The Prison Cookbook

  THE

  PRISON

  COOKBOOK

  THE

  PRISON

  COOKBOOK

  PETER HIGGINBOTHAM

  Front cover illustrations: (upper) Gloucester prison kitchen; (lower) Rochester kitchen; both photographs reproduced with the kind permission of the Galleries of Justice.

  First published 2010

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  All rights reserved

  © Peter Higginbotham, 2010, 2013

  The right of Peter Higginbotham to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9679 5

  Original typesetting by The History Press

  Contents

  Weights, Measures and Money

  one

  Introduction

  two

  Prison and Other Punishments

  three

  Early English Prisons

  four

  Life in Early Prisons

  five

  Prison Reforms

  six

  Transportation and the Hulks

  seven

  Prisoners of War

  eight

  The Evolution of Prisons 1780s–1860s

  nine

  Changes in Prison Food 1800–1860s

  ten

  The Victorian Prison Kitchen

  eleven

  Towards a National Prison System 1863–1878

  twelve

  From Worms to Beans

  thirteen

  The Prison Cookbook

  fourteen

  Prisons Enter the Twentieth Century

  fifteen

  Prison Food After 1900

  Manual of Cooking & Baking

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  Weights, Measures and Money

  Below are some older measures and monetary units found in this book, with their approximate metric or decimal currency equivalents. Common abbreviations are given in brackets.

  Weight

  1 drachm (drm)

  1.8 grams (gm)

  1 ounce (oz)

  16 drachms

  28.4 grams

  1 pound (lb)

  16 ounces

  450 grams

  1 stone

  14 pounds

  6.3 kilograms (kg)

  1 hundredweight (cwt)

  112 pounds

  50 kilograms

  Volume

  1 fluid drachm (or dram)

  3.55 cubic centimetres (cc or ml)

  1 fluid ounce

  8 fluid drachms

  28.4 cubic centimetres

  1 gill (or noggin)

  5 fluid ounces

  143 cubic centimetres

  1 pint (pt)

  20 fluid ounces

  570 cubic centimetres

  1 quart

  2 pints

  1.1 litres

  1 gallon

  8 pints

  4.5 litres

  1 peck

  2 gallons

  9 litres

  1 bushel

  8 gallons

  36 litres

  1 firkin

  9 gallons

  41 litres

  1 hogshead (of beer etc)

  (originally) 52.5 gallons

  239 litres

  1 pipe

  (typically) 2 hogsheads

  479 litres

  1 tierce

  ⅓ of a pipe or 35 gallons

  160 litres

  1 puncheon

  cask of 72–120 gallons

  327–545 litres

  Length

  1 inch (in)

  2.5 centimetres (cm)

  1 foot (ft)

  12 inches

  30 centimetres

  1 yard (yd)

  3 feet

  90 centimetres

  1 mile

  1760 yards

  1.6 kilometres

  Money

  1 penny (d)

  0.4 pence (p)

  1 shilling (s)

  12 pennies

  5 pence

  1 mark

  13s 4d

  67 pence

  1 pound (£ or l)

  20 shillings

  1 pound

  In terms of its purchasing power, £1 in the year 1750 would now (2009) be worth around £139. In 1850 £1 would now be worth around £83.

  one

  Introduction

  The dietary has an intimate relationship with all the other elements of prison life. On its proper adjustment to the requirements of the average prisoner, and the manner of its application and administration, must depend in large measure the successful working of the whole prison system. (Departmental Committee on Prison Dietaries, 1899)1

  ‘Food’, commented one prison governor, ‘is one of the four things you must get right if you like having a roof on your prison.’ (National Audit Office, 2006)2

  Putting people behind bars has a very long history. In a Bible story dating from around the seventeenth century BC, the book of Genesis tells how Joseph, a young Hebrew enslaved in Egypt, was consigned to the Great Prison at Thebes for attempting to seduce the wife of his master Potiphar. The prison was probably a granary where foreign offenders were held and required to perform hard labour.3 Today, prison has never been so popular – across the world, more than 10 million people are currently locked up.4

  Being in prison, though, has not always been seen as a punishment in itself. In the past, it was more often used as a means for holding people securely until their trial or until their sentence was carried out. In early Rome, for example, debtors could be held in custody by their creditors for sixty days. Then, if still unable to pay, their fate would probably be slavery or execution by such means as burning, hanging, decapitation or clubbing to death. Justice in ancient Athens largely favoured retribution in the form of punishments such as stoning to death or throwing an offender from a cliff, with prison mainly used to confine debtors or those awaiting trial or execution. The Greek philosopher Plato, in a remarkably prescient view, proposed three new types of prison: a general prison to confine lesser offenders for up to two years; a more isolated centre where more serious but reformable cases were held for at least five years; and a remotely located institution where incorrigible offenders were held for life, without contact with other prisoners or visitors.5

