NEWGATE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Newgate still overcrowded—Description of interior—Debtors in
Middlesex—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 press-yard—Recklessness
of the condemned—Cashman—The condemned cells—Summary of
glaring defects in Newgate—Crimes constantly being hatched
in Newgate—The Corporation roused to reform Newgate—Little
accomplished.
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. At one time there were
three hundred debtors and nine hundred criminals in Newgate, or twelve
hundred prisoners in all.
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. 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 as follows: the male
debtors' side; the female debtors' side; the chapel yard; the middle
yard; the master felons' side; the female felons' side; the state side;
and the press-yard.
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 for them. 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 in the prison, and there was no limitation to
the numbers of visitors admitted to the debtors' side. Friends arrived
about nine in the morning, and went out at nine o'clock at night, 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, 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.
The criminal side of Newgate consisted of the six quarters or yards,
and the inmates, distinguished from the debtors, were comprised in four
classes: those awaiting trial; persons under sentence of imprisonment
for a fixed period, or until they shall have paid certain fines;
transports awaiting removal to the colonies, and capital convicts,
condemned to death and awaiting execution. At one time all 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 the class, with whom, under the imperious
demand for accommodation, were also associated the misdemeanants.
This was the chapel yard, with its five wards, which were calculated
to accommodate 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
allowed, 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 reference
has already been made.
The middle yard, as far as its limits would permit, was appropriated
to felons and transports. The wards here were generally very crowded.
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; . . . 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."
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. Artisans and others were at liberty
to work at their trades, provided they were not dangerous. Tailoring
and shoemaking were 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 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, 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,
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 annex of the state side. Mr. Davison,
sent to Newgate for embezzlement, 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.
The female felons' 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.
The press-yard was the receptacle of the male condemned prisoners and
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
sentences. 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 a 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[125:1] 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 thus 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.
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 of May. Upon the 29th of
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 of
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.[127:1]
After much anxious consideration certain improvements were introduced.
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 now the Corporation took alarm at the terrible
expense adequate reform would entail and hence the most crying evils
were left untouched. If a metropolitan prison were to be erected on the
same lines as the recently built prisons of Gloucester and Petworth,
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 could possibly afford; therefore nothing was done.
FOOTNOTES:
[125:1] Cashman was the only one of the Spafields rioters (1816) who
was capitally convicted and executed. Four others who were arraigned
with him were acquitted by the jury, to the astonishment of the court.
Cashman, who had been a seaman in the Royal Navy, pleaded that he had
been to the Admiralty to claim prize-money to the value of £200 on the
day of the riot. On his way home, half drunk, he had been persuaded to
join the rioters. Cashman's unconcern lasted to the end. As he appeared
on the gallows the mob groaned and hissed the Government, and Cashman
joined in the outcry until the drop fell.
[127:1] Petworth Prison, built in 1785, and Gloucester Penitentiary,
erected in 1791, were the two first gaols established which provided a
separate sleeping cell for every prisoner.