THE BEGINNING OF PRISON REFORM
Prison reform generally taken up—Mr. Neild's
visitation—Howard's great work repeated—Prison Discipline
Society formed in 1817—Its distinguished members—The
society animadverts upon condition of various prisons—A
few brilliant exceptions—Newgate still a byword—Opponents
of reform—Sydney Smith laughs at efforts of Prison
Discipline Society—Prisoners' treatment—Scenes of horror in
Newgate—Serious affrays in the wards—Extra and luxurious
food admitted—Ladies' Association—No real separation of the
sexes—The Governor, Mr. Cope, an offender in this respect—The
press-yard the worst of all—Brutal behaviour of many of those
sentenced to death—Criminal lunatics allowed to remain in
Newgate—House of Commons' prisoners monopolize hospital and
best accommodation in the gaol.
While Elizabeth Fry was 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 short-lived, and powerless to cope with
the persistent neglect of those intrusted with prison management.
Twenty-five years later, Mr. Neild, a second Howard, and 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: certain prisons which 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."
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. These gentlemen formed the famous English Prison Discipline
Society and laboured strenuously and unceasingly in their efforts to
ameliorate the condition of English prisons. They found everywhere a
crying need for reform, although here and 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 were
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 instruction.
Compared with the last mentioned institutions Newgate compared
unfavourably. Its evils were inherent and irremediable, and the
need for reform was imperative, yet there were those who, wedded to
ancient ideas, were intolerant of change, and 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 in 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 exceptions to various of
the proposals of the Society. He thought they tended too much toward
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."
Undeterred by these sarcasms and misrepresentations, the Society
pursued its laudable undertaking with remarkable energy and great
singleness of purpose. After a few years of active exertion legislation
was obtained to enforce the needful change, but still Newgate continued
a bye-word. 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. In 1827 the Society was compelled to report that
"no material change had taken place in Newgate since the passing of the
prison laws of 1823-4, and that consequently the observance of their
most important provisions was habitually neglected."
And so it went on—the same old story—evil constantly in the
ascendant, the least criminal at the mercy of the most depraved. Under
the reckless contempt for regulations, the apathy of the authorities,
and the undue prominence of those who, as convicted felons, should have
been most sternly repressed, the most hardened and the oldest in vice
had the best of it, while the inexperienced beginner went to the wall.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who spent three years in Newgate from 1835,
said with justice that incredible scenes of horror occurred there.
It was, in his opinion, the greatest nursery of crime in London. The
days were passed in idleness, debauchery, riotous quarrelling, immoral
conversation, gambling, in direct contravention of parliamentary rules,
instruction in all nefarious processes, lively discourse upon past
criminal exploits, elaborate discussion of others to be perpetrated
after release. No provision whatever was made for the employment of
prisoners, no materials were purchased, no trade instructors appointed.
There was no school for adults; only the boys were taught anything,
and their instructor, with his assistant, were convicted prisoners.
Idle hands and unoccupied brains found in mischief the only means of
whiling away the long hours of incarceration. Gaming of all kinds,
although forbidden by the Gaol Acts, was habitually practised. This was
admitted in evidence by the turnkeys, and was proved by the appearance
of the prison tables, which bore the marks of gaming-boards deeply cut
into them. Prisoners confessed that it was a favourite occupation, the
chief games being "shoving halfpence" on the table, pitch in the hole,
cribbage, dominoes, and common tossing, at which as much as four or
five shillings would change hands in an hour.
But this was not the only amusement. Most of the wards took in the
daily papers, the most popular being the "Times," "Morning Herald,"
and "Morning Chronicle;" on Sunday the "Weekly Dispatch," "Bell's
Life," and the "Weekly Messenger." The newsman had free access to the
prison; he passed in unsearched and unexamined, and, unaccompanied by
an officer, went at once to his customers, who bought their paper and
paid for it themselves. The news-vendor was also a tobacconist, and he
had thus ample means of introducing to the prisoners the prohibited
but always much-coveted and generally procurable weed. In the same way
the wardsman laid in his stock to be retailed. Other light literature
besides the daily journals was in circulation: novels, flash songs,
play-books, such as "Jane Shore," "Grimm's German Tales," with
Cruikshank's illustrations, and publications which in these days would
have been made the subject of a criminal prosecution. One of these,
published by Stockdale, was stigmatized officially as a book of the
most disgusting nature. There was also a good supply of Bibles and
prayers, the donation of a philanthropic gentleman, Captain Brown, but
these, particularly the Bibles, bore little appearance of having been
used. Drink, in more or less unlimited quantities, was still to be had.
