higher fees were exacted,
with the same discreditable idea of swelling the revenues of the prison.
To constitute this the aristocratic quarter, unwarrantable demands were
made upon the space properly allotted to the female felons,[42] and no
lodger was rejected, whatever his status, who offered himself and could
bring grist to the mill. The luxury of the state side was for a long
time open to all who could pay--the convicted felon, the transport
awaiting removal, the lunatic whose case was still undecided,[43] the
misdemeanant tried or untried, the debtor who wished to avoid the
discomfort of the crowded debtors' side, the outspoken newspaper editor,
or the daring reporter of parliamentary debates. The better class of
inmate complained bitterly of this enforced companionship with the vile,
association at one time forbidden by custom, but which greed and
rapacity long made the rule. The fee for admission to the state side, as
fixed by the table of fees, was three guineas, but Mr. Newman declared
that he never took more than two. Ten and sixpence a week more was
charged as rent for a single bed; where two or more slept in a bed the
rent was seven shillings a week each. Prisoners who could afford it
sometimes paid for four beds, at the rate of twenty-eight shillings, and
so secured the luxury of a private room. A Mr. Lundy, charged with
forgery, was thus accommodated on the state side for upwards of five
years. But the keeper protested that no single prisoner could thus
monopolize space if the state side was crowded. The keeper went still
further in his efforts to make money. He continued the ancient practice
of letting out a portion of his own house, and by a poetical fiction
treated it as an annexe of the state side. Mr. Davison, sent to Newgate
for embezzlement, and whose case is given in the preceding chapter, was
accommodated with a room in Mr. Newman's house at the extravagant rental
of thirty guineas per week; Mr. Cobbett was also a lodger of Mr.
Newman's; and so were any members of the aristocracy, if they happened
to be in funds--among whom was the Marquis of Sligo in 1811.
The female felons' wards I shall describe at length in the next chapter,
which will deal with Mrs. Fry's philanthropic exertions at this period
in this particular part of the prison. These wards were always full to
overflowing; sometimes double the number the rooms could accommodate
were crowded into them. There was a master's side for females who could
pay the usual fees, but they associated with the rest in the one narrow
yard common to all. The tried and the untried, young and old, were
herded together; sometimes girls of thirteen, twelve, even ten or nine
years of age, were exposed to "all the contagion and profligacy which
prevailed in this part of the prison." There was no separation even for
the women under sentence of death, who lived in a common and perpetually
crowded ward. Only when the order of execution came down were those
about to suffer placed apart in one of the rooms in the arcade of the
middle ward.
I have kept till the last that part of the prison which was usually the
last resting-place of so many. The old press yard has been fully
described in a previous chapter.[44] The name still survived in the new
press yard, which was the receptacle of the male condemned prisoners. It
was generally crowded, like the rest of the prison. Except in murder
cases, where the execution was generally very promptly performed,
strange and inconceivable delay occurred in carrying out the extreme
sentence. Hence there was a terrible accumulation of prisoners in the
condemned cells. Once, during the long illness of George III., as many
as one hundred were there waiting the "Report," as it was called. At
another time there were fifty, one of whom had been under sentence a
couple of years. Mr. Bennet speaks of thirty-eight capital convicts he
found in the press yard in February 1817, five of whom had been
condemned the previous July, four in September, and twenty-nine in
October. This procrastination bred certain callousness. Few realizing
that the dreadful fate would overtake them, dismissed the prospect of
death, and until the day was actually fixed, spent the time in
roystering, swearing, gambling, or playing at ball. Visitors were
permitted access to them without stint; unlimited drink was not denied
them provided it was obtained in regulated quantities at one time. These
capital convicts, says Mr. Bennet, "lessened the ennui and despair of
their situation by unbecoming merriment, or sought relief in the
constant application of intoxicating stimulants. I saw Cashman[45] a few
hours before his execution, smoking and drinking with the utmost
unconcern and indifference." Those who were thus reckless reacted upon
the penitent who knew their days were numbered, and their gibes and
jollity counteracted the ordinary's counsels or the independent
preacher's earnest prayers. For while Roman Catholics and Dissenters
were encouraged to see ministers of their own persuasion, a number of
amateurs were ever ready to give their gratuitous ministrations to the
condemned.
