The Prison Cookbook

by Peter Higginbotham

  … unsaverie Scraps,

  That come from unknowne hands, perhaps unwasht:

  And would that were the worst; for I have noted,

  That nought goes to the Prisoners, but such food

  As either by the weather has been tainted,

  Or Children, nay sometimes full paunched Dogges,

  Have overlickt …

  There were also occasional supplies of food from other sources, for example through charitable donations, bequests or items that had been seized by city officials for contravening some ordinance such as underweight bread or meat offered for sale on a fish day.

  From 1572, convicted felons were also eligible to receive ‘county bread’ or the ‘county allowance’ – a small allowance of food or money provided out of county funds. The provision varied widely, from as little as the pennyworth of bread a day supplied at the Monmouth County Gaol, to the two pennyworth of bread and two pennyworth of meat at Northumberland County Gaol.67 Since the price of wheat varied quiet considerably, the amount of food provided rose and fell in step.

  DEBTORS

  The fees and living expenses that were required from prisoners placed debtors in a particularly hard position. The charges accumulated while they were in prison would usually need to be settled before the debtor could leave. For a debtor without outside friends, this could amount to a life sentence.

  Debtors were supposed, in theory, to receive enough money from their creditors to provide them with bread and water. Even if this was forthcoming, which it was often not, the cost had to be repaid. Some prisons provided debtors with a basic subsistence. At Newgate in 1724, this comprised a daily ration of ‘one coarse Houshold Wheaten Loaf, almost the Bigness of a common Penny White Loaf ’, plus a weekly portion of beef.

  Debtors could generate a little income by performing work. A 1666 Act for the relief of poor prisoners gave JPs powers to impose a rate with which a stock of material could be bought to provide employment for such people. Another source of assistance came through occasional legacies such as the bequests by Ralph Rokeby of £100 to the prisoners at the Fleet, Newgate, Ludgate, King’s Bench, Marshalsea and the two Counters.68

  Although debtors were often amongst the most wretched of a prison’s inmates, some could use imprisonment to exploit their situation. So-called ‘politic bankrupts’ were those who obtained large amounts of goods or money on credit then feigned bankruptcy. When arrested they lived comfortably in prison and could often force a settlement on their creditors, paying only a proportion of the debt. Such a debtor was described by Thomas Dekker as a ‘ten-groats-in-the-pound bankrupt, a voluntary villain, a devouring locust, a destroying caterpillar, a golden thief ’.69 Dekker himself later endured six years in prison for debt. Another group of debtors were those who voluntarily chose to remain in prison for the rest of their lives. As debts were not inheritable, this sacrifice would free their heirs from any further claim.

  WOMEN

  Special accommodation for female prisoners existed as early as the thirteenth century. In 1237, a proposal was made to establish a women’s gaol within York Castle and by 1280 a chamber for female inmates existed at Maidstone.70 In around 1310, after a lengthy campaign by the Chancellor of Oxford University, a separate women’s section was created at the town gaol. Later known as the ‘maiden’s chamber’, it was mostly used to house prostitutes.

  By 1724, Newgate had separate areas for female inmates. On the Common Side, women unable to pay their prison fees were placed in the Waterman’s Hall, a ‘very terrible, dark and stinking Place’.71 Although supplied with fresh water via a lead cistern, inmates had to sleep on the wooden floor. In another ward, for short-term housing of those awaiting transportation, the women were ‘almost poisoned by their own filth’. Throughout the prison, one (male) observer reported that the women were ‘exceedingly worse than the worst of the Men, not only in respect to Nastiness and Indecency of living, but more-especially as to their Conversation, which to their great Shame is as prophane and wicked, as Hell itself can possibly be.’72

  Women prisoners were particularly vulnerable to exploitation by both prison staff and male inmates. During his time in the King’s Bench in 1617–8, Geffray Mynshul commented that ‘a whore entering into a prison is a hony-pot, about which all the flyes come buzzing, as crowes to a carrion’.73

  A scene from Hogarth’s 1732 sequence A Harlot’s Progress. Following her descent into prostitution, Moll Hackabout (third from left) has been placed by magistrates in Bridewell prison. The gaoler (left) directs her to beat hemp – used to make hangman’s nooses. The gaoler’s wife tries to steal Moll’s clothes, while Moll’s smiling servant (second from right) appears already to have acquired her shoes. Other prisoners include a card-sharp and a pregnant African woman who may have pleaded ‘benefit of the belly’. A (presumably idle) man is being held n a pilllory beneath the legend ‘Better to Work than Stand thus’.