Spirits certainly were now excluded; but a potman, with full permission
of the sheriffs, brought in beer for sale from a neighbouring
public-house, and visited all the wards with no other escort than the
prisoner gatesman. The quantity to be issued per head was limited by
the prison regulations to one pint, but no steps were taken to prevent
any prisoner from obtaining more if he could pay for it. The beer-man
brought in as much as he pleased; he sold it without the controlling
presence of an officer. Not only did prisoners come again and again
for a "pint," but large quantities were carried off to the wards to be
drunk later in the day.
There were more varied, and at times, especially when beer had
circulated freely, more uproarious diversions. Wrestling, in which legs
were occasionally broken, was freely indulged in; also such low games
as "cobham," leap-frog, puss in the corner, and "fly the garter," for
which purpose the rugs were spread out to prevent feet slipping on the
floor. Feasting alternated with fighting. The weekly introduction of
food, to which I shall presently refer, formed the basis of luxurious
banquets, washed down by liquor and enlivened by flash songs and
thrilling long-winded descriptions of robberies and other "plants."
There was much swearing and bad language, the very worst that could be
used, from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night.
New arrivals, especially the innocent and still guileless debutant,
were tormented with rude horse-play, and assailed by the most insulting
"chaff." If any man presumed to turn in too early he was "toed," that
is to say, a string was fastened to his big toe while he was asleep,
and he was dragged from off his mat, or his bedclothes were drawn away
across the room. The ragged prisoners were very anxious to destroy the
clothes of the better dressed, and often lighted small pieces of cloth,
which they dropped smouldering into their fellow-prisoners' pockets.
Often the victim, goaded to madness, attacked his tormentors; a fight
was then certain to follow. These fights sometimes took place in the
day-time, when a ring was regularly formed, and two or three stood by
the door to watch for the officer's approach. More often they occurred
at night, and were continued to the bitter end. The prisoners in this
way administered serious punishment on one another. Black eyes and
broken noses were always to be seen.
More cruel injuries were common enough, which did not result from
honest hand-to-hand fights. The surgeon's journal contained numerous
entries of terrible wounds inflicted in a cowardly way. "A serious
accident: one of the prisoners had a hot poker run into his eye." "A
lad named Matthew White has had a wound in his eye by a bone thrown
at him, which very nearly destroyed vision." "There was a disturbance
in the transport yard yesterday evening, and the police were called
in. During the tumult a prisoner, . . . who was one of the worst of the
rioters, was bruised about the head and body." "Watkins' knee-joint
is very severely injured." "A prisoner Baxter is in the infirmary in
consequence of a severe injury to his wrist-joint." Watkins' case,
referred to above, is made the subject of another and a special report
from the surgeon. He was in the transport side, when one of his
fellows, in endeavouring to strike another prisoner with a large poker,
missed his aim, and struck Watkins' knee. . . . Violent inflammation and
extensive suppuration ensued, and for a considerable time amputation
seemed inevitable. After severe suffering prolonged for many months,
the inflammation was subdued, but the cartilage of the knee-joint was
destroyed, and he was crippled for life. On another occasion a young
man, who was being violently teased, seized a knife and stabbed his
tormentor in the back. The prisoner who used the knife was secured,
but it was the wardsman, and not the officers, to whom the report was
made, and no official inquiry or punishment followed.
Matters were at times still worse, and the rioting went on to such
dangerous lengths as to endanger the safety of the building. On one
occasion a disturbance was raised which was not quelled until windows
had been broken and forms and tables burned. The officers were obliged
to go in among the prisoners to restore order with drawn cutlasses,
but the presence and authority of the governor himself became
indispensable. The worst fights occurred on Sunday afternoons; but
nearly every night the act of locking up became, from the consequent
removal of all supervision, the signal for the commencement of obscene
talk, revelry, and violence.
