MILLBANK
In 1810, more than thirty years after its conception, the plan to build a new, large, national penitentiary was revived. A parliamentary Select Committee was set up and took evidence from a number of leading figures. Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, another devotee of John Howard, who had transformed the county prisons in Gloucestershire, described his use of a ‘stage’ system in which the first third of a prisoner’s sentence was spent in solitude. The Rev. John Becher gave details of the ‘association’ system used at the Southwell House of Correction where groups of inmates were encouraged to work by receiving a share of the profits from their labour. The committee also heard the views of Jeremy Bentham who was still eager to promote the virtues of his panopticon, but he was effectively sidelined from the project.
A bird’s-eye view of the Millbank prison. Occupants of the present-day site include the Tate Gallery and the headquarters of the Prison Service.
The committee decided to recommend construction of a single, large prison for up to 600 convicts – a figure later increased to 1,000. A competition for its design took place, the winning plan being submitted by William Williams. The construction work, initially expected to cost in the order of £300,000, began in 1812 at Bentham’s own Millbank site. For the land and for all his trouble, Bentham received compensation to the tune of £23,000. Problems with the marshy ground delayed the opening of the prison until 1816 and building was not finally completed until 1821, by which time the cost had risen to the then huge sum of £450,000.129
Millbank’s novel design revolved around a central hexagon which housed the governor, matron, steward, surgeon, chaplain, master manufacturer and the bakery. Each of the hexagon’s six sides then formed the inner edge of a three-storey pentagonal cell block. The area within each cell block was divided into five airing yards with a tall watch-tower at the centre. Each of the cell blocks was, in effect, a miniature panopticon.
Despite an optimistic start, including a visit by the Duchess of York in 1817, Millbank was beset by problems. The sheer size of the building, its circular layout and the labyrinth of winding staircases, dark passages, and innumerable doors and gates proved totally confusing. One old warder, even after several years at the prison, still carried a piece of chalk to help him mark his way around.130 There were also regular disturbances and even riots. One particularly embarrassing incident took place in April 1818 during a Sunday morning service in the chapel at which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was present. Discontent about recent problems with the prison’s bread came to head with male inmates banging the flaps on their seats and throwing loaves around. Some of the women began chants of ‘Give us our daily bread’ and ‘Better bread!’ while others began screaming or fainting, and eventually were all escorted from the room. Further unrest was only quelled with the help of the Bow Street Runners.131
The regime at Millbank combined those in use in the gaols at Gloucester and Southwell. Those prisoners serving the first half of their sentence (known as First Class inmates) worked and slept in the seclusion of their individual cells. Those in the second half of their sentence (the Second Class) performed their labour in groups. Complete isolation of the First Class inmates proved to be impossible, however – staff were unable to prevent them communicating when they were attending chapel, taking exercise or working a shift on the prison’s corn mills or water pumps. It was soon concluded that any beneficial effects of the First Class were rapidly undone in the Second so, from 1832, inmates spent the whole of their sentence in solitude. Even that proved ineffective. Each cell had two doors, an inner one of bars and an outer one of wood. Because of the building’s poor ventilation, the outer doors were left open during the day – allowing prisoners in adjacent cells to talk to one another.
New arrivals at the prison were given a haircut, bath and medical examination. Their own clothes were either sold or, if ‘foul or unfit to be preserved’, burned. The prison uniform, slightly different for the two classes, was decreed to be made of cheap and coarse materials, and distinctively marked so as to identify escapees. The wearing of a black armband (or ribbon for women) was permitted following the death of a near relation.
The prisoners’ daily routine comprised ten sections, each signalled by the ringing of a bell:
Bell
Time
Activity
1
5.30 (or daybreak in winter)
Rise, dress, comb hair, visit washroom under supervision of Turnkey.
2
6.00
Begin work.
3
8.30
Prisoners appointed Wardsmen/Wardswomen collect porridge or gruel from kitchens for distribution to other inmates.
