The Prison Cookbook

by Peter Higginbotham

  The Tower’s first inmate was Ranulf Flambard, imprisoned in the White Tower by Henry I after the suspicious death of Henry’s predecessor William Rufus. Flambard was also the first person ever to escape from the Tower. In February 1101, a rope was smuggled in to him in a large flagon of wine which he invited his guards to share. After they became drunk and fell asleep, he climbed down the rope to the foot of the Tower, where his friends had horses waiting to make his escape.

  In 1305, Scottish resistance leader William Wallace, now famous as Braveheart, was imprisoned in the Tower prior to his execution for treason by Edward I. He was one of the first to undergo the fate of being hung, drawn and quartered. His dismembered limbs were despatched separately for display in Perth, Stirling, Berwick and Newcastle.

  Other well-known detainees at the Tower included the ‘little princes’ (Edward V and his brother Richard, the Duke of York), Guy Fawkes, Sir Walter Raleigh and Samuel Pepys. In 1820, after the failure of their plan to assassinate the entire British cabinet, the Cato Street Conspirators were held in the Tower. Their gang, led by Arthur Thistlewood, were the last persons to be beheaded by the axe in Britain. 33

  A nineteenth-century plan of the Tower of London showing the Bloody Tower (B), St Peter’s Chapel (C), the Green (G), the Jewel House (J), the Lieutenant’s Lodgings (L), the Queen’s Lodgings (Q), the site of the Scaffold (S) and the White Tower (W).

  THE FLEET

  The Fleet prison was founded, probably in the late eleventh century, on the eastern bank of the River Fleet, just outside the Ludgate entrance to London. The prison was used by the king to hold those charged with offences against the state, including those of the highest rank.

  In around 1335, a ten-foot-wide moat was built around the prison so that it was entirely surrounded with water. However, the prison’s neighbours decided that the moat would make an excellent drain for the waste from their stables, lavatories and sewers. Within twenty years the moat was in a filthy state, a situation made worse in 1354 when a riverside wharf near the prison was let to some butchers as a place to deposit the entrails of slaughtered cattle. The moat soon became so congested with offal that it was possible to walk across it.34

  The Fleet was later used to house debtors and bankrupts, and, as at some other prisons, payment of a fee to the gaoler could allow an inmate to reside in a designated area outside the prison – the Liberty of the Fleet.

  MARSHALSEA

  The Marshalsea (whose keeper was known as the Marshal) was erected in around 1329, at the north side of what is now Mermaid Court, off Borough High Street in Southwark. It originally held offenders who were members of the king’s household but was later used for the confinement of debtors, pirates, mutineers and recusants – those refusing to acknowledge the established Church. Edmund Bonner, London’s last Roman Catholic bishop, was imprisoned in Marshalsea for the final ten years of his life after refusing to swear the oath of supremacy to Queen Elizabeth.

  In 1811, the Marshalsea was rebuilt a little way to the south of its original location, on the site of the White Lion prison. The father of twelve-year-old Charles Dickens was sent there in 1824 owing £40 10s. The prison later featured in Dickens’ stories such as Little Dorrit and David Copperfield.

  THE KING’S BENCH

  The King’s Bench prison was located near the Marshalsea on Southwark’s Borough High Street. It originally held those being tried by the King’s Bench Court, which dealt with offences directly affecting the king himself, and also those privileged enough to be tried only before the king. However, it largely came to be used for debtors and for those convicted of libel.

  In 1755–8 the prison was relocated a short distance to Blackman Street, but had to be rebuilt after it was burned down during a riot in 1780. Thomas Allen, in his 1829 History of the County of Surrey, portrays an almost holiday-camp atmosphere within its confines:

  The prison occupies an extensive area of ground; it consists of one large pile of building, about 120 yards long. The south, or principal front, has a pediment, under which is a chapel. There are four pumps of spring and river water. Here are 224 rooms, or apartments, eight of which are called state-rooms, which are much larger than the others. Within the walls are a coffee-house and two public-houses; and the shops and stalls for meat, vegetables, and necessaries of almost every description, give the place the appearance of a public market; while the numbers of people walking about, or engaged in various amusements, are little calculated to impress the stranger with an idea of distress, or even of confinement.

