THE BEGINNINGS OF PRISON REFORM.
Prison reform generally taken up--Mr. Neild's visitation--Howard's
great work repeated--Neglect of prisons not the fault of the
legislature--Numerous gaol Acts passed, but not carried out by
local authorities--Prison Discipline Society formed in 1817--Its
distinguished members--Mr. Buxton a leading spirit--His views and
arguments for insisting on prison reform--Idea of classification
first given in gaol Act of 1784, but never carried out--The society
animadverts upon condition of various prisons--The Borough
compter--Guildford--Irons--Their weight--Overcrowding--Underground
dungeons--"The pit"--A few brilliant exceptions--Bury St.
Edmunds--Ilchester--Newgate compared badly with last-named, but
diet improved, and irons removed from untried--Complete reform
still indispensable for real improvement--Prisoners committed to
Newgate taken through the streets in gangs, chained--Opponents of
reform--Sydney Smith laughs at efforts of Prison Discipline
Society--It continues to work undeterred--Gives attention to
tread-wheels--Also to plans for prison construction--Faulty prison
architecture--Society rewarded by new legislation, and devotes
itself to seeing that new Acts are observed--Borough prisons the
worst--Acts did not apply to them--Great diversity of practice and
discipline prevail--Various hours of labour--Borough gaols continue
bad because municipalities beyond reach of the law--Description of
worst borough gaols--Newgate continues a bye-word--Its
shortcomings--Further legislation--Report of Lords' Committee in
1835--Reform of Municipal Corporations brings about reform in
borough prisons.
While Mrs. Fry was diligently engaged upon her self-imposed task in
Newgate, other earnest people, inspired doubtless by her noble example,
were stirred up to activity in the same great work. It began to be
understood that prison reform could only be compassed by continuous and
combined effort. The pleadings, however eloquent, of a single individual
were unable to more than partially remedy the widespread and colossal
evils of British prisons. Howard's energy and devotion were rewarded by
lively sympathy, but the desire to improve which followed his exposures
was but short-lived. It was so powerless against the persistent neglect
of those intrusted with prison management, that, five-and-twenty years
later, Mr. Neild, a second Howard, as indefatigable and
self-sacrificing, found by personal visitation that the condition of
gaols throughout the kingdom was, with a few bright exceptions, still
deplorable and disgraceful. Mr. Neild was compelled to admit in 1812
that "the great reformation produced by Howard was in several places
merely temporary: some prisons that had been ameliorated under the
persuasive influence of his kind advice were relapsing into their former
horrid state of privation, filthiness, severity, or neglect; many new
dungeons had aggravated the evils against which his sagacity could not
but remonstrate; the motives for a transient amendment were becoming
paralyzed, and the effect had ceased with the cause."
I have shown in a previous chapter what Newgate was at this period,
despite a vast expenditure and boasted efforts to introduce reforms.
Some of the county gaols, and one or two borough gaols, had been
rebuilt, generally through the personal activity of influential and
benevolent local magnates, but the true principles of prison
construction were as yet but imperfectly understood, and such portions
of the "improved" gaols of that period as were still extant a few years
back, contrast ludicrously with the prison architecture based upon a
century's experience of our own age.
The neglect of prison reform in those days was not to be visited upon
the legislature. The executive, although harassed by internal commotion
and foreign war, was not entirely callous to the crying need for
amelioration in gaols. Measures remedial, although at best partial and
incomplete, were introduced from time to time. Thus in 1813 the exaction
of gaol fees had been forbidden by law, and two other acts more
peremptory and precise followed on the same subject in succeeding years.
In 1814 a bill was brought in to insist upon the appointment of
chaplains in gaols, and when this had passed into law, it was
subsequently amplified, and the rates of salaries fixed. Various acts
were also passed to consolidate and amend previous gaol acts. The
erection of new prison buildings was made imperative under certain
conditions and following certain rules; the principle of classification
was freshly enunciated; prison regulations were framed for general
observance. But the effect of this legislation was rather weakened by
the remoteness of the pressure exercised. The onus of improvement lay
upon the magistracy, the local authorities administering local funds,
and they were not threatened with any particular penalties if they
evaded or ignored the new acts. Moreover, the laws applied more
particularly to county jurisdictions. The borough gaols, those in fact
under corporate management, were not included in the new measures; it
was hoped that their rulers would hire accommodation in the county
prisons, and that the inferior establishments would in course of time
disappear. Yet the borough gaols were destined to survive many years,
and to exhibit for a long time to come all the worst features of gaol
mismanagement.
It was in 1817 that a small band of philanthropists resolved to form
themselves into an association for the improvement of prison discipline.
They were hopeless of any general reform by the action of the executive
alone. They felt that private enterprise might with advantage step in,
and by the collection and diffusion of information, and the reiteration
of sound advice, greatly assist the good work. The association was
organized under the most promising auspices. A king's son, the Duke of
Gloucester, was the patron; among the vice-presidents were many great
peers of the realm, several bishops, and a number of members of the
House of Commons, including Mr. Manners Sutton, Mr. Sturges Bourne, Sir
James Mackintosh, Sir James Scarlett, and William Wilberforce. An active
committee was appointed, comprising many names already well known, some
of them destined to become famous in the annals of philanthropy. One of
the moving spirits was the Honourable H. G. Bennet, M.P., whose vigorous
protests against the lamentable condition of Newgate have already been
recorded. Mrs. Fry's brother, Mr. Samuel Hoare, Junior, was chairman of
the committee, on which also served many noted members of the Society of
Friends--Mr. Gurney, Mr. Fry, Messrs. Forster, and Mr. T. F. Buxton, the
coadjutor of Wilberforce in the great anti-slavery struggle. Mr. Buxton
had already been associated with Mrs. Fry in the Newgate visitation, and
his attention had thus been drawn to the neglected state of English
prisons. When in Belgium he had examined with great satisfaction the
admirable management of the great "Maison de Force" at Ghent,[60] which
Howard had eulogized some forty years before. Mr. Buxton communicated
what he had seen at Ghent to the Prison Discipline Society, and was
induced to make the account public. In order to give greater value to
the pamphlet, he personally visited several English gaols, and pointed
his observations by drawing forcible contrasts between the good and bad.