  Whatever the reason for someone being in prison, it has rarely been intended to be a comfortable or pleasant experience. Rome’s ancient Carcer, a group of prison buildings near the Forum, included quarry prisons and the subterranean Tullianum, where Saints Peter and Paul are said to have been held. According to the Roman historian Sallust, the Tullianum’s ‘neglect, darkness, and stench made it hideous and fearsome to behold’.6

  Many ancient prisons were, by modern standards, quite small and the health of the inmates – let alone their comfort – was of little concern to those who ran them. Living conditions for those held in early English prisons were often little b
etter. For a long period, they were privately operated with the inmates paying for their own food and accommodation. For those who could afford it, prison could indeed be a relatively painless experience, with a comfortable room and meals bought from the gaoler, cooked themselves or sent in from outside. But for those with little or no money, especially those being held for non-payment of their debts, prison life frequently consisted of a bed on the floor of a dark and damp cellar and a diet of bread and water. Even those found totally innocent of their charges could sometimes remain in gaol indefinitely because they could not pay the necessary release fees.

  The so-called ‘Prison of Socrates’ in Athens where, according to popular tradition, Socrates was held while awaiting his execution. He refused the advice of his friends to try and escape and suffered the Athenian penalty of compulsory suicide by drinking a brew containing the poison hemlock.

  The Tullianum in Rome, later known as the Mamertine prison. Originally, the only means of access was via a hole in the ceiling. Tradition has it that while the Apostle Peter was confined here, a spring of water miraculously appeared in the floor with which he was able to baptise his gaolers and forty-seven companions.

  From the 1770s, reformers such as John Howard, Elizabeth Fry and James Neild exposed the iniquities of the English prison system and campaigned to make prisons more humane, often harnessing the power of public opinion to persuade prison operators to grudgingly fall in line with gradual legislative reforms.

  In more recent times, even after the state had taken over the running of the country’s prisons in 1877, providing inmates with a bed of bare planks and a meagre diet of bread, porridge or gruel, and occasional potatoes, was still viewed as part of the deterrent value of a prison sentence. Faced with such treatment, it is perhaps not surprising that convicts at Dartmoor in the 1870s resorted to eating dead rats and mice, grass, candles, dogs and earthworms.

  Attitudes gradually changed, however, and by the end of the nineteenth century, prison conditions, and particularly food, started to improve. The 1899 Departmental Committee on Prison Dietaries acknowledged that food was a core element in successful prison operation. A new national prison menu saw the inclusion of items such as beans, bacon, suet pudding, tea and cocoa, while the fare provided for prisoners who were sick soon included chicken broth, fishcakes, boiled rabbit, custard pudding and stewed figs. For inmates who misbehaved, however, the result would still be a spell on bread and water. At the same time, increasing concern for how food was prepared resulted in the introduction of training courses for prison cooks and the publication in 1902 of the first prison cookbook – the Manual of Cooking & Baking for the Use of Prison Officers – which is reproduced in full as part of this book.

  From the 1950s, prison food began to change out of all recognition with the arrival of sausage, bacon and fried bread for breakfast, and of roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, bread-and-butter pudding and custard on the dinner menu. Nonetheless, during the 1970s and ’80s, ‘inedible and monotonous’ food was still reported as one of the causes of dissatisfaction which led to a rash of violent disturbances and damage to prison buildings costing many millions of pounds.

  By 2005, prisoners could select their meals from a multi-choice menu featuring dishes such as grilled gammon, chicken chasseur, or minced beef lasagne served with garlic bread and salad, with options catering for vegans, vegetarians, and a wide variety of religious and cultural diets. Porridge, the prison’s signature dish, had virtually disappeared. Clearly, the prison authorities had taken to heart the maxim of food (along with mail, hot water and visits) being the things you have to get right if you want to keep a roof on your prison.