  In addition to the hospitable conditions within the prison, inmates of the King’s Bench could purchase ‘Liberty of the Rules’, which allowed them to live outside the prison within an area about 3 miles across. Not surprisingly, the King’s Bench was said to be ‘the most desirable place of incarceration for debtors in England’ – so much so that ‘persons so situated frequently removed themselves to it by habeas corpus from the most distant prisons in the kingdom’.35

  THE CLINK

  By around 1500, the Bishop of Winchester’s prison in Southwark’s Liberty of the Clink had become known simply as ‘the Clink’ – a name that turned into a popular slang word for a prison. Although it was used for the detention of local breakers of the peace, the Clink was particularly employed for holding religious offenders, both priests and lay recusants.

  The Oath of Allegiance, introduced under James I in 1606, allowed Roman Catholics to acknowledge their loyalty to the English king as head of the realm in what some viewed as a less objectionable way to that required by Henry VIII’s Oath of Supremacy. In the years that followed, a number of priests who took this path, despite a prohibition by the Pope, were housed in the Clink,36 notably the archpriest George Blackwell, who died there in 1613.

  From the 1630s until Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753, the Liberty of the Fleet was notorious as a venue for clandestine marriages. The proceedings, often held in taverns, were carried out by ministers – real or otherwise – who were themselves often debtors.

  The Marshalsea prison in 1819. The Marshalsea was largely demolished in 1849, although parts of the building continued to be used housing an ironmonger’s, and later the Marshalsea Press.

  The Newgate prison gateway in around 1750. The large rooftop ‘sail ventilator’ assisted the circulation of air around the building. Many prisons were dark and poorly aired, some even blocking a number of their existing windows up after the introduction of the window tax in 1696.

  During the English civil war, the Clink was used as a prison for Royalists. The Bishop of Winchester’s properties were sold off and the Clink was then used to house only a few debtors.

  NEWGATE PRISON

  Newgate was the main prison serving the City of London and the county of Middlesex. Founded in 1188, it was damaged by Wat Tyler and his followers during the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381, but remained largely unaltered until its complete rebuilding in 1423 with funds from the estate of former Lord Mayor Dick Whittington. One improvement, in 1406, was the building of a tower specifically for women inmates who had previously been crammed into a small room, with the nearest privy being accessed through a men’s section of the prison.

  Newgate prison was rebuilt in the 1770s, and then again after being burned down in the Gordon Riots in 1780. This view shows it a few years before its demolition in 1902 to make way for the new Central Criminal Court building – the Old Bailey.

  Newgate held a wide variety of inmates. Some were petty criminals, or those guilty of breaking the numerous ordinances governing life and trade within the city. These were usually given a fixed-term period of imprisonment ranging from a few days to a year and a day. In 1328, a thief received forty days in Newgate for stealing a tunic worth 10d, while in 1382 a man guilty of ‘molesting’ foreigners was confined for a year and a day.37 Newgate was also used to confine those awaiting trial for more serious offences, habitual criminals, those with unpaid fines and debtors whose detention would continue indefinitely if they could
not pay their creditors. However, the prison’s reputation grew largely out of its use by the king and his Justices to hold all manner of dangerous and hardened criminals, heretics, rebels and traitors who were brought for trial to London. The fate of many Newgate inmates would therefore either be the death penalty or perpetual imprisonment.

  Newgate’s gaoler was required to be of good character and swear an oath that he would not extort money from those in his care. Since the gaoler’s income was derived from various ‘customary fees’ for goods and services he provided to the inmates, such promises were not always lived up to. One early fourteenth-century incumbent, Edmund de Lorimer, was found guilty of offences such as torturing prisoners to extract money, demanding a discharge fee of up to 1s 4d instead of the customary 4d and overcharging for items supplied to prisoners such as torches.38 In 1333 another Newgate gaoler, Hugh de Croydon, was accused of placing those held for non-felonious offences in the dungeon amongst serious criminals, and torturing them for money. Financial transgressions were not the only cause for concern. In 1449, another keeper, William Arnold, was himself imprisoned for violating one of the female prisoners.