Mr. Buxton's small work on prison discipline[61] gave a new aspect to
the question he had so much at heart. For the first time the doctrine
was enunciated that prisoners had rights of their own. The untried, and
in the eyes of the law still innocent, could claim pure air, wholesome
and sufficient food, and opportunities for exercise. They had a right,
Mr. Buxton affirmed, to be employed in their own crafts, provided it
could be safely followed in prison. "You have no right," he says,
addressing the authorities, "to subject a prisoner to suffering from
cold, by want of bed-clothing by night or firing by day; and the reason
is plain: you have taken him from his home, and have deprived him of the
means of providing himself with the necessaries or comforts of life, and
therefore you are bound to furnish him with moderate indeed but suitable
accommodation." "You have for the same reason," he goes on, "no right to
ruin his habits by compelling him to be idle, his morals by compelling
him to mix with a promiscuous assemblage of hardened and convicted
criminals, or his health by forcing him at night into a damp,
unventilated cell, with such crowds of companions as very speedily
render the air foul and putrid; or to make him sleep in close contact
with the victims of contagious and loathsome disease, or amidst the
noxious effluvia of dirt and corruption. In short, attention to his
feelings, mental and bodily, a supply of every necessary, abstraction
from evil society, the conservation of his health and industrious
habits, are the clear, evident, undeniable rights of an unconvicted
prisoner." Nor even when found guilty and his liberty forfeited did his
privileges cease. The law appointed a suitable punishment for the
offence; it was for those charged with the administration of the law to
guard carefully against any aggravation of that punishment, to see that
"no circumstances of severity are found in his treatment which are not
found in his sentence." No judge ever condemned a man to be
half-perished with cold by day, or half-suffocated with heat by night.
"Who ever heard of a criminal being sentenced to catch the rheumatism or
the typhus fever?" "Disease, cold, famine, nakedness, and contagious and
polluted air are not lawful punishments in the hands of the civil
magistrates; nor has he a right to poison or starve his
fellow-creatures."[62] "The convicted delinquent has his rights," said
Mr. Buxton authoritatively. "All measures and practices in prison which
may injure him in any way are illegal, because they are not specified in
his sentence; he is therefore entitled to a wholesome atmosphere, decent
clothing and bedding, and a diet sufficient to support him."
These somewhat novel but undoubtedly indisputable propositions were
backed up, not by sound arguments only, but by the letter of the law. As
Mr. Buxton pointed out, many old acts of parliament designed to protect
the prisoner were still in full force. Some might be in abeyance, but
they had never been repealed, and some were quite freshly imported upon
the Statute Book. As far back as the reign of Charles II., a law was
passed[63] declaring that sufficient provision should be made for the
relief and setting on work of "poor and needy prisoners committed to the
common jail for felony and other misdemeanours, who many times perish
before their trial; and the poor there living idle and unemployed become
debauched, and come forth instructed in the practice of thievery and
lewdness." As a remedy, justices of the peace were empowered to provide
materials for the setting of poor prisoners to work, and to pay
overseers or instructors out of the county rates. Again, the 22 Charles
II. c 20 ordered the gaoler to keep felons and debtors "separate and
apart from one another, in distinct rooms, on pain of forfeiting his
office and treble damages to the party aggrieved." A much later act, the
14 Geo. III. c. 59 (1774), which was contemporaneous with Howard's first
journeys, laid down precise rules as regards cleanliness, and the proper
supply of space and air. This act set forth that "whereas the malignant
fever commonly called the jail distemper is found to be owing to want of
cleanliness and fresh air in the several jails, the fatal consequences
whereof might be prevented if the justices of the peace were duly
authorized to provide such accommodations in jails as may be necessary
to answer this salutary purpose, it is enacted that the justices shall
order the walls of every room to be scraped and white-washed once every
year." Ventilators, hand and others, were to be supplied. An infirmary,
consisting of two distinct rooms, one for males and one for females,
should be provided for the separate accommodation of the sick. Warm and
cold baths, or "commodious bathing tubs," were to be kept in every gaol,
and the prisoners directed to wash in them before release. These
provisions were almost a dead letter. Yet another act passed in 1791, if
properly observed, should have insured proper attention to them. By the
31 Geo. III. c. 46, s. 5, two or more justices were appointed visitors
of prisons, and directed to visit and inspect three times every quarter.
They were to report in writing to quarter sessions as to the state of
the gaol, and as to all abuses which they might observe therein.
The most important gaol act of that early period, however, was the 24
Geo. III. c. 54, s. 4 (1784), which was the first legislative attempt to
compel the classification of prisoners, or their separation into classes
according to their categories or crimes. It was made incumbent upon the
justices to provide distinct places of confinement for five classes of
prisoners, viz.--
1. Prisoners convicted of felony.
2. Prisoners committed on a charge or suspicion of felony.
3. Prisoners guilty of misdemeanours.
4. Prisoners charged with misdemeanours.
5. Debtors.
It was further ordered that male prisoners should be kept perfectly
distinct from the females. King's evidences were also to be lodged
apart. Infirmaries separating the sexes were also to be provided, a
chapel too, and warm and cold baths. "Care also was to be taken that the
prisoners shall not be kept in any apartment underground."
