prison conditionsand types of punishment in the 19th Century

Quick links to the topics covered here:-

Executions
Sending to the Armed forces
Transportation
Imprisonment in Prison Hulks
Imprisonment in Houses of Correction, Gaols and Penitentiaries
Prison Reform Campaigners
Penitentiaries
How well did the system work?
Work in prison
Prison Diet
Executions
During the 18th century the number of crimes punishable by death rose to about 200. Some, such as treason or murder, were serious crimes, but in other cases people could be sentenced to death for what we would think of as minor offences. For example, the death sentence could be passed for picking pockets, stealing bread or cutting down a tree. These were the kinds of crime likely to be committed by those in most desperate need.

In 1823 Sir Robert Peel reduced the number of offences for which convicts could be executed by over 100. Lord John Russell abolished the death sentence for horse stealing and housebreaking in 1830.

You will notice in the data file that often the death of the prisoner was recorded after the guilty verdict, but the actual sentence was transportation or imprisonment. This happened by the start of the 19th century because the magistrates felt that the compulsory death sentence was too harsh. For about 60% of capital offences they recorded that it had been carried out, then gave a less serious punishment.

Between 1801 and 1837, 13 executions took place in Bedford, but between then and 1878 there were only 4.
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Sending to the Armed forces
In time of war it was often difficult to recruit, especially to the navy, as people knew how hard the conditions were on board ship. Some prisoners were therefore sentenced to serve in the forces. This happened to several men in the data file. You will find them if you search in the "notes" field. Later, they are in the navy list at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Other prisoners were occasionally sent to the forces part of the way through their sentences, but this is not mentioned in the file.
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Transportation
During the 18th century the government had started to send prisoners to penal colonies, at first in America, for a fixed period, usually seven years, or for life. This stopped when the American War of Independence broke out in 1775. The government then began sending people, both men and women, to new penal colonies in Australia. Over the years, about 160,000 people were sent, both men and women, sometimes as young as nine years old.

Many died on the journey, which took between four and six months with the convicts living in terrible conditions not unlike those of the slaves taken from Africa to be sold in the Americas. If they survived, they were set to work as servants or labourers for the settlers.

Those who worked hard were sometimes able to save money to set themselves up as settlers or to return home to Britain. If convicts continued to cause trouble in Australia, however, they were sent to the penal settlements. There they were forced to work from dawn to dusk at backbreaking tasks. If they disobeyed or tried to escape, they were whipped, chained in irons or sometimes executed.

Transportation became very expensive, and so the government looked for cheaper solutions to the criminal problems at home. Also, legal settlers in Australia resented having the prisoners sent to them. The government remembered the rebellion of the American colonies, and decided to end the system. The last transportations took place in 1868, but only a small proportion of prisoners had been sent to Australia since gold was discovered there in 1851. Why should the prisoners be rewarded for their crime by being sent to goldmines! (see more information on Transportation and Penal Servitude)
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Imprisonment on the Prison Hulks
The hulks were old sailing ships at Portsmouth harbour or on the Thames at Woolwich, originally used as holding prisons for people waiting to be transported. The rise in crime at the end of the French Wars caused a shortage of prisons, and so the hulks were more and more used to house ordinary prisoners. At one point over two thirds of all prisoners were on the hulks. Conditions in them were terrible. During outbreaks of disease such as cholera large numbers of prisoners died because of the insanitary conditions on board and the taking of water for all purposes from the polluted Thames. Prisoners were chained to their bunks at night to prevent them from slipping ashore. During the day most of them worked ashore, usually hard labour.

You will see references to specific hulks in the "disposal" field of the data file - e.g. the Justicia and Retribution.

The last of the hulks was burnt in 1857, but they had been less and less used in the ten years before then. This, along with the end of transportation, caused problems locally, as the Bedford authorities thought that the transportation and prison hulks would always be there to take surplus prisoners, and so they built the gaol too small for the number of local criminals.
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Imprisonment in Houses of Correction, Gaols and Penitentiaries
Prisons during the 18th century were filthy and overcrowded. They were unruly places where prisoners often were herded together with no privacy. Prisoners had to provide their own food, and had little access to fresh water. They had to pay the gaoler for every service, even for putting them in irons as a punishment. Those who had no money were forced to beg from local people passing the prison. There was no protection against other prisoners. Those who caused most trouble were shackled in irons or whipped. Prisoners could be released early if they behaved well, as long as they were not in debt.
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Prison Reform Campaigners
John Howard of Bedford (1726 - 1790) was an important and influential prison reformer. He was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire from 1773 until his death, responsible for law and order in the county. In 1777 he published his book, "The State of the Prisons", based on the study he had made of prison conditions on tours of Britain and Europe.

