Victorian prisons

Enquiry question

Investigate the sources

1. Source 1: Coldbath Fields Prison

   Coldbath Fields Prison was named after a well nearby. It was an old prison, re-built in 1794, holding men, women and children. In 1850 it was changed to take men only and extended again. It was known as a tough prison, used for local London criminals on short sentences.

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      Map description: A plan of a prison titled ‘GROUND PLAN OF H.M. PRISON COLDBATH FIELDS’.

      A pink-tinted section of the building stretches in a straight line from the bottom to the top of the plan, labelled ‘A Ward No 1’. It ends in a circle labelled ‘Rotuna D Ward’. Four spokes come off this circle labelled ‘B Ward No. 3’, ‘C Ward No. 3’, and ‘E Ward No. 3’. In between these spokes are exercising yards.

      A pink-tinted building comes down off the spoke to the right, labelled E Ward No. 3. This building is labelled ‘Treadwheel House’ and a ‘New Laundry’ is attached to it.

      At the bottom of the plan, the main pink-tinted building ends in a courtyard and then an entrance. A pink-tinted section labelled ‘F Ward No. 2’ is attached to it on the left, alongside a ‘Laundry’.

      A grey-tinted building is attached above the F Ward, labelled ‘N Ward No. 1’. Four hallways with cells come off this building labelled ‘H Ward No. 1’, ‘K Ward No. 1’, ‘L Ward No. 1’, and ‘M Ward No. 1’. Exercising yards are in between these.

      On the left of these wards is a grey-tinted building with several rooms. These are labelled ‘Timber Yard’, ‘Paper Room’, ‘Oakum Shed’, and ‘Carpenter’s Shop’.

      A grey-tinted half-moon shaped room comes off the left of the pink-tinted F Ward, labelled ‘Reception’. Five spokes come off this room, labelled ‘P Ward No. 2’, ‘Q Ward No. 2’, ‘R Ward No. 2’, ‘S Ward No. 2’, and ‘T Ward No. 2’. Yards are in between these.

      To the right of the A Ward, but not connected to it, are two pink-tinted rooms labelled ‘Bakery’ and ‘Kitchen’. Above these is a long narrow grey-tinted section labelled ‘Bread Store’ and ‘Flour Mill’.

   Examine the source

   • What was the purpose of each of the rooms/buildings/spaces you have found in the prison plan?
   • What do these areas reveal about prison life?
   • Can you explain why the Fever Hospital, the new prison, the Treadwheel house and flourmill, and the Governor’s House are situated where they are?
   • How many prison cells can you see from the Rotunda, the circular building at the centre of the prison?

2. Source 2: Hard labour

   The work on the treadwheel was to hold on to a bar and walk up the wheel. You did ten minutes on and five off, for eight hours, climbing the equivalent of over 8,000 feet in the process.

   The prisoner in source 2b is doing hard labour in his cell. He would have to turn the crank in his cell a set number of times to earn his food. Unlike the treadmill, which was used to power machinery in the prison, the crank simply turned paddles in a box of sand.

   You were not allowed to talk during these jobs. This was strictly enforced; the punishment book at Coldbath Fields records 11,624 offences against this rule in one year.

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   2. 

   Examine the source

   • Use Source 1 to explain what machinery the treadwheel might have been used to drive.
   • Which of these two jobs do you think was the most exhausting?
   • Which was the most boring?
   • What was the purpose of making convicts do these jobs?
   • What was the point of the ‘No talking’ rule?
   • These photographs show how hard labour was enforced at two different prisons. Why do you think they did not all use the same method?
   • What do you think was the purpose behind these punishments?
   • Do you think they might have prevented people from re-offending? Give your reasons.

3. Source 3: A prison record

   This is the prison record for Mary McDonald, who was convicted of theft in 1873.

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      Name No – Mary McDonald 2424

      and Aliases – Ryan

      Description

      Age (on discharge) – 40

      Height – 5ft 2

      Hair – L Grey

      Eyes – D Blue

      Complexion – Pale

      Where born – Ireland

      Married or Single – Single

      Trade or occupation – Laundress

      Distinguishing marks: Scars both eyebrows Broken nose – Scar upper lip

      Address at time of apprehension – No settled home

      Place and date of conviction – Southwark 13 March 73

      Offence for which convicted: Simple Larceny – St[ealin]g a p[ai]r of boots

      Sentence – 3 Cal{endar] Mo[nth]s H[ard] L[abour]

      Date to be liberated – 12 June 73

      Intended residence after liberation – 12 Mint St Borough S.E.