In an early report of the Prison Discipline Improvement Society,
published some six-and-thirty years after the promulgation of this act,
the flagrant and persistent violations of it and others, which had
continued through that long period, are forcibly pointed out. In 1818,
out of five hundred and eighteen prisons in the United Kingdom, to which
a total of upwards of one hundred thousand prisoners had been committed
in the year, only twenty-three prisons were divided according to law;
fifty-nine had no division whatever to separate males and females; one
hundred and thirty-six had only one division for the purpose;
sixty-eight had only two divisions, and so on. In four hundred and
forty-five prisons no work of any description had been introduced for
the employment of prisoners; in the balance some work was done, but with
the most meagre results. The want of room was still a crying evil. In
one hundred gaols, capable of accommodating only eight thousand five
hundred and forty-five persons, as many as thirteen thousand and
fifty-seven were crowded. Many of the gaols were in the most deplorable
condition: incommodious, as has been stated, insecure, unhealthy, and
unprovided with the printed or written regulations required by law. To
specify more particularly one or two of the worst, it may be mentioned
that in the Borough Compter the old evils of indiscriminate association
still continued unchecked. All prisoners passed their time in absolute
idleness, or killed it by gambling and loose conversation. The debtors
were crowded almost inconceivably. In a space twenty feet long by six
wide, twenty men slept on eight straw beds, with sixteen rugs amongst
them, and a piece of timber for a bolster. Mr. Buxton, who found this,
declared that it seemed physically impossible, but he was assured that
it was true, and that it was accomplished by "sleeping edgeways." One
poor wretch, who had slept next the wall, said he had been literally
unable to move for the pressure. "In the morning the stench and heat
were so oppressive that he and every one else on waking rushed unclothed
into the yard;" and the turnkey told Mr. Buxton that the "smell on first
opening the door was enough to knock down a horse." The hospital was
filled with infectious cases, and in one room, seven feet by nine, with
closed windows, where a lad lay ill with fever, three other prisoners,
at first perfectly healthy, were lodged. Of course they were seized with
the fever; so that the culprit, in addition to his sentence, had to
endure by "the regulations of the city a disease very dangerous in its
nature," and ran the risk of a lingering and painful death.[64]
At Guildford prison, which Mr. Buxton also visited in 1818, there was no
infirmary, no chapel, no work, no classification. The irons, which
nearly every one wore, were remarkably heavy; those double ironed could
not take off their small clothes.[65] No prison dress was allowed, and
half the inmates were without shirts or shoes or stockings. The diet was
limited to dry bread, which was of the best certainly, and a pound and a
half in weight. Matters were on much the same footing at St. Albans.
They were far worse at Bristol, although at Mr. Buxton's visit a new
gaol was in process of erection, the first step towards reform since
Howard's visitation in 1774. In 1818 the old gaol was so densely packed
that it was nearly impossible to pass through the yards for the throng.
One hundred and fifty were lodged in a prison just capable of holding
fifty-two. In the crowd, all of them persons who had "no other avocation
or mode of livelihood but thieving," Mr. Buxton counted eleven
children--children hardly old enough to be released from the nursery.
All charged with felony were in heavy irons, without distinction of age.
All were in ill health; almost all were in rags; almost all were filthy
in the extreme. The state of the prison, the desperation of the
prisoners, broadly hinted in their conversation and plainly expressed
in their conduct, the uproar of oaths, complaints, and obscenity, "the
indescribable stench," presented together a concentration of the utmost
misery and the utmost guilt. It was "a scene of infernal passions and
distresses," says Buxton, "which few have imagination sufficient to
picture, and of which fewer still would believe that the original is to
be found in this enlightened and happy country."
There was still worse to come. Having explored the yards and adjacent
day rooms, and sleeping cells, a door was unlocked, the visitors were
furnished with candles, and they descended eighteen long steps into a
vault. At the bottom was a circular space, through which ran a narrow
passage, and the sides of which were fitted with barrack bedsteads. The
floor was on the level of the river, and very damp. The smell at one
o'clock of the day "was something more than can be expressed by the term
disgusting." On the dirty bedstead lay a wretched being in the throes of
severe illness. The only ventilation of this pit, this "dark, cheerless,
damp, unwholesome cavern--a dungeon in its worst sense"--was by a kind
of chimney, which the prisoners kept hermetically sealed, and which had
never been opened in the memory of the turnkey. Untried persons were
often lodged in this nauseous underground den, and sometimes slept in
"the pit," loaded with heavy irons for a whole year, waiting the gaol
delivery. Confinement for twelve months in the Bristol gaol was counted
a punishment equivalent to seven years' transportation.
In this prison there was no female infirmary. Sick women and their
children remained in the ordinary wards, and propagated disease. No
prison dress was allowed; no reception-room was provided, no soap,
towels, or baths. The bedclothes consisted only of a single "very
slight" rug. The allowance of food daily to felons was a fourpenny loaf,
a price which in those days fluctuated enormously--as much as a hundred
per cent. in a couple of years; but as no similar variation occurred in
the prisoner's appetite, his ration was somewhat precarious. As for the
debtors, they had no allowance whatever, and were often in imminent
danger of starvation. With all this, the inmates were crowded together
at night to such a degree as to excite surprise that they should escape
suffocation. There reigned through the whole edifice a chilly, damp,
unwholesome atmosphere, and the effluvia from the prisoners was so
nauseous that the chaplain found it necessary to take his place before
they entered chapel, as he could not otherwise have faced the smell.
It is consoling to know that there were a few brilliant exceptions to
this cruel, callous neglect. Already, as early as 1818, a prison existed
at Bury St. Edmunds which was a model for imitation to others at that
time, and which even fulfilled many of the exacting requirements of
modern days. The great principles of classification, cleanliness, and
employment were closely observed. There were eighty-four separate
sleeping-cells, and unless the gaol was overcrowded, every inmate passed
the night alone, and in comparative comfort, with a bed and proper
bedding. The prison stood on a dry, airy situation outside the town.