  Following its reconstruction in the 1420s, Newgate provided much improved surroundings for at least some of its inhabitants. There was a central dining hall and a drinking fountain was provided, although decent water only arrived in 1436 when lead pipes were laid to join the St Bartholomew’s Hospital supply. Adjoining the hall, there were rooms with chimneys and privies, ‘spacious and well-lighted recreation rooms’ and a chapel.39 Elsewhere, however, there were some ‘less convenient chambers’ and the prison still had secure and windowless basement cells. Those of lesser rank, or from outside the city, were given the inferior rooms, while those involved in serious crimes were kept underground, usually in chains, some in solitary confinement. Descriptions of Newgate invariably describe it as a thoroughly unpleasant place – ‘the fetid and corrupt atmosphere that is in the hateful gaol of Neugate’.40

  LUDGATE

  Ludgate prison was established in 1378, partly as a response to the harsh physical conditions that existed at Newgate prison. It was intended to house Londoners found guilty of non-felonious crimes, although it later came to cater primarily for freeman debtors.41

  Initially, its inmates suffered at the hands of the keeper, John Botlesham, who misappropriated alms intended for the prisoners and clapped in irons those who complained. However, the prison soon gained a reputation for its comfort, so much so that it was positively attracting people, including prostitutes, to take up residence. As a result, the prison was closed down and its inmates moved to the stricter regime at Newgate. Unfortunately, within a fortnight more than sixty of those transferred had died and Ludgate was rapidly reopened.

  The prison was enlarged in the fifteenth century and a new water supply installed. It was severely damaged by the great fire of 1666, but was repaired and continued in use until its demolition in 1760. The remaining prisoners were transferred to the City of London Workhouse on Bishopsgate Street, part of which was converted to serve as a prison. In 1794, the prison moved to its final home at the corner of Giltspur Street and Newgate Street.

  BRIDEWELL

  Bridewell was originally a palace built by Henry VIII on the west bank of the River Fleet, and took its name from the holy waters in the area linked with St Bridget or Bride. In 1553, Edward VI handed over the site to the city authorities as a ‘house of occupation’ for idlers, vagrants and prostitutes. Bridewell was rather different from other penal establishments in being part of the poor relief system rather than the criminal justice system. Its aims were to reform the idle and disorderly, to make them earn their keep and to deter others from indolence. The costs of running Bridewell were largely met from a tax on local inhabitants rather than fees extracted from the inmates who were mostly penniless.

  For the more industrious inmates, productive work was available using materials provided by city merchants. Those who were classed as ‘sturdy’ (i.e. able-bodied) beggars were required to work and were fed on a ‘thin diet onely sufficing to sustaine them in health’.42 Repeat offenders could be whipped and were given hard labour such as beating hemp.

  A remarkable scandal occurred in 1602 when the running of Bridewell was placed in the hands of private ‘lessees’, who were to be paid £300 a year to undertake the task. Within a few months, chaos reigned at the prison. The contractors, whose sole aim was to maximise their profit, had moved into the best rooms in the building and had released most of the pauper inmates. The diet fed to those who remained had declined to the point where many of them had died. They had left prison staff unpaid and had rented out workshops as homes for their relatives and friends. Finally, in collusion with eight prostitutes resident in the prison, they had turned the premises into an upmarket casino, restaurant and brothel. In the company of their glamorously dressed hostesses, patrons dined on a sumptuous repast of ‘crabbes, lobsters, artetichoques, pyes and gallons of wyne at a tyme’. Use of the prison’s single chambers for further pleasures could then be had upon a payment of 2-5s. Following an inquiry, the lessees’ contract was terminated in October 1602.43

  One of Bridewell’s occasional inmates was Madam Cresswell, a notorious prostitute and brothel-keeper, who is said to have died in the prison in around 1698. Her will offered £10 for someone to preach a funeral sermon that spoke only well of her. The clergyman who eventually took on this challenging task gave a long lecture on public morality then concluded with a few words about the deceased: ‘She was born well, she lived well, and she died well; for she was born with the name of Creswell, she lived in Clerkenwell, and she died in Bridewell.’