  DISEASE

  Prisons were notoriously unhealthy places. The poor conditions and overcrowding that were common amongst the poorer inmates made prisons an ideal breeding ground for infections.

  The condition most often associated with prisons is ‘gaol fever’ or typhus, a highly infectious and life-threatening disease spread by lice or fleas. A 1729 report on the Marshalsea prison found that at the end of winter, up to ten prisoners a day were dying from gaol-fever and malnutrition. A report in the Gentleman’s Magazine in January 1759 estimated that each year one in four prisoners succumbed to the disease – many times more than were executed.74 Thirty years later, the prison reformer John Howard also concluded that in the mid-eighteenth century, gaol-fever accounted for more deaths than did the hangman.75

  Once infected, prisoners could spread disease to the outside world, for example when they appeared in court. At Oxford Castle in July 1577, a bookbinder named Rowland Jencks was tried for sedition and sentenced to lose his ears. After the prisoner was taken away ‘there arose such an infectious damp or breath among the people, that many there present … were then smothered, and others so deeply infected that they lived not many hours after.’76 Amongst the dead were the judge, the high sheriff, the under-sheriff and most of the jury. The death toll eventually reached more than 500. Another gaol-fever outbreak at Taunton Assizes in 1730 resulted in hundreds of deaths again including the sheriff and judge.

  five

  Prison Reforms

  EARLY ATTEMPTS AT REFORM

  Early efforts to improve prison conditions came from religious groups such as the Quakers. In the 1650s, their leader George Fox criticised prison hygiene and urged that ‘none stay long in prisons, let none be keepers of prisons but such as fear God and hate covetousness, gaming and drunkenness.’77

  In 1691, after a spell in the Fleet prison for debt, publisher and printer Moses Pitt issued an attack78 on the prison’s warden, the ironically named Richard Manlove. Manlove was accused of abuses such as housing destitute prisoners alongside dead bodies in the prison’s dungeons and withholding the corpses of dead prisoners until their families had paid all their outstanding fees.

  A decade later, the newly formed Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) investigated conditions at prisons such as Newgate and Marshalsea. Their report, authored by Thomas Bray, listed numerous problems: the lewdness of prison officers, especially towards women; officers taking payments to allow male prisoners access to the females; the unlimited use of wine, brandy and other strong liquors; gambling, swearing and blasphemy; the corrupting of newcomers by hardened prisoners; and neglect of all religious observances.79 The society’s proposed reforms included the setting up of an overall management committee for the city’s prisons, an improvement in the character of persons appointed as officers, the provision of ministers to every prison, daily prayers, the strict separation of male and female inmates, an end to the ‘benefit of belly’ for pregnant felons, the provision of work for male inmates, restrictions on the use of strong liquor and – a radical suggestion for
its day – the housing of every prisoner in a separate cell. However, apart from the distribution of some religious books to prisons in London and to all the county gaols, little resulted from this initiative.