The prisoners in the press yard had free access during the day to the
yard and large day room; at night they were placed in the fifteen cells,
two, three, or more together, according to the total number to be
accommodated. They were never left quite alone for fear of suicide, and
for the same reason they were searched for weapons or poisons. But they
nevertheless frequently managed to secrete the means of making away with
themselves, and accomplished their purpose. Convicted murderers were
kept continuously in the cells on bread and water, in couples, from the
time of sentence to that of execution, which was about three or four
days generally, from Friday to Monday, so as to include one Sunday, on
which day there was a special service for the condemned in the prison
chapel. This latter was an ordeal which all dreaded, and many avoided by
denying their faith. The condemned occupied an open pew in the centre
of the chapel, hung with black; in front of them, upon a table, was a
black coffin in full view. The chapel was filled with a curious but
callous congregation, who came to stare at the miserable people thus
publicly exposed. Well might Mr. Bennet write that the condition of the
condemned side was the most prominent of the manifold evils in the
present system of Newgate, "so discreditable to the metropolis."
Yet it must have been abundantly plain to the reader that the other
evils existing were great and glaring. A brief summary of them will best
prove this. The gaol was neither suitable nor sufficiently large. It was
not even kept weather-tight. The roof of the female prison, says the
grand jury in their presentment in 1813, let in the rain. Supplies of
common necessaries, such as have now been part of the furniture of every
British gaol for many years, were meagre or altogether absent. The
rations of food were notoriously inadequate, and so carelessly
distributed, that many were left to starve. So unjust and unequal was
the system, that the allowance to convicted criminals was better than
that of the innocent debtor, and the general insufficiency was such that
it multiplied beyond all reason the number of visitors, many of whom
came merely as the purveyors of food to their friends.
The prison allowances were eked out by the broken victuals generously
given by several eating-house keepers in the city, such as Messrs. Birch
of Cornhill and Messrs. Leach and Dollimore of Ludgate Hill. These were
fetched away in a large tub on a truck by a turnkey. Amongst the heap
was often the meat that had made turtle soup, which, when heated and
stirred together in a saucepan, was said to be very good eating. The
bedding was scanty; fuel and light had to be purchased out of prisoners'
private means; clothing was issued but rarely, even to prisoners almost
in nakedness, and as a special charitable gift. Extortion was practised
right and left. Garnish continued to be demanded long after it had
disappeared in other and better-regulated prisons. The fees on reception
and discharge must be deemed exorbitant, when it is remembered the
impoverished class who usually crowded the gaol; and they were exacted
to relieve a rich corporation from paying for the maintenance of their
own prison. This imposition of fees left prisoners destitute on their
discharge, without funds to support them in their first struggle to
recommence life, with ruined character, bad habits, and often bad health
contracted in the gaol. A further and a more iniquitous method of
extorting money was still practised, that of loading newly-arrived
prisoners until they paid certain fees. Ironing was still the rule, not
only for the convicted, but for those charged with felonies; only the
misdemeanants escaped. At the commencement of every sessions, such of
the untried as had purchased "easement" of irons were called up and
re-fettered, preparatory to their appearance in the Old Bailey. Irons
were seldom removed from the convicted until discharge; sometimes the
wearer was declared medically unfit, or he obtained release by long
good conduct, or the faithful discharge of some petty office, such as
gatesman or captain of a ward. The irons weighed from three to four
pounds, but heavier irons, seven or eight pounds' weight, were imposed
in case of misconduct; and when there had been an attempt at escape, the
culprit was chained down to the floor by running a chain through his
irons which prevented him from climbing to the window of his cell. Among
other excuses offered for thus manacling all almost without exception,
was that it was the best and safest method of distinguishing a prisoner
from a stranger and temporary visitor. Clothes or prison uniform would
not have served the purpose, for a disguise can be rapidly and secretly
put on, whereas irons cannot well be exchanged without loss of time and
attracting much attention.[46]
The unchecked admission of crowds of visitors to the felons' as well as