  HOUSES OF CORRECTION

  The 1576 Poor Act adopted Bridewell’s model and proposed the establishment of a ‘house of correction’ in each county to deal with the able-bodied poor who refused to work. Every county had at least one bridewell operating by 1630.44 Houses of correction (also known as bridewells after the original London establishment) were supervised by Justices of the Peace (JPs) and their costs supported from the local poor rates.

  The rules of discipline and diet published in 1588 for the house of correction at Bury in Suffolk portray it as a very severe establishment. At admission, every ‘strong or sturdy rogue’ was given twelve lashes and then manacled. All inmates rose at 4 a.m. in summer (5 a.m. in winter) then, after communal prayers, worked until 7 p.m. except for meal breaks. On ‘flesh days’, dinner and supper comprised 8oz of rye bread, a pint of porridge, ¼lb of flesh and a pint of beer. On ‘fish days’, meat was replaced by milk or peas, ⅓lb of cheese or ‘one good herring, or two white or red’. White herrings were pickled in brine, while red herrings were smoked – the distinctive smell of the latter was sometimes used by farmers to divert hunting hounds.

  Bridewells were often located adjacent to workhouses, or even formed part of the same building. At Yarmouth, the town bridewell stood in the workhouse yard and consisted of four sleeping cells inside which prisoners were attached by a 5ft chain to an iron staple in the floor. Calls of nature were carried out via a wooden tub which was emptied when nearly full.45

  Despite the original intention for houses of correction to be reforming institutions for the idle and disorderly, by the end of the seventeenth century their Poor Law function had effectively ceased and they had become places of punishment for all manner of petty offenders. Their operation was increasingly carried out on a commercial basis, with the inmates’ labour being used to contribute to the cost of their maintenance and to their keeper’s income.

  The fact that houses of correction had become little different from other ‘common’ local gaols was recognised in a 1720 Act which empowered JPs to send vagrants and other minor offenders to a house of correction or to a common gaol as they felt fit. There remained some technical differences between the two institutions – a debtor could only be placed in a common gaol and a vagrant only in a house of correction – until both were re-designated as local prisons in
1865.

  A village lock-up, dating from the eighteenth century, at Hawarden in Flintshire. The lintel above the doorway proclaims that the structure also served as ‘House of Correction’ for idlers, rogues and vagabonds.

  LOCAL GAOLS

  By 1216, fifty years after the Assize of Clarendon, county gaols existed in all but five English counties.46 They were often located in existing buildings, particularly castles, in county towns. Where this was not possible, new buildings were constructed either in the county town, as at Warwick, or some other town, such as Buckinghamshire’s gaol at Aylesbury. Responsibility for running the county gaol lay with the county sheriff, a servant of the crown.

  By the sixteenth century, local gaols also existed in virtually every town. Unlike county gaols, management of local town prisons was in the hands of the mayor and aldermen. Local prisons were set up in a wide variety of locations. As in London, town gates were a popular venue. County gaol sites, too, sometimes included a home for a local prison or house of correction. Local gaols could also be set up in more domestic buildings on a town’s main street or on the market-place. Even smaller were the lock-ups erected in many towns and villages, which were mostly used for the short-term confinement of disorderly persons.

  Justice at the local level was administered by JPs. Minor offences were dealt with at the Justice’s own home or, later, at petty sessions; more serious matters, where a jury was required, went to quarter sessions held four times a year. The most serious cases were held over for the twice-yearly assize courts presided over by visiting judges of the crown. At each session, the assizes would aim to clear or ‘deliver’ the county gaol of its prisoners.