  A number of parliamentary inquiries into the prisons were also instituted. A Select Committee in 1729 accused the Fleet’s warden, Thomas Bambridge, of extorting exorbitant fees and keeping debtors locked in heavy irons. A second report laid charges against William Acton, chief officer at the Marshalsea, where up to fifty prisoners slept in a room 16ft square. At night, inmates had no toilet facilities and were forced to use the floor. Debtors who displeased the guards could be locked up for week alongside a vermin-ridden and putrifying corpse. Despite the apparent evidence against Bambridge and Acton, both were acquitted of all criminal charges (although Bambridge was barred from resuming his wardenship of the Fleet).80

  As well as efforts to reform existing prisons, various schemes for new types of prison were put forward. In 1753, Middlesex JP Henry Fielding and architect Thomas Gibson proposed the building of a combined prison, house of correction and workhouse, which would house 5,000 paupers and 1,000 convicts. Perhaps not surprisingly, this enormously ambitious project was never constructed. On a much more modest scale, in 1758, Robert Dingley, with help from philanthropist Jonas Hanway, set up a successful Magdalen house at Goodman’s Fields for ‘repenting prostitutes’. Prostitution in the capital at that time employed around 3,000 women with a similar number dying each year from venereal diseases. Whilst in the house, the inmates were expected to work or to sit alone in silent religious reflection – an activity whose benefits Hanway extolled in his 1776 publication Solitude in Imprisonment. By 1786, 2,415 women had passed through the house, with only a small number returning to the streets.81

  One significant influence from outside England was the publication in 1767 of On Crimes and Punishment by Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria. Beccaria argued that punishment should be administered as soon as possible after a crime was committed in order to create a strong association between the two. Punishments should reflect the seriousness of the offence – crimes against property, for example, being punished by fines – and, where possible, be socially useful, such as labouring on public works. He strongly argued against indiscriminate use of capital punishment, suggesting that long-term punishments had a far greater deterrent value and could result in reformation of the offender. Beccaria’s ideas were widely debated and undoubtedly paved the way for reforms which, albeit slowly, came in their wake.

  JOHN HOWARD

  In 1773, at the age of 47, John Howard was appointed high sheriff of Bedfordshire. While attending court sessions he noticed that prisoners found not guilty were still being returned to the county gaol. The reason, he discovered, was that they needed to pay the gaoler for their release, plus any outstanding fees for their board and lodgings. Acquitted prisoners were also retained in case other charges were laid against them before the judge left town.82 Prisoners who were penniless could then remain in gaol indefinitely even though they were innocent. To try and remedy this situation, Howard requested that JPs appoint a salaried gaoler and abolish prison fees. After being told that this would only be considered if an existing precedent could be found, he visited other prisons in the area, and then further afield, eventually across the whole of Europe. The abuses he uncovered were detailed in his book The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, published in 1777.

  With regard to prison buildings, Howard noted that they often had barred windows or gratings which opened directly onto the street outside. Inmates could easily communicate with friends outside and obtain beer and spirits, or even a file with which to cut through the bars and escape. Rooms were frequently badly lit and ventilated, and the floor generally damp or even flooded with one or two inches of water. Proper sanitary provision was almost unknown. At Knaresborough in Yorkshire, he found that the prison for town debtors had:

  Only one room, about fourteen feet by twelve. Earth floor; no fireplace; very offensive; a common sewer from the town running through it uncovered. I was informed that an Officer, confined here some years since, for only a few days, took in with him a dog, to defend him from vermin; but the dog was soon destroyed, and the Prisoner’s face much disfigured by them.

  The town gaol at Plymouth had a room for felons known as the clink which was:

  Seventeen feet by eight, by about five feet and a half high, with a wicket in the door, seven inches by five, to admit light and air. To this, three men who were confined near two months, under sentence of Transportation, came by turns for breath. The door had not been opened for five weeks, when I with difficulty entered to see a pale inhabitant. He had been there ten weeks, under sentence of Transportation, and said he had much rather have been hanged than confined in that noisome cell. No yard; no water; no sewer. Fees 15s 10d. No table. Allowance to Debtors, none but on application; Felons twopennyworth of bread a day. No straw.

  An engraving of Francis Wheatley’s 1787 painting of John Howard Visiting and Relieving the Miseries of Prison. Howard (third from right) is shown reproaching an indifferent gaoler over the condition of the prison’s hapless inmates.