Prisoners on reception were treated as they are now-a-days--bathed,
dressed in prison clothes, and inspected by the surgeon. No irons were
worn except as a punishment. Personal cleanliness was insisted upon, and
all parts of the prison were kept scrupulously clean. There was an
infirmary, properly found and duly looked after. No idleness was
permitted among the inmates. Trades were taught, or prisoners were
allowed to follow their own if suitable. There was, besides, a mill for
grinding corn, somewhat similar to a turn-spit, which prisoners turned
by walking in rows. This made exertion compulsory, and imposed hard
labour as a proper punishment. Another gaol, that of Ilchester, was also
worthy of all commendation. It exhibited all the good points of that at
Bury. At Ilchester the rule of employment had been carried further. A
system not adopted generally till nearly half a century later had
already prevailed at Ilchester. The new gaol had been in a great measure
constructed by the prisoners themselves. Masons, bricklayers,
carpenters, painters had been employed upon the buildings, and the work
was pronounced excellent by competent judges. Industrial labour had also
been introduced with satisfactory results. Blanket weaving and cloth
spinning was carried on prosperously, and all the material for
prisoners' apparel was manufactured in the gaol. There were work-rooms
for wool-washing, dyeing, carding, and spinning. The looms were
constantly busy. Tailors were always at work, and every article of
clothing and bedding was made up within the walls. There was a prison
laundry too, where all the prisoners' linen was regularly washed. The
moral welfare of the inmates was as closely looked after as the
physical. There was an attentive chaplain, a schoolmaster, and regular
religious and other instruction.
Compared with those highly meritorious institutions Newgate still showed
but badly. Its evils were inherent and irremediable, but some
ameliorating measures had been introduced, mainly through the exertions
of a new governor, Mr. Brown, who succeeded Mr. Newman at Newgate in
1817.[66] The most noticeable of the improvements introduced was a
better regulation of dietaries within the prison. The old haphazard
system, by which meat was issued in bulk, a week's allowance at a time,
was abolished, and there was a regular scale of daily rations adopted.
The diet was now ample. It consisted of a pound and a half of bread per
diem; for breakfast a pint of gruel; for dinner half a pound of boiled
meat, or a quart of soup with vegetables, on alternate days. The food
was properly prepared in the prison kitchen. Meat was no longer issued
raw, to be imperfectly cooked before a ward fire and bolted
gluttonously, the whole two pounds at one sitting. Mr. Brown confidently
asserted that no gaol in England now fed its inmates so well as did
Newgate. So plentiful was this dietary, that although the old permission
remained in force of allowing the friends of prisoners to bring them
supplies from outside, the practice was falling into abeyance, and the
prisoners seldom required private assistance to eke out their meals.[67]
It was also claimed for the more ample and more orderly distribution of
victuals, that the general health of the prisoners had greatly improved.
Mr. Brown also, much to his own credit, brought about the abandonment of
the practice of ironing all prisoners as a matter of course.
In 1818 prisoners awaiting trial in Newgate, were at length relieved
from this illegal infliction. Convicts were not even compelled to wear
irons, providing they behaved well. It was found that shackles might be
safely dispensed with, even in the case of the most desperate
characters. This was effected by stopping the nearly indiscriminate
admission of visitors, which had hitherto prevailed all over the gaol.
Ironing it will be remembered,[68] was a distinguishing badge, so that
when the gaol was cleared the free might be readily known from the
captive, and escapes prevented. Under the new rule visitors were not
allowed to pass into the interior of the prison, but were detained
between the grating. This change led to some discontent, until it was
found that the much greater boon of relief from irons accompanied it,
and the reform was quietly accepted. Indeed the best consequences
followed from the removal of irons. The prisoners were much better
disposed; there were no riots, and fewer disturbances.
But nothing short of radical reform and complete reconstruction could
touch the deep-seated evils of association, overcrowding, and idleness.
The first still produced deplorable results--results to be observable
for many years to come. Mr. Buxton mentions the case of a boy whose
apparent innocence and artlessness had attracted his attention. He had
been committed for an offence for which he was acquitted. He left
Newgate utterly corrupted, and after lapsing into crime, soon returned
with a very different character. Other cases of moral deterioration have
already been recorded. Some attempt was made to reduce the overcrowding,
on the recommendation of the House of Commons Committee of 1818, but
this applied only a partial remedy. The bulk of the prisoners were still
left in idleness. A few fortunate criminals, many of them kept back from
transportation on purpose, who were skilled in trades, were employed at
them. Painters, plasterers, and carpenters were allowed to follow their
handicrafts, with the reward of sixpence per diem and a double allowance
of food. They used their own tools, and this without any dangerous
consequences as regards facilitating the escape of others, thus
disposing of the objection so long raised against the industrial
employment of prisoners in Newgate. But this boon of toil was denied to
all but a very limited number. As the Prison Discipline Society
pertinently observed in a report dated 1820, "It is obvious that
reformation must be materially impeded, and in some cases utterly
defeated, when the prisoners are defectively classed, remain without
constant inspection or employment, and are consequently condemned to
habits of idleness and dissipation."
Newgate prisoners were the victims to another most objectionable
practice which obtained all over London. Persons committed to a
metropolitan gaol at that time were taken in gangs, men and women
handcuffed together, or linked on to a long chain, unless they could
afford to pay for a vehicle out of their own funds. Even then they were
not certain of the favour, for I find a reference to a decent and
respectable woman sent to Newgate, who handed a shilling to the escort
warder to provide her with a hackney coach; but this functionary
pocketed the cash, and obliged the woman to walk, chained to the rest.
As the miserable crew filed through the public streets, exposed to the
scornful gaze of every passenger, they were followed by a crowd of
reckless boys, who jeered at and insulted them. Many thus led in
procession were in a shocking condition of dirt and misery, frequently
nearly naked, and often bearing upon them the germs, more or less
developed, of contagious disease. "Caravans," the forerunners of the
prison vans, were first made use of about 1827. That the need for prison
reform was imperative may be gathered from the few out of many instances
I have adduced, yet there were those who, wedded to ancient ideas, were
intolerant of change; they would not admit the existence of any evils.