Other regulations laid down by the Gaol Acts were still defied. One of
these was that prisoners should be restricted to the gaol allowance
of food; but all could still obtain as much extra, and of a luxurious
kind, as their friends chose to bring them in. Visitors were still
permitted to come with supplies on given days of the week, about the
only limitation being that the food should be cooked, and cold; hot
meat, poultry, and fish were forbidden. But the inspectors found
in the ward cupboards mince-pies and other pasties, cold joints,
hams, and so forth. Many other articles were introduced by visitors,
including money, tobacco, pipes, and snuff. From the same source came
the two or three strong files found in one ward, together with four
bradawls, several large iron spikes, screws, nails, and knives; all
of them instruments calculated to facilitate attempts to break out of
prison, and capable of becoming most dangerous weapons in the hands
of desperate and determined men. The nearly indiscriminate admission
of visitors, although restricted to certain days, continued to be
an unmixed evil. The untried might see their friends three times a
week, the convicted only once. On these occasions precautions were
supposed to be taken to exclude bad characters, yet many persons of
notoriously loose life continually obtained admittance. Women saw men
if they merely pretended to be wives; even boys were visited by their
sweethearts. Decency was, however, insured by a line of demarcation,
and visitors were kept upon each side of a separated double iron
railing. But no search was made to intercept prohibited articles at
the gate, and there was no permanent gate-keeper, which would have
greatly helped to keep out bad characters. Some idea of the difficulty
and inconvenience of these lax regulations as regards visiting, may be
gathered from the statement that as many as three hundred were often
admitted on the same day—enough to altogether upset what small show
of decorum and discipline was still preserved in the prison. Perhaps
the worst feature of the visiting system was the permission accorded to
male prisoners under the name of husbands, brothers, and sons to have
access to the female side on Sundays and Wednesdays, in order to visit
their supposed relations there.
On this female side, where the Ladies' Association still reigned
supreme, more system and a greater semblance of decorum was maintained.
But the separation of the sexes was not rigidly carried out in Newgate
as yet. We have seen that male prisoners visited their female relations
and friends on the female side. Besides this, the gatesman who prepared
the briefs had interviews with female prisoners alone while taking
their instructions; a female came alone and unaccompanied by a matron
to clean the governor's office in the male prison; male prisoners
carried coal into the female prison, when they saw and could speak or
pass letters to the female prisoners; and the men could also at any
time go for tea, coffee, and sugar to Mrs. Brown's shop, which was
inside the female gate. In the bail-dock, where most improper general
association was permitted, the female prisoners were often altogether
in the charge of male turnkeys. The governor was also personally
responsible for gross contravention of this rule of separation, and
was in the habit of drawing frequently upon the female prison for
prisoners to act as domestic servants in his own private dwelling.
Some members of the Ladies' Association observed and commented upon
the fact that a young rosy-cheeked girl had been kept by the governor
from transportation, while older women in infirm health were sent
across the seas. His excuse was that he had given the girl his promise
that she should not go, an assumption of prerogative which by no
means rested with him; but he afterwards admitted that the girl had
been recommended to him by the principal turnkey, who knew something
of her friends. This woman was really his servant, employed to help
in cleaning, and taken on whenever there was extra work to be done.
The governor had a great dislike, he said, to seeing strangers in his
house. This girl had been first engaged on account of the extra work
entailed by certain prisoners committed by the House of Commons, who
had been lodged in the governor's own house. The house at this time
was full of men and visitors; waiters came in from the taverns with
meals. Some of the prisoners had their valets, and all these were
constantly in and out of the kitchen where this female prisoner was
employed. There was revelling and roystering, as usual, with "high life
below-stairs." The governor sent down wine on festive occasions, of
which no doubt the prisoner housemaid had her share. It can hardly be
denied that the governor, in his treatment of this woman, was acting in
flagrant contravention of all rules.
Bad as were the various parts of the gaol already dealt with, there
still remained one where the general callous indifference and
mismanagement culminated in cruel and culpable neglect. The condition
of the capitally-convicted prisoners after sentence was still very
disgraceful. The side they occupied, still known as the press-yard,
consisted of two dozen rooms and fifteen cells. In these various
chambers, until just before the inspectors made their report, all
classes of the condemned, those certain to suffer, and the larger
number who were nearly certain of a reprieve, were mingled without
discrimination, the old and the young, the murderer and the child
who had broken into a dwelling. All privacy was impossible under the
circumstances. At times the numbers congregated were very great; as
many as fifty or sixty, and even a larger number, were crowded into the
press-yard. The better-disposed complained bitterly of what they had
to endure; one man declared that the language of the condemned rooms
was disgusting, that he was dying a death every day in being compelled
to associate with such characters. In the midst of the noisy and
blasphemous talk no one could pursue his meditations; and any who tried
to pray became the sport and ridicule of his brutal fellows.