  At the start of Howard’s investigations, he travelled in the comfort of a post-chaise carriage. After realising how offensive his clothes became after visiting so many prisons and dungeons, he took to travelling on horseback. To protect himself from the fetid atmosphere and the smallpox and gaol-fever that were rife in many prisons, he carried a phial of vinegar which he sniffed whilst inside.

  Although the prison buildings left much to be desired, the inmates were often treated with considerable laxity. No tools or materials were supplied to provide work, and prisoners were allowed to spend their time in ‘sloth, profaneness, and debauchery’.83 Drinking and gaming were the main occupations with the most popular pastimes being cards, dice, skittles, Mississippi, Portobello, billiards, fives and tennis. At the Fleet, there was a wine club on Monday nights and a beer club on Thursdays, each lasting until 1 or 2 a.m. At the Marshalsea, on one Sunday in the summer of 1775, almost 600 pots of beer were brought in from a nearby public-house, the prisoners not liking the prison’s own beer.84

  In a large part due to Howard’s revelations, two Acts of Parliament were passed in 1774. The Discharged Prisoners Act required that a prisoner acquitted or discharged by a court be set free immediately, with any outstanding discharge fee being paid out of the rates up to a maximum of 13s 4d. The Health of Prisoners Act directed that prison rooms should be scraped and whitewashed at least once a year, and constantly supplied with fresh air by means of ventilators. Warm and cold baths were to be installed in each prison, and separate rooms were to be provided for sick inmates. Finally, each prison was to appoint an experienced physician who was to make a report to the local Justices each quarter.

  As a result of his visits to continental prisons, Howard outlined his ideal institution. It would be on an airy site, near to running water. The gaoler would be a sober man of good character who would live on the premises and receive his income from a salary rather than fees. There would be separate quarters for men, women and juveniles. Debtors and felons would also live apart, with a workshop for those debtors willing to work. Each inmate would have his own sleeping cell. The prison would have its own bath-house and infirmary, and chapel with a separate section for women, out of sight of all the other prisoners. Howard’s own designs for a model county gaol were published in The State of the Prisons and in the following decade influenced the construction of new buildings such as Bodmin Gaol in Cornwall.

  Howard died in 1790 from gaol-fever, contracted on a visit to a prison at Kherson in what is now Ukraine. In 1866, his name was adopted by the newly formed Howard Association, now the Howard League, a charity campaigning for penal reform.

  JAMES NEILD

  James Neild came from a Quaker family in Cheshire but moved to London in 1760 where he later became a successful jeweller. He became involved in penal reform after visiting th
e King’s Bench prison where a fellow apprentice was being held as a debtor. Shocked at what he saw, he visited a number of other prisons in England and France, becoming increasingly disturbed by the number of people incarcerated for owing small debts. In 1773, he helped found The Society for the Relief and Discharge of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts and became its treasurer. The group raised funds to secure the release of debtors, especially those who owed less than £10 and who were judged worthy of assistance, such as men with dependant families. By 1800, the society had achieved the release of 16,405 prisoners at a total cost of £41,748 – averaging out to a very small amount. 85 Despite this success, imprisonment for non-payment of debts was not abolished until the passing of the Administration of Justice Act in 1970.

  Neild also became increasingly concerned that the reforms initiated by John Howard were often being ignored, frequently because of the apathy of local magistrates. A significant improvement in this state of affairs occurred in the years from 1803 to 1813, when the Gentleman’s Magazine regularly published reports of Neild’s far-flung prison visits, written in the form of letters to his friend John Lettsom. Neild’s eye-opening detail of the abuses taking place in some particular prison invariably provoked rapid action from those in charge. Typical was his 1804 description of the gaol and bridewell at Sudbury in Suffolk:

  This miserable prison has for debtors and criminals two rooms on the ground-floor fronting the street, about 13 feet square. A fire-place in each, with iron-bar grated windows, and a small aperture to beg through ... The court-yard being insecure, prisoners have no use of it; and water is not accessible to them. There is no necessary; a bar of wood across one corner of each room with a little straw on the floor is used for this purpose. Gaol very dirty.86