One smug alderman, a member of the House of Commons, sneered at the
ultra philanthropy of the champions of prison improvement. Speaking on a
debate on prison matters, he declared that "our prisoners have all that
prisoners ought to have, without gentlemen think they ought to be
indulged with Turkey carpets." The Society for the Improvement of Prison
Discipline was taxed with a desire to introduce a system tending to
divest punishment of its just and salutary terrors; an imputation which
the Society indignantly and very justly repudiated, the statement being,
as they said, "refuted by abundant evidence, and having no foundation
whatever in truth."
Among those whom the Society found arrayed against it was Sydney Smith,
who, in a caustic article contributed to the 'Edinburgh Review,'
protested against the pampering of criminals. While fully admitting the
good intentions of the Society, he condemned their ultra
humanitarianism as misplaced. He took exception to various of the
proposals of the Society. He thought they leant too much to a system of
indulgence and education in gaols. He objected to the instruction of
prisoners in reading and writing. "A poor man who is lucky enough," he
said, "to have his son committed for a felony educates him under such a
system for nothing, while the virtuous simpleton who is on the other
side of the wall is paying by the quarter for these attainments." He was
altogether against too liberal a diet; he disapproved of industrial
occupations in gaols, as not calculated to render prisons terrible.
"There should be no tea and sugar, no assemblage of female felons around
the washing-tub, nothing but beating hemp and pulling oakum and pounding
bricks--no work but what was tedious, unusual."... "In prisons, which
are really meant to keep the multitude in order, and to be a terror to
evil-doers, there must be no sharings of profits, no visiting of
friends, no education but religious education, no freedom of diet, no
weavers' looms or carpenters' benches. There must be a great deal of
solitude, coarse food, a dress of shame, hard, incessant, irksome,
eternal labour, a planned and regulated and unrelenting exclusion of
happiness and comfort."[69]
Undeterred by these sarcasms and misrepresentations, the Society pursued
its laudable undertaking with remarkable energy and great singleness of
purpose. The objects it had in view were set forth in one of its
earliest meetings. It sought to obtain and diffuse useful information,
to suggest beneficial regulations, and circulate tracts demonstrating
the advantages of classification, constant inspection, regular
employment, and humane treatment generally, with religious and moral
instruction. It earnestly advocated the appointment of female officers
to take exclusive charge of female prisoners, a much-needed and,
according to our ideas, indispensable reform, already initiated by the
Ladies' Committee at Newgate.[70] It made the subject of the
newly-invented tread-wheels, or stepping-wheels, as they were at first
called, its peculiar affair, and obtained full details, from places
where they had been adopted, of the nature of these new machines,[71]
the method by which they were worked, and the dietaries of the prisoners
employed upon them. Nor did it confine itself to mere verbal
recommendations. The good it tried to do took active shape in the
establishment of temporary refuges--at Hoxton for males, and in the
Hackney Road for females--for the reception of deserving cases
discharged from prison. The governor of Newgate and other metropolitan
prisons had orders of admission to this refuge, which he could bestow on
prisoners on release, and so save the better-disposed or the completely
destitute from lapsing at once into crime. The refuge, which had for
its object the training of its inmates in habits of industry, and in
moral and religious duty, and which after a time sought to provide them
with suitable situations, was supported entirely out of the funds of the
Society. At the time of its greatest prosperity, its annual income from
donations and subscriptions was about £1600.
Another point to which the Society devoted infinite pains was the
preparation of plans for the guidance of architects in the construction
of prisons. A very valuable volume published by the Society traced the
progress of prison architecture from the days when the gaol was the mere
annexe of the baronial or episcopal castle, or a dungeon above or below
the gate of a town, to the first attempts at systematic reconstruction
carried out under the advice and supervision of Howard.[72] It is
interesting to observe that the plan of "radiation," by which the prison
blocks radiated from a central hall, like spokes in a wheel, was
introduced as early as 1790 by Mr. Blackburn, an architect of eminence
who was very largely employed in the erection of prison buildings at the
close of the last century. With some important modifications this
principle of radiation is still the rule. The Society did not limit its
remarks to the description of what had already been done, but it offered
suggestions for future buildings, with numerous carefully-executed
drawings and designs of the model it recommended for imitation.
Experience has since shown that in some respects these plans are
defective, especially in the placing of the governor's residence in the
centre of the prison. It was thought that this would guarantee constant
supervision and inspection, but it did nothing of the kind, and only the
presence of warders on duty is found now-a-days to be really
efficacious. The main recommendations, however, are based upon common
sense, and none are more commendable than that which deprecates the
excessive ornamentation of the external parts of the edifice. "The new
gaols," as Howard says, "having pompous fronts, appear like palaces to
the lower class of people, and many persons are against them on this
account." The Prison Society reproves the misdirected efforts of
ambitious architects, who by a lavish and improvident expenditure of
public money sought to "rank the prisons they built among the most
splendid buildings of the city or town." Absence of embellishment is in
perfect unison with the character of the establishment. These are
principles fully recognized now-a-days, and it may fairly be conceded
that the Prison Discipline Society's ideal differed little from that
kept in view in the construction of the latest and best modern gaols.
After a few years of active exertion the Society was rewarded by fresh
legislation. To its efforts, and their effect upon Parliament and the
public mind, we must attribute the new Gaol Acts of 4 Geo. IV. cap. 64,
and 5 Geo. IV. cap. 85, which having gone through several sessions, at
last became law in 1823-4. By the preamble of the first-named act it was
declared "expedient to introduce such measures and arrangements as shall
not only provide for the safe custody, but shall also tend more
effectually to preserve the health and improve the morals of the
prisoners, and shall insure the proper measure of punishment to
convicted offenders." Accordingly due provision was made for the
enforcement of hard labour on all prisoners sentenced to it, and for the
employment of all others. As a rider to this enactment, it was laid down
that any prisoner who could work and would not had no claim to be
supported in gaol, "unless such ability (to work) should cease by reason
of sickness, infirmity, the want of sufficient work, or from any other
cause." It was distinctly laid down that male and female prisoners
should be confined in separate buildings or parts of the prison, "so as
to prevent them from seeing, conversing, or holding any intercourse with
each other." Classification was insisted upon, in the manner laid down
by the 24 Geo. III. cap. 54,[73] with such further separation as the
justices should deem conducive to good order and discipline. Female
prisoners were in all cases to be under the charge of female officers.