  The kitchens at Holloway prison in about 1901 when the Manual of Cooking & Baking was being compiled. Food was served in a two-piece metal ‘pail’ or ‘tin-dinner-inner’, with the base holding liquids and the upper part solid food.

  two

  Prison and Other Punishments

  PRISON, TRIAL AND JURY

  English law has sanctioned the use of imprisonment for more than 1,000 years. In the ninth and tenth centuries, legislators such as Alfred and Athelstan formalised the use of prison sentences, typically 40 to 120 days, sometimes accompanied by a fine, for a range of crimes including oath-breaking, theft, witchcraft, sorcery and murder. Establishing guilt for such offences might involve the accused undergoing the ‘threefold ordeal’: first, the ordeal of hot iron (carrying a pound weight of the hot metal for a certain distance); second, the ordeal of hot water (the retrieval of a stone hanging by a string in a pitcher of boiling water); third, the ordeal of the accursed morsel (swallowing a piece of bread accompanied by a prayer that it would choke him if he were guilty).7 Survival of these ordeals with little or no harm, or with an injury that healed very quickly, was taken as a sign of innocence.

  The Normans, following their invasion of England in 1066, introduced an alternative form of ordeal, namely trial by combat or ‘wager of battle’. This could take place where, for example, an offender accused another person of being the instigator or an accomplice in the crime. The person thus accused, the ‘appellee’, could demand wager of battle against his accuser, the ‘appellant’. If defeated, the appellee was liable to be hung; if he won, the appellee was pardoned. The right to wager of battle was last claimed as recently as 1818 by Abraham Thornton. After Thornton was acquitted of murdering a girl named Mary Ashford, her brother mounted a private prosecution, in response to which Thornton was granted his request for battle. However, the brother withdrew before any combat took place.

  The roots of the modern English justice system were created a century after the Conquest when, in 1166, Henry II issued an Act known as the Assize of Clarendon. The Assize is often credited with laying down the origins of the jury system by setting up a grand or ‘presenting’ jury in each district which was to notify the king’s roving judges of the most serious crimes committed there. Clause 7 of the Assize also provided a significant impetus to the use of prisons – it decreed that the sheriff of each county was required to erect a county gaol if none already existed, with the cost being met by the crown.

  CATEGORIES OF OFFENCE

  As the English system evolved, a classification of different types of offence became established. Although their precise definitions changed over the centuries, the main broad categories of crime were high treason, petty treason, felony and misdemeanour.

  High treason was an offence against the monarch or the safety of the realm, originally defined by a statute of Edward III in 1350–51.8 Treasonable offences included: ‘compassing or imagining the king’s death’; violating the king’s wife or eldest daughter (but only if she was unmarried); waging war against the king or aiding his enemies; slaying the king’s chancellor, treasurer or judges; and counterfeiting the currency of the realm.

  Petty treason was a treason against a royal subject, in particular the murder of someone to whom allegiance was owed, such as a master killed by his servant, or a husband by his wife.

  Felony, a word which originally meant ‘forfeiture’, was a broad category of more serious offence which at one time was punishable by the forfeiture of land or goods, but for which death later became the usual penalty. The main types of felony were murder, rape, larceny (i.e. theft), robbery (i.e. theft with violence) and burglary. However, many specific offences were later added to the list: for example, stealing a hawk became a felony in the reign of Edward III.

  Misdemeanours, in contrast to felonies, were less serious offences not involving forfeiture of property.

  The traditional punishment for misdemeanours was whipping, the stocks or pillory, or a fine, while that for treason was death.9 Felonies could be capital or non-capital depending on the particular offence – which ones received the death penalty changed over the centuries.

  THE GROWTH OF PRISONS

  During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the use of prisons became more widespread. By 1216, all but five counties had complied with the Ass
ize of Clarendon and set up gaols which were often situated in the castles that existed in most county towns.10 Increasingly, other large towns set up their own gaols, with castles again being a popular location.

  In the capital, the Tower of London and Fleet prison were used to hold the king’s debtors as well as ‘contumacious excommunicates, those who interfered with the working of the law, failed appellants, attainted jurors, perjurers, frauds, and those who misinformed the courts’.11

  In the main, though, imprisonment was still not regarded as a punishment in itself, but rather a means for keeping offenders in secure custody while awaiting trial or execution, or until they had paid a fine that had been imposed or a debt that was owed. Nonetheless, there was a steady growth of offences for which the penalty was a term in prison. The use of imprisonment for debtors to the crown, which began in 1178, was extended to all debtors in 1352. Other offences, such as aiding a prisoner to escape, prostitution and brothel-keeping, also became punishable by prison. Between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, a gaol term – typically ranging from forty days to a year and a day – became the penalty for around 180 additional offences, including seditious slander, corruption and selling shoddy or underweight goods.12