Howard believed that prisoners would not change their ways unless they were given a reasonable standard of living. He said they should be allowed to keep clean, given fresh food and water and given work to do that would keep them occupied. They should be given Christian teaching and be made to attend chapel regularly. At night they should each have their own cell, so that they could repent of their crimes in privacy. Howard's ideas were carried out when the first "penitentiaries" were built, but were made much stricter than he had intended.

Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker from Norwich, worked to improve the lives of women in prison. She worked especially in Newgate Gaol in London, giving the women decent clothes and useful work. She set up a school to teach them and their children to read, and provided Bibles for them. Later she introduced supervision by matrons. In 1817 Elizabeth Fry and eleven other Quakers, formed the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. She gave evidence to the House of Commons about conditions in prison, using evidence from her tour of British prisons. Her evidence influenced Sir Robert Peel to reform prison conditions in 1823. Elizabeth Fry also campaigned against capital punishment.
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Penitentiaries
Gloucester prison, built to a new design in 1792, separated different kinds of prisoners. It had a house of correction for minor offenders, a gaol for prisoners on remand awaiting trial, and a penitentiary for those who had committed serious offences.

All prisoners had their own cell. They were fed by the authorities, not their families, according to a written diet. (provide link to dietary and to section on diet) All of them were made to wash regularly and wore a uniform with arrows printed on it. This was designed to keep disease away, and also to prevent them from escaping without being noticed. (provide link to photograph of prisoner in uniform) They all had to work, with the type of work depending on whether they had been sentenced to hard labour. This building design and system were copied all over the country, including in Bedford.

The gaol and the House of Correction in Bedford were supposed to operate the silent system. Prisoners were allowed to work together but had to keep completely silent. If they spoke to each other they were punished by being whipped, or deprived of exercise, or made to do extra work.
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How well did the system work?
If Bedford is typical, however, the system worked very badly, because of overcrowding. After the end of war in 1815, the returning unemployed soldiers and sailors committed so many crimes that the prison, intended to hold 40 even before the 1816 building of the tread wheel and mill, in fact held 101 prisoners, who had to share cells. The problems that this caused to health and discipline resulted in the opening of a new House of Correction for minor offenders in 1820. (provide link) Almost at once the same problem arose. Built for 37 minor offenders, by 1821 the House of Correction had 52 prisoners, sharing cells and beds. It was impossible to prevent prisoners from talking to each other in either building.

Inspectors reported in 1837 that although prisoners who spoke to each other were punished, the result was only that a very large proportion of the prisoners were under some form of punishment at any time. The bravest called out to each other from one area to another, e.g., the convicts shouted to the untried prisoners. Some sang loudly at night or shouted from cell to cell. Debtors in prison were allowed visitors who also spoke to the convicts. Most prisoners spoke to each other while taking exercise or going to chapel. If they did not speak, mutter or whisper, they made signals to each other by means such as coughing or waving.

As a result, the system became even stricter. Almost all new prisons were built so that the prisoners could be kept on the separate system, which became the standard method after an Act of Parliament in 1939, and was compulsory for all prisons after 1865.

The most severe and feared of the new prisons was Pentonville, built in 1842, to which many Bedford convicts were sent to wait for transportation. The new Bedford Gaol, finished in 1849 as an extension to the house of correction, followed the pattern set by Gloucester and Pentonville. All prisoners had their own cell in which they worked all day, to keep them apart so that they could not talk to each other. They were allowed to leave their cells for exercise, but then they were separated by each being made to hold a knot in a rope held taut between prisoners. The knots were 15 feet (nearly 5 metres) apart. Prisoners also attended services in the chapel, where they also sat apart from each other, facing the preacher.