Every prison containing female prisoners was to have a matron who was to
reside constantly in the prison. The religious and moral welfare of the
prisoners were to be attended to, the first by daily services, the
latter by the appointment of schoolmasters and instruction in reading
and writing. Last, but not least, the use of irons was strictly
forbidden, "except in cases of urgent and absolute necessity," and every
prisoner was to be provided with a hammock or cot to himself, suitable
bedding, and, if possible, a separate cell. The second act, passed in
the following year, enlarged and amended the first, and at the same time
gave powers to the House to call for information as to the observance of
its provisions.
The promulgation of these two Gaol Acts strengthened the hands of the
Prison Discipline Society enormously. It had now a legal and
authoritative standard of efficiency to apply, and could expose all the
local authorities that still lagged behind, or neglected to comply with
the provisions of the new laws. The Society did not shrink from its
self-imposed duty, but continued year after year, with unflagging energy
and unflinching spirit, to watch closely and report at length upon the
condition of the prisons of the country. For this purpose it kept up an
extensive correspondence with all parts of the kingdom, and circulated
queries to be answered in detail, whence it deduced the practice and
condition of every prison that replied. Upon these and the private
visitations made by various members the Society obtained the facts,
often highly damnatory, which were embodied in its annual reports. The
progress of improvement was certainly extremely slow. It was long before
the many jurisdictions imitated the few. Gaols, of which the old prison
at Reading was a specimen, were still left intact. In that prison, with
its cells and yards arranged within the shell of an ancient abbey
chapel, the prisoners, without firing, bedding, or sufficient food,
spent their days "in surveying their grotesque prison, or contriving
some means of escape by climbing the fluted columns which supported the
Gothic arches of the aisles, and so passing by the roof down into the
garden and on to freedom." In a county prison adjoining the metropolis,
the separation between the male and female quarters was supposed to be
accomplished by the erection of an iron railing; in this same prison
capital convicts were chained to the floor until execution. In another
gaol not far off male and female felons still occupied the same
room--underground, and reached by a ladder of ten steps. In others the
separation between the sexes consisted in a hanging curtain, or an
imaginary boundary line, and nothing prevented parties from passing to
either side but an empty regulation which all so disposed could defy.
Numbers of the gaols were still unprovided with chaplains, and the
prisoners never heard Divine service. In many others there were no
infirmaries, no places set apart for the confinement of prisoners
afflicted with dangerous and infectious disorders. No attempt was made
to maintain discipline. Half the gaols had no code of rules properly
prepared and sanctioned by the judges, according to law.
By degrees, however, the changes necessary to bring the prisons into
conformity with the recent acts were attempted, if not actually
introduced into the county prisons, to which, with a few of the more
important city or borough prisons, these acts more especially
applied.[74] Most of the local authorities embarked into considerable
expenditure, determined to rebuild their gaols _de novo_ on the most
approved pattern, or to reappropriate, reconstruct, and patch up the
existing prisons till they were more in accordance with the growing
requirements of the times. Religious worship became more generally the
rule; chaplains were appointed, and chapels provided for them; surgeons
and hospitals also. Workshops were built at many prisons, various kinds
of manufactures and trades were set on foot, including weaving, matting,
shoe-making, and tailoring. The interior of one prison was illuminated
throughout with gas,--still a novelty, which had been generally adopted
in London only four years previously,--"a measure which must greatly
tend to discourage attempts to escape." There were tread-wheels at most
of the prisons, and regular employment thereon or at some other kind of
hard labour. In many places too where the prisoners earned money by
their work, they were granted a portion of it for their own use after
proper deduction for maintenance. Only a few glaring evils still
demanded a remedy. The provision of separate sleeping cells was still
quite inadequate. For instance, in twenty-two county gaols there were
1063 sleeping cells in all (in 1823), and the average daily number
committed that year amounted to 3985. The want of sleeping cells long
continued a crying need. Four years later the Prison Society reported
that in four prisons, which at one time of the year contained 1308
prisoners, there were only sixty-eight sleeping rooms or cells, making
an average of nineteen persons occupying each room. At the New Prison,
Clerkenwell, which had become the principal reception gaol of Middlesex,
and so took all the untried, the sleeping space per head was only
sixteen inches, and often as many as 293 men[75] had to be accommodated
on barrack beds occupying barely 390 feet lineal. The "scenes of tumult
and obscenity" in these night rooms are said to have been beyond
description; a prisoner in one nocturnal riot lost an eye. Yet to
Clerkenwell were now committed the juveniles, and all who were
inexperienced in crime.
Great want of uniformity in treatment in the various prisons was still
noticeable, and was indeed destined to continue for another half
century, in other words, until the introduction of the Prison Act of
1877.[76] At the time of which I am writing there was great diversity of
practice as regards the hours of labour. In some prisons the prisoners
worked seven hours a day, in others ten and ten and a half. The nature
of the employment varied greatly in severity, especially the tread-wheel
labour. In some county gaols, as I have already said, female prisoners
were placed upon the tread-wheel; in others women were very properly
exempted from it, and also from all severe labour. Earnings were very
differently appropriated. Here the prisoners were given the whole
amount, there a half or a third. Sometimes this money might be expended
in the purchase of extra articles of food.[77] The rations varied
considerably everywhere. It was still limited to bread in some places,
the allowance of which varied from one to three pounds; in others meat,
soup, gruel, beer were given. Here and there food was not issued in
kind, but a money allowance which the prisoner might expend himself.
