Introduction

'A close, nasty place, several steps below ground where frogs and toades did crawl'. A description of Banbury Prison, 17th century.

Treadmill at Pentonville Prison, North London. 1895. Catalogue reference: COPY 1/420

Until the 19th century, except for the King's Bench, Marshalsea and Fleet prisons (debtors prisons) and Newgate gaol which were all Crown prisons attached to the central courts, prisons were administered locally and were not the responsibility or property of central government. They were used for the correction of vagrants and those convicted of lesser offences, for the coercion of debtors and for the custody of those awaiting trial or the execution of their sentence. During the 17th and the first half of the 18th century, most convicts not executed were transported to the North American colonies. With American independence in 1776, prisoners were accommodated in disused ships, known as hulks, awaiting transportation to Australia.

Although the first national penitentiary, Millbank, was completed in 1816, and was followed by others such as Pentonville, Winchester, and Dartmoor, it was not until the Prisons Act 1877 that all prisons were placed under the administration of a new central Prison Commission.

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For the record:

With the exception of a brief period during the 19th century, prison records were not collected centrally by the government. Thus we do not hold a comprehensive series of material for prisons. Many records have been retained by individual prisons or deposited in local record offices. It is possible to search for these via the online indexes of the National Register of Archives. Nevertheless, we have an impressive collection of prison records, which include the names, ages, and personal details of prisoners. Prison records are held in several HO and PCOM series, with the convict ships' records in HO 7- HO 11. You can find a variety of information including:

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Useful links

Criminal petitions for clemency