Family visits were allowed only twice a year, because it was no longer necessary for relatives to bring food and clean clothing to the prisoners. The authorities also believed that the convicts should be kept away from the influence of their families. The only visitor was the chaplain, who tried to make them sorry about the sins they had committed.

The separate system caused a lot of concern during the second half of the 19th century. By that time people were aware that many prisoners, far from being reformed, were being driven insane by the constant silence and isolation.
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Work in prison
There were arguments about the kind of work that prisoners should do.

In some prisons they did productive work. During the French Wars, prisoners of war in Dartmoor were allowed to make small tools and ornaments out of whalebone, to sell to passing visitors. Often prisoners worked for local businesses and were paid a small wage, so that they could buy a few items and save some money for their release. Prisoners in Bedford in the early 19th century were allowed to do this, with the prisoners earning small sums and the gaol taking a cut to pay for their keep. The authorities were always suspicious that the gaol keeper could be making his own profit from this.

By the mid 19th century, the theory was that prison was meant to punish, and so penal labour was fashionable. After 1865, those imprisoned for less than three months had to do hard labour, which was meant to punish, not to provide an income. Not only the prisoners at Bedford, but also the gaol lost most of their income as a result of this.

Prisoners in solitary confinement in some prisons picked oakum. To do this they had to pull apart tarred rope into its individual fibres, which were then used for other purposes. This work made their hands bleed, and was very painful. Other solitary prisoners picked rags, separating different sorts of material and tearing them into strips. Prisoners were expected to sew prison uniforms or other cloth items needed in prison and sold outside.

Some prisons were near to quarries, and so the prisoners broke stones (as on Dartmoor).

The crank was a handle attached to a set of cogs, which had to be turned by the solitary prisoner in his or her cell. Prisoners had to do this all day, without any product of their hard work. The crank handle pushed a paddle through sand, and as an extra punishment could be screwed up to make it harder to push.

Shot drill was also intended to be hard labour without rewards. The prisoner had to lift an iron cannon ball to chest height, carry it a measured distance, then put it down and repeat the task with another one. Robert Evan Roberts, keeper of Bedford Gaol in 1868, complained that the crank and shot drill were the only work he was allowed to give to 701 out of 842 prisoners passing through the gaol in the previous year.

In many prisons there was a tread wheel on which prisoners had to climb. Often about ten prisoners could climb side by side. (provide link to design) Originally these had produced something, e.g. turned millstones to grind flour, which was supposed to give the prisoners a "sense of purpose".

The wheel in Bedford Gaol was built in 1816 to grind corn, and the prisoners were paid at first. For ten hours every day the convicts and untried prisoners climbed the height of Mount Everest, with some rest periods during which they still had to walk round in a circle unless they were eating. They were not allowed to talk to each other while they climbed.
The tread wheel made a profit for the gaol, as can be seen from the following record after its installation in 1816:
Account of work done by the mill exclusive (except) for our own consumption, to 16th October 1816.
(Quarter Session Records)

The new House of Correction had a "discipline mill with tread wheels" from 1821, showing that the authorities thought the idea was a great success. In case they slacked, convicts had to turn take set numbers of steps before every meal: until they had carried this out there was no meal for them. After work on the wheel, however, they could go the school run by one of the turnkeys, to learn to read and write. The turnkey was paid 3/- (15p) a week for this.
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Prison Diet
Until 1815, prisoners had to pay for their keep, and many had their food brought in by relatives or friends. From then on the gaolers were paid out of the local rates. The authorities were always keen to keep down the cost of the prisons, and wanted to avoid giving prisoners a better life than the poor had outside prison. They kept the cost of the prisoners' food as low as possible, but still often complained about it.

Dietaries were published in the 1820s, showing what the prisoners were given at each meal. Although this provided a standard diet, it did not ensure that it was good quality food. Also, the regulation daily meals meant that the diet was very monotonous.

From 1843 onward, the government expected a minimum standard of food to be given to prisoners in all establishments throughout the country. Prisoners serving different sentences had different amounts. Diet improved as sentences were longer and the type of work was harder. (see section on prison life). Convicts were still expected to be given less food than the worst off outside prison, that is the people in the workhouse.

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