the debtors' side was another unmixed evil. By this means spirits,
otherwise unattainable and strictly prohibited, were smuggled into the
gaol. Searches[47] were made certainly, but they were too often
superficial, or they might be evaded by a trifling bribe. Hence the
frequent cases of drunkenness, of which no notice was taken, unless
people grew riotous in their cups, and attracted attention by their
disorderly behaviour. Another frightful consequence of this
indiscriminate admission was the influx of numbers of abandoned women,
only a few of whom had the commendable prudery to pass themselves off as
the wives of prisoners. Any reputed, and indeed any real, wife might
spend the night in Newgate if she would pay the shilling fee, commonly
known as the "bad money," a base payment which might have done something
towards increasing the prison receipts, had it not been appropriated by
the turnkey who winked at this evasion of the rules. Among the daily
visitors were members of the criminal classes still at large, the
thieves and burglars who carried on the active business of their
profession, from which their confederates were temporarily debarred. One
notorious character, while a prisoner awaiting transfer to the hulks,
kept open house, so to speak, and entertained daily within the walls a
select party of the most noted thieves in London. This delectable
society enticed into their set a clerk who had been imprisoned for
fraud, and offered him half the booty if he would give full information
as to the transactions and correspondence of his late employers. Owing
to the facility of intercourse between inside and outside, many crimes
were doubtless hatched in Newgate. Some of the worst and most extensive
burglaries were planned there. Forged notes had been fabricated, false
money coined, and both passed out in quantities to be circulated through
the country. "I believe," says Mr. Bennet in the letter already largely
quoted, "that there is no place in the metropolis where more crimes are
projected or where stolen property is more secreted than in Newgate."
These malpractices were fostered by the absence of all supervision and
the generally unbroken idleness. Although attempted partially at
Bridewell, and more systematically at the new Millbank penitentiary, but
just open (1816), the regular employment of prisoners had never yet been
accepted as a principle in the metropolitan prisons. Insuperable
difficulties were still supposed to stand in the way of any general
employment of prisoners at their trades. There was fear as to the
unrestricted use of tools, limits of space, the interference of the
ill-disposed, who would neither work nor let others do so, and the
danger of losing material, raw or manufactured. Many years were to
elapse before these objections should be fairly met and universally
overcome. It was not strange, therefore, that the inmates of Newgate
should turn their unoccupied brains and idle hands to all manner of
mischief; that when they were not carousing, plotting, or scheming, they
should gamble with dice or cards, and play at bumble puppy or some other
disreputable game of chance.
The report of the Committee of the House of Commons painted so black a
picture of Newgate as then conducted, that the Corporation were roused
in very shame to undertake some kind of reform. The above-mentioned
report was ordered to be printed upon the 9th May. Upon the 29th July
the same year, the court of aldermen appointed a committee of its own
body, assisted by the town clerk, Mr. Dance, city surveyor, son to the
architect of Newgate, and Mr. Addison, keeper of Newgate, to make a
visitation of the gaols supposed to be the best managed, including those
of Petworth and Gloucester.[48] This committee was to compare
allowances, examine rules, and certify as to the condition of prisoners;
also to make such proposals as might appear salutary, and calculated to
improve Newgate and the rest of the city gaols.
This committee made its report in September the following year, and an
excellent report it is, so far as its recommendations are concerned. The
committee seems to have fully realized, even at this early date (1815),
many of the indispensable conditions of a model prison according to
modern ideas. It admitted the paramount necessity for giving every
prisoner a sleeping cell to himself, an amount of enlightenment which is
hardly general among European nations at this the latter end of the
nineteenth century,[49] several of which still fall far short of our
English ideal, that all prisoners should always be in separate cells by
night, and those of short sentences by day. It recommended day cells or
rooms for regular labour, which should be compulsory upon all transports
and prisoners sentenced to hard labour, the work being constant and
suitable, with certain hours of relaxation and for food and exercise.
