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Debtors
Until 1970 it was technically possible to be imprisoned for being in debt and unable to pay. During the 18th and early 19th centuries more than half of all prisoners were debtors. In some places, e.g. the Fleet in London, there were separate prisons for debtors, but in most local prisons the debtors were simply kept apart from other prisoners in their own wings. They were allowed more visitors than convicts, and were released if they could find someone to pay their debts, or if they could earn enough in prison to settle them.

Until the law changed in 1815, debtors could be worse off after a few years in prison than when they entered. Having no money had brought them to prison in the first place; having to pay for their keep put them farther into debt. The small amounts that they could earn in prison were usually not enough to cover their keep.

Debtors did not have to do hard labour. (see: prison reforms) Sometimes the rules were applied loosely: In 1814 the gaoler in Bedford admitted that he had used a debtor as "turnkey" (prison guard), for which, along with other offences, he was sacked. The 1823 Prisons Act stated that debtors should not be made to work without their consent, and should never be made to work on the tread wheel.

Some debtors were imprisoned through no fault of their own: the Bedford gaoler in 1858 complained that 73 out of the 122 debtors sent to the gaol owed money to hawkers (door-to-door salesmen) who had left goods with them without being asked to do so, then took them to court when they would not or could not pay.
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Untried prisoners
Prisoners who were accused of "indictable" (serious) offences were "remanded in prison" after appearing at Petty Sessions. After 1823 they had to be kept separate from convicted prisoners until their case came up at Quarter Sessions or Assizes. They added greatly to prison overcrowding. They were allowed to work for profit.
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Children in prison
Until 1838 when Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight was opened there was no prison in the country especially for juveniles. Children were in prison along with adults. (see: prison reforms) In Bedford, the 1820 House of Correction was used for minor offenders and children.. People believed that children offended because they were uneducated, and so when Bedford Gaol was rebuilt in 1849 a master was employed to teach young people to read and write.

The Youthful Offenders Act (1854) said that children were to be punished in prison for a short time (usually several weeks) then sent to a reformatory school. While in prison they were treated as harshly as adult prisoners, kept in solitary confinement. In reformatory schools they had to do hard work. When they misbehaved they were punished by being whipped or kept in leg irons.

The Bedford Reformatory School was opened in 1857, with room for 30 boys. Even after then, children were kept at the gaol until they could be sent on to other institutions. There are cases in Bedford of children as young as 4 being arrested for vagrancy, because their parents were begging. One 4 year old was sentenced to 21 days hard labour until his case came to the attention of the Home Secretary.

Young children were kept in the gaol with their mothers and sometimes sent on with them to other places such as Pentonville, or the hulks, or transportation.
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The sick
The magistrates employed a surgeon to look after sick prisoners who often arrived at the gaol filthy and infected. The gaol and the House of Correction were not healthy places in the first part of the 19th century. It was known from the start that the 1820 House of Correction was too small, with cells too cramped and badly ventilated. The rebuilding in 1849 gave prisoners more space, but their diet was poor enough to make some ill. Even under the separate system, disease spread among prisoners. Some were sick on entry to prison as a result of poverty, filth and starvation. (see section on prison life)
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Women (see case studies: Dazeley May Ellis )
Women were rarely kept separate from men at the start of the 19th century. They were unable to keep clean, had nothing to keep them busy and had to bring their youngest children into prison if no-one was available to care for them. This changed as a result of the work of Elizabeth Fry, who was shocked by the conditions that she saw in Newgate Gaol. In 1817 she formed the Association for the Improvement of Female Prisoners in Newgate. They were given suitable work, decent prison uniforms and female warders to guard them. Also as a result of Mrs Fry's campaign, women were better treated when transported to Australia.

The 1820 House of Correction and the 1849 gaol in Bedford were designed with separate cell blocks and exercise areas for women. Mothers could bring into the prison their very young children who depended totally on them. In 1833, for example, the authorities paid for the 15 month old child of a female prisoner to be brought to Bedford Gaol from Cambridge, and bought clothes for the child. The mother and both of her children were later transported to Australia.

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