      Previous Convictions

      Summary

      14 Sep 68 Pawning a shawl 1 Cal[endar] Mo[nth] Greenwich

      3 Aug 69 St[ealin]g a jacket 6 Cal[endar] Mo[nth]s ” By Jury

      Remarks, antecedents &c

   Examine the source

   • Look at Mary’s prison record. What can you find out from it that shows she has been in trouble before?
   • What was Mary’s occupation before she was arrested?
   • Look at the items that Mary has been accused of stealing. How do you think she got these items?
   • Why do you think she would have stolen and pawned them?
   • What was Mary’s sentence for this crime?
   • How do you think she would have been treated today for the same crime?

4. Source 4: Transportation

   This is an extract from the discipline records for convicts transported to Hobart in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania). Transportation meant that convicted criminals were sent away, often to a colony, for a set term. Few returned having served their sentences as they could not afford the cost of a passage home.

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   Examine the source

   • Read through the list. What kind of offences have the people been disciplined for?
   • Look for the record of Frederick Edwards. Can you find how long he was sentenced for transportation? (Hint: look under his prisoner number)
   • Look at Ann Mackenna’s record. She has more than one sentencing term. Why do you think this is?
   • Do you think the people on this list are adults, children or a mixture or both? Why?
   • Do you think these punishments were fair or unfair?
   • People who were transported were usually sentenced for a fixed time, such as seven years. Do you think they were allowed to go back to Britain after this time had passed?

Background information

Crime rate

Law and order was a major issue in Victorian Britain. Victorians were worried about the new cities that had grown up following the Industrial Revolution – how were the masses to be kept under control?  The government worried about the growing crime rate- the number of offences went up from about 5,000 per year in 1800 to about 20,000 per year by 1840. They were firm believers in punishment for criminals but faced a problem: what should the punishment be?

Punishment

There were prisons, but they were mostly small, old and badly-run. Common punishments included transportation – sending the offender to America, Australia or Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) – or execution: hundreds of offences carried the death penalty.

Prison conditions

British prisons were often in old buildings and tended to be damp, unhealthy, insanitary and over-crowded. All kinds of prisoners were mixed in together, as at Coldbath Fields: men, women, children; the mentally ill; serious criminals and petty criminals; people awaiting trial; and debtors. Each prison was run by the gaoler in his own way. He made up the rules. If you could pay, you could buy extra privileges, such as private rooms, better food, more visitors, keeping pets, letters going in and out, and books to read. If you could not, the basic fare was grim. You even had to pay the gaoler to be let out when your sentence was finished.

Prison reform

Transportation of convicts to Australia was not the answer and Australia did not want to be a dumping-ground for Britain’s criminals. From the 1830s, the British government began to reconsider how to deal with those who broke the law. The answer was to reform the police and to build more prisons.

Between 1842 and 1877, 90 prisons were built or added to. It was a massive building programme, costing millions of pounds. You can see the big extension to Coldbath Fields prison in Source 1. Many Victorian prisons are still in use today.

The Victorians had clear ideas about what these prisons should be like. They should be unpleasant places, to deter people from committing crimes. Once inside, prisoners had to be made to face up to their own faults, by keeping them in silence and making them do hard, boring work. Walking a treadwheel or picking oakum (separating strands of rope) were the most common forms of hard labour.

Christian prison reformers however, felt that prisoners were God’s creatures and deserved to be treated decently. Rational reformers believed that the purpose of prison was to punish and reform, not to kill prisoners with disease or teach them how to be better criminals.

The Separate System

There was more to Victorian plans than just bigger and better buildings. In the 1840s a system of rules called ‘The Separate System’ was tried. This was based on the belief that convicted criminals had to face up to themselves. Accordingly, they were kept on their own in their cells most of the time. When they were let out, to go to chapel or for exercise, they sat in special seats or wore special masks so that they couldn’t even see, let alone talk to, another prisoner. Not surprisingly, many went mad under this system.

The Silent System

By the 1860s opinion had changed. Many criminals were considered habitual criminals, and that nothing would change them. They just had to be scared enough by prison never to offend again. The purpose of the silent system was to break convicts’ wills by being kept in total silence and by long, pointless hard labour. The Silent System is associated with the Prisons Act 1865 and the Assistant Director of Prisons, Sir Edmund du Cane, who promised the public that prisoners would get ‘Hard Labour, Hard Fare and Hard Board’. You can see hard labour in Sources 2a and 2b of this lesson. Hard fare meant a deliberately monotonous diet, with the same food on the same day each week. Hard board meant wooden board beds instead of the hammocks that prisoners had slept on before. In 1902 the treadwheel was banned.

Useful links

oldbaileyonline.org

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913

A resource you and your students can use to access details of criminal trials.

digitalpanopticon.org

The Digital Panopticon

Find out more about tracing London convicts in Britain and Australia, 1780-1925.