Bedding and clothing was still denied, but only in a few gaols; in
others both were supplied in ample quantities, the cost varying per
prisoner from twenty shillings to five pounds. It was plain that
although the law had defined general principles of prison government,
too much discretion was still left to the magistracy to fill in the
details. The legislature only recommended, it did not peremptorily
insist. Too often the letter of the law was observed, but not its
spirit.
One great impediment to wide amelioration was that a vast number of
small gaols lay out of reach of the law. When the new acts were
introduced, numerous prisons under local jurisdiction were exempted from
the operation of the law. They were so radically bad that reform seemed
hopeless, and it was thought wiser not to bring them under provisions
which clearly could not be enforced. Mr. Peel, who as Home Secretary had
charge of the bill, which became the 4 Geo. IV. cap. 64, said that he
had abstained from legislating for these small jurisdictions "on mature
deliberation." "It is not," he said, "that I am insensible of the
lamentable and disgraceful situation in which many of them are, but I
indulge a hope that many of them will contract with the counties, that
many of them will build new gaols, and that when in a year or two we
come to examine their situation, we shall find but few which have not in
one or other of these ways removed the grievance of which such just
complaint is made. When that time arrives I shall not hesitate to ask
Parliament for powers to compel them to make the necessary alterations,
for it is not to be endured that these local jurisdictions should
remain in the deplorable situation in which many of them now are."
At this time there were in England one hundred and seventy boroughs,
cities, towns, and liberties which possessed the right of trying
criminals for various offences. Nearly every one of these jurisdictions
had its own prison, and there were one hundred and sixty such gaols in
all. Many of them consisted of one or two rooms at most. The total
number of prisoners they received during the year varied from two
persons to many hundreds. It was in these gaols, withdrawn from the
pressure of authority, that the new rules were invariably ignored. The
right and privilege of the borough to maintain its own place of
confinement was so "ancient and indisputable," that for long no idea of
interfering with them was entertained. All that was urged was that the
borough magistracy had no right to govern their gaols so as to corrupt
those committed, "to the injury of the peace and morals of the public."
As time passed, however, these magistrates made no effort at reform.
They neither built new gaols nor contracted with the counties, as had
been expected, for the transfer of their prisoners. As the Society put
it in 1827, "the friends to the improvement of prison discipline will
regret to learn that the gaols attached to corporate jurisdictions
continue to be the fruitful sources of vice and misery, debasing all who
are confined within their walls, and disseminating through their
respective communities the knowledge and practice of every species of
criminality." The Society proceeded to support this indictment by facts.
It is much the old story. The prisoners were lodged in rooms whence they
could converse with passengers in the streets, and freely obtain spirits
and other prohibited articles. All descriptions of offenders congregated
together in the felons' wards. The keeper and his officers resided at a
distance from the gaol, and left its inmates to their own devices. There
was no decency whatever in the internal arrangements; still no
separation of the sexes, no means of ablution or other necessary
services. One borough prison consisted of nothing more than a couple of
cells, about ten yards square, and absolutely nothing more. In another
borough, with a population of ten thousand, the prison was of the same
dimensions. One cell was a dungeon, and the other an "improper and
unhealthy abode for any human being," with a watercourse running through
it.
Most of these small gaols were still in existence and in much the same
state eight years later, as is shown by the report of the Commissioners
to inquire into the state of the municipal corporations in 1835. An
examination of this report shows how even the most insignificant
township had its gaol. Thus Dinas Mwddy, in Merionethshire, had,
"besides the pinfold and the stocks or crib, a little prison." Clun, in
Shropshire, had a lock-up under the town hall. At Eye, in Suffolk, the
gaol was part of the poor-house; so it was at Richmond, in Yorkshire,
where the master of the workhouse was also keeper of the gaol. At
Godmanchester there was no gaol, but a cage to secure prisoners till
they could be taken before a magistrate. Kidderminster had a prison, one
damp chill room, "the only aperture through which air could be admitted
being an iron grating level with the street, through the bars of which
quills or reeds were inserted, and drink conveyed to the prisoners." At
Walsall, in Staffordshire, the gaol consisted of six cells, frequently
so damp that the moisture trickled down the walls; there was not space
for air or exercise, and the prison allowance was still limited to bread
and water.
Newgate through all these years continued a bye-word with the Society.
Some reforms had certainly been introduced, such as the abolition of
irons, already referred to, and the establishment of male and female
infirmaries. The regular daily visitation of the chaplain was also
insisted upon. But it was pointed out in 1823 that defective
construction must always bar the way to any radical improvement in
Newgate. Without enlargement no material change in discipline or
interior economy could possibly be introduced. The chapel still
continued incommodious and insufficient; female prisoners were still
exposed to the full view of the males, the netting in front of the
gallery being perfectly useless as a screen. In 1824 Newgate had no
glass in its windows, except in the infirmary and one ward of the chapel
yard; and the panes were filled in with oiled paper, an insufficient
protection against the weather; and as the window-frames would not shut
tight, the prisoners complained much of the cold, especially at night.
There was a diminution in the numbers in custody, due to the adoption of
the practice of not committing at once to Newgate every offender for
trial at the Old Bailey, but nothing had been done to improve the prison
buildings. In 1827 the Society was compelled to report that "no material
change had taken place in Newgate since the passing of the prison
laws,[78] and that consequently the observance of their most important
provisions was habitually neglected." It was enacted that the court of
aldermen should make rules for the government of the prison, and that
these should be posted publicly within the walls. As yet no rules or
regulations had been printed or prepared. By another clause of the Gaol
Act, two justices were to be appointed to visit the prison at least
thrice in every quarter, and "oftener if occasion required." These
justices were to inspect every part of the prison, and examine into the
state and condition of prisoners. The city justices had not fulfilled
this obligation. Idleness was still the general rule for all prisoners
in Newgate, in defiance of the law. There was no instruction of adult
prisoners, in accordance with the law. The sleeping accommodation was
still altogether contrary to the latest ideas. The visits of friends was
once more unreservedly allowed, and these incomers freely brought in
extra provisions and beer. Last, and worst of all, the arrangements for
keeping the condemned prisoners between sentence and execution were
more than unsatisfactory. They were not confined apart from each other,
but were crowded thirty or forty together in the press yard, so that
"corrupt conversation obliterated from the mind of him who is doomed to
suffer every serious feeling and valuable impression."[79] I shall have
more to say on this subject, and upon the state of Newgate generally, in
the following chapter.