The personal cleanliness of all prisoners was to be insisted upon; they
should be made to wash at least once a day, with the penalty of
forfeiting the day's allowance of food, an increase of which the
committee had recommended. The provision of more baths was also
suggested, and the daily sweeping out of the prison. The clothes of
prisoners arriving dirty, or in rags, should be fumigated before worn in
the gaol, but as yet no suggestion was made to provide prison uniform. A
laundry should be established, and a matron appointed on the female
side, where all the prisoners' washing could be performed. Proper hours
for locking and unlocking prisoners should be insisted upon; a bell
should give notice thereof, and of meal-hours, working-hours, or of
escapes.
The committee took upon itself to lay down stringent rules for the
discipline of the prison. The gaoler should be required to visit every
part and see every prisoner daily; the chaplain should perform service,
visit the sick, instruct the prisoners, "give spiritual advice and
administer religious consolation" to all who might need them;[50] the
surgeon should see all prisoners, whether ill or well, once a week, and
take general charge of the infirmaries. All three, governor, chaplain,
and surgeon, should keep journals, which should be inspected
periodically by the visiting magistrates. It should be peremptorily
forbidden to the keeper or any officer to make a pecuniary profit out of
the supplies of food, fuel, or other necessaries. No prisoner should be
allowed to obtain superior accommodation on the payment of any fees.
Fees indeed should be generally abolished, garnish also. No prisoners
should in future be ironed, except in cases of misconduct, provided only
that their security was not jeopardized, and dependent upon the
enforcement of another new rule, which recommended restrictions upon the
number of visitors admitted. No wine or beer should be in future
admitted into or sold in the gaol, except for the use of the debtors, or
as medical comforts for the infirmary. Drunkenness, if it ever occurred,
should be visited with severe punishment; gaming of all sorts should be
peremptorily forbidden under heavy pains and penalties. The feelings of
the condemned prisoners should no longer be outraged by their exposure
in the chapel, and the chapel should be rearranged, so that the various
classes might be seated separately, and so as not to see each other.
It will hardly be denied that these proposals went to the root of the
matter. Had they been accepted in their entirety, little fault could in
future have been found with the managers of Newgate. In common justice
to them, it must be admitted that immediate effect was given to all
that could be easily carried out. The state side ceased to exist, and
the female prisoners thus regained the space of which their quadrangle
had been robbed. The privileges of the master's side also disappeared;
fees were nominally abolished, and garnish was scotched, although not
yet killed outright. A certain number of bedsteads were provided, and
there was a slight increase in the ration of bread. But here the
recommendations touched at once upon the delicate subject of expense,
and it is clear that the committee hesitated on this score. It made this
too the excuse for begging the most important issue of the whole
question. The committee did not deny the superior advantages offered by
such prisons as Gloucester and Petworth, but it at once deprecated the
idea that the city could follow the laudable example thus set in the
provinces. "Were a metropolitan prison erected on the same lines, with
all the space not only for air and exercise, but for day rooms and
sleeping cells," it would cover some thirty acres, and cost a great deal
more than the city, with the example of Whitecross Street prison before
it, could possibly afford. The committee does not seem to have yet
understood that Newgate could be only and properly replaced by a new
gaol built on the outskirts, as Holloway eventually was,[51] and
permitted itself to be altogether countered and checked in its efforts
towards reform by the prohibitory costliness of the land about Newgate.
With the seeming impossibility of extending the limits of the prison as
it then stood, all chances of classification and separation vanished,
and the greatest evils remained untouched. All the committee could do in
this respect was to throw the responsibility on others. It pointed out
that the Government was to blame for the overcrowding, and might
diminish it if it chose. It was very desirable that there should be a
more speedy removal of transports from Newgate to the ships. Again,
there was the new Millbank penitentiary now ready for occupation. Why
not relieve Newgate by drawing more largely upon the superior
accommodation which Millbank offered?