Owing to the repeated entreaties of the criminals who could hardly hope
to escape the gallows, some show of classification was carried out, and
when the inspectors visited Newgate they found the three certain to
die in a day-room by themselves; in a second room were fourteen more
who had every hope of a reprieve. The whole of these seventeen had,
however, a common airing-yard, and took their exercise there at the
same time, so that men in the most awful situation, daily expecting
to be hanged, were associated continually with a number of those who
could look with certainty on a mitigation of punishment. The latter,
light-hearted and reckless, conducted themselves in the most unseemly
fashion, and with as much indifference as the inmates of the other
parts of the prison. They amused themselves after their own fashion;
played all day long at blind-man's-buff and leap-frog, or beat each
other with a knotted handkerchief, laughing and uproarious, utterly
unmindful of the companionship of men upon whom lay the shadow of an
impending shameful death. Men whose fate was uncertain, and those most
seriously inclined, complained of these annoyances, so subversive of
meditation, so disturbing to the thoughts; they suffered sickening
anxiety, and wished to be locked up alone. This indiscriminate
association lasted for months, during the whole of which time the
unhappy convicts who had but little hope of commutation were exposed to
the mockery of their reckless associates.
The lax discipline maintained in Newgate was still further deteriorated
by the presence of two other classes of prisoners who ought never
to have been inmates of such a gaol. One of these were the criminal
lunatics, who were at this time and for long previous continuously
imprisoned there. As the law stood at that particular time any two of
the justices might remove a prisoner found to be insane, either on
commitment or arraignment, to an asylum, and the Secretary of State
had the same power as regards any who became insane while undergoing
sentence. These powers were not invariably put in force, and there
were in consequence many unhappy lunatics in Newgate and other gaols,
whose proper place was the asylum. At the time the Lords' Committee
sat there were eight thus retained in Newgate, and a return in the
appendix of the Lords' report gives a total of thirty-nine lunatics
confined in various gaols, many of them guilty of murder and other
serious crimes. The inspectors in the following year, on examining the
facts, found that some of these poor creatures had been in confinement
for long periods: at Newgate and York Castle as long as five years;
at Ilchester and Morpeth for seven years; at Warwick for eight years,
at Buckingham and Hereford for eleven years, at Appleby for thirteen
years, at Anglesea for fifteen years, at Exeter for sixteen years, and
at Pembroke for no less a period than twenty-four years.
It was manifestly wrong that such persons, visited by the most dreadful
of calamities, should be detained in a common prison. Not only did
their presence tend greatly to interfere with the discipline of the
prison, but their condition was deplorable in the extreme. The lunatic
became the sport of the idle and the depraved. His cure was out of the
question; he was placed in a situation "beyond all others calculated to
confirm his malady and prolong his sufferings." The matter was still
further complicated at Newgate by the presence within the walls of
sham lunatics. Some of those included in the category had actually been
returned as sane from the asylum to which they had been sent, and there
was always some uncertainty as to who was mad and who not. Prisoners
indeed were known to boast that they had saved their necks by feigning
insanity. It was high time that the unsatisfactory state of the law
as regards the treatment of criminal lunatics should be remedied, and
not the least of the good services rendered by the new inspectors was
their inquiry into the status of these unfortunate people, and their
recommendation to improve it.
The other inmates of the prison, of an exceptional character, and
exempted from the regular discipline, such as it was, were the ten
persons committed to Newgate by the House of Commons in 1835. These
were the gentlemen concerned in the bribery case at Ipswich in that
year.
Many of the old customs once prevalent in the State Side, so properly
condemned and abolished, were revived for the convenience of these
gentlemen, whose incarceration was thus rendered as little like
imprisonment as possible. A certain number, who could afford the high
rate of a guinea per diem, fixed by the under sheriff, were lodged in
the governor's house, slept there, and had their meals provided for
them from the Sessions' House or London Coffee-House. A few others, who
could not afford a payment of more than half a guinea, were permitted
to monopolize a part of the prison infirmary, where the upper ward was
exclusively appropriated to their use. They also had their meals sent
in, and, with the food, wine almost _ad libitum_. A prisoner, one of
the wardsmen, waited on those in the infirmary; the occupants of the
governor's house had their own servants, or those of the governor. As
a rule, visitors, many of them persons of good position, came and went
all day long, and as late as nine at night; some to the infirmary,
many more to the governor's house. There were no restraints, cards and
backgammon were played, and the time passed in feasting and revelry.
Even Mr. Cope admitted that the committal of this class of prisoners to
Newgate was most inconvenient.
Enough has probably been said to give a complete picture of the
disgraceful state in which Newgate still remained in the early part of
the nineteenth century.