The Prison Society did not relax its efforts as time passed, but its
leading members had other and more pressing claims upon their energies.
Mr. Buxton had succeeded to the great work which William Wilberforce had
commenced, and led the repeated attacks upon slavery in British colonies
till the whole body of the slaves were manumitted in 1833. In the year
immediately preceding this, Parliament was too busy with the great
question of its own reform to spare much time for domestic legislation.
Nevertheless a committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1831
to report upon the whole system of secondary punishments, which dealt
with gaols of all classes, as well as transportation. This committee
animadverted strongly upon the system in force at the metropolitan
gaols, and more especially upon the condition of Newgate, where
"prisoners before and after trial are under no efficient
superintendence," and where "there was no restraint, or attempt at
restraint." Mr. Samuel Hoare was examined by this committee, and stated
that in his opinion Newgate, as the common gaol of Middlesex, was wholly
inadequate to the proper confinement of its prisoners. From the moment
of a person's committal he was certain to be plunged deeper and deeper
in guilt. The prisoners were crowded together in the gaol, contrary to
the requirements of the 4 Geo. IV. Again in 1835 prisons and their
inmates became once more the care of the senate, and the subject was
taken up this time by the House of Lords. A committee was appointed,
under the presidency of the Duke of Richmond, "to inquire into and
report upon the several gaols and houses of correction in the counties,
cities, and corporate towns within England and Wales; upon the rules and
discipline therein established with regard to the treatment of
unconvicted as well as convicted persons." The committee was also to
report upon the manner in which sentences were carried out, and to
recommend any alterations necessary in the rules in order to insure
uniformity of discipline. It met on the 31st March, 1835, and continued
its sittings well into July, during which time a host of witnesses were
examined, and the committee presented three separate reports, embodying
recommendations which may be said to have formed the basis of modern
prison management.
It was laid down as a first and indispensable principle that uniformity
of discipline should prevail everywhere, a theory which did not become a
practical fact for forty more years. As a means of securing this
uniformity, it was suggested that the rules framed for prison government
should be subjected to the Secretary of State for approval, and not, as
heretofore, to the judges of assize; that, both to check abuses and
watch the progress of improvement, inspectors of prisons should be
appointed, who should visit all the prisons from time to time and report
to the Secretary of State. It was recommended that the dietaries should
be submitted and approved like the rules; that convicted prisoners
should not receive any food but the gaol allowance; that food and fuel
should be issued in kind, and never provided by the prisoners themselves
out of monies granted them. The use of tobacco, hitherto pretty
generally indulged in both by men and women, should be strictly
prohibited, "as a stimulating luxury inconsistent with any notion of
strict discipline and the due pressure of just punishment." Prison
officers should not have any share in prisoners' earnings, which should
be paid into general prison funds, and no part of them handed over to
the prisoners themselves. As a means of increasing the severity of
imprisonment, letters and visits from outside should not be permitted
during the first six months of an imprisonment. Various other
recommendations were made as regards the appointment of chaplain and
schoolmasters; the limitation of the powers of wardsmen, or prisoners
employed in positions of trust, who should not be permitted to traffic
with their fellow-prisoners in any way. The committee most of all
insisted upon the entire individual separation of prisoners, except
during the hours of labour, religious worship, and instruction, as
"absolutely necessary for preventing contamination, and for securing a
proper system of prison discipline." This was the first enunciation of
the system of separate confinement, which was eventually to replace the
attempted arrangement of prisoners by classes according to antecedents
and crimes, an incomplete and fallacious method of preventing
contamination. The Lords' Committee fully recognized the painful fact
that the greatest mischief followed from the intercourse which was still
permitted in so many prisons; to use its words, "the comparatively
innocent are seduced, the unwary are entrapped, and the tendency to
crime in offenders not entirely hardened is confirmed by the language,
the suggestions, and the example of more depraved and systematic
criminals."
This committee, as well as the one preceding it, also reported in terms
of strong reprobation on the small prisons and gaols still under the
borough corporations. The Commons' Committee gave it as their opinion
that they were in a deplorable state. The same language was used by the
commissioners appointed to inquire into the municipal corporations in
1835, when speaking more particularly of the borough gaols. In these the
commissioners found "additional proof of the evils of continuing the
present constitution of the local tribunals. Instances rarely occur in
which the borough gaols admit of any proper classification of the
prisoners. In some large towns, as at Berwick on Tweed, Southampton, and
Southwark, they (the prisons) are in a very discreditable condition. In
many of the smaller boroughs they are totally unfit for the confinement
of human beings. In these places the prisoners are often without a
proper supply of air and light; frequently the gaols are mere dungeons
under the town hall.... It was frequently stated in evidence that the
gaol of the borough was in so unfit a state for the reception of
prisoners, that plaintiffs were unwilling to consign the defendants
against whom they had obtained execution to confinement within its
walls." The Lords' Committee on Gaols were of the same opinion, and
considered the prisons under corporate or peculiar jurisdiction in a
very unsatisfactory condition. They therefore recommended that the
prisoners should be removed to the county gaols from such prisons as
were past improvement, and that the borough funds should be charged for
the accommodation. The whole question was again dealt with in Lord John
Russell's bill for the reform of the municipal corporations, and with a
more liberal election of town councillors, and the establishment of
municipal institutions upon a proper footing, the borough gaols were
brought more into accordance with the growing demand for a more humane
system of prison management.