4
9.00
Eat breakfast.
5
9.30
Resume work.
6
12.30
Wardsmen/Wardswomen collect dinners.
7
13.00
Eat dinner and take air or exercise.
8
14.00
Resume work.
9
18.00 (or sunset in winter)
Finish work.
10
18.00 (or 19.00 in winter)
Return to cell for night. Gruel or porridge delivered to cell.
Establishing what was eventually to become normal prison practice, all food for Millbank’s inmates was supplied by the institution. The prison’s 1817 dietary (below) also includes one of the first instances of porridge making its appearance as the standard prisoner’s breakfast fare:
DAILY, 1lb of Bread, made of whole Meal; and to serve the day.
BREAKFAST
1 pint of hot gruel or porridge.
DINNER
Sundays
Tuesdays
Thursdays
Saturdays
6oz of clods, stickings, or other coarse pieces of Beef (without bone, and after boiling) with ½ a pint of the Broth made there from 1lb of sound Potatoes, well boiled.
Mondays
Wednesdays
Fridays
1 quart of Broth, thickened with Scotch barley, rice, potatoes, or pease, with the addition of cabbages, turnips, or other cheap vegetables.
1lb of sound Potatoes, well boiled.
SUPPER
1 pint of hot gruel or porridge.
N.B.—Prisoners may reserve such part of the provision previously delivered out for their Supper.
Salt and Pepper as the Committee shall direct.
The only Liquor allowed to prisoners in health (except broth, gruel or porridge) shall be Water.
Prisoners confined to Bread and Water diet, for punishment, shall be allowed an addition of ½lb of Bread, instead of other provisions.
Prisoners, employed in works of extraordinary labour, or under circumstances which may render it necessary, may be allowed an addition to the quantity of their provisions.
The only variation in the dietary came on Christmas Day, when the meat was roasted (rather than boiled) and an additional 8oz of baked pudding was served. Prisoners who were ‘deficient in cleanliness’ were liable to have their meat and vegetables withheld. More serious offences could be punished by a diet of bread and water and/or confinement in a dark cell for up to a month.
In 1822, Millbank’s Medical Superintendent, Dr Copland Hutchinson, concluded that the Millbank dietary was more liberal than that found in most other prisons. He persuaded the prison’s Committee of Management to adopt the new dietary shown below. The most significant change was in the midday dinner provision – the daily pound of potatoes and four-times-a-week ration of meat had gone and in its place was an unchanging portion of soup.
MORNING
Males
12oz of Bread, and 1 pint of Gruel
Females
9oz of Bread, and ¾ pint of Gruel
NOON
Males
12oz of Bread, and 1 pint of Soup
Females
&nbs
p; 9oz of Bread, and ¾ pint of Soup
EVENING
Males
1 pint of Soup
Females
¾ pint of Soup
The Soup to be made with Ox heads, in lieu of other meat, in the proportion of one Ox head for about 100 Male prisoners, and the same for about 120 Female prisoners; and to be thickened with Vegetables and Pease, or Barley alternately, either weekly or daily, as may be found most convenient.
Within a few months, the health of the prisoners was in serious decline. They became pale, languid, thin, feeble and unable to perform their usual labour. There were also numerous cases of diarrhoea and dysentery. More than half the inmates were affected, females more than males, and those in the Second Class more than those in the First. One group of prisoners who were almost entirely unscathed were those who worked in the prison kitchens. Eventually, two outside physicians were called in and diagnosed the mysterious illness as a combination of infectious dysentery and ‘sea-scurvy’. Scurvy, whose symptoms included spongy and bleeding gums, results from a vitamin C deficiency but was then attributed to factors such as insufficient food, cold, damp, fatigue and sea air. An immediate change in the Millbank diet was ordered, with a daily allowance of 4oz of meat and 8oz of rice replacing the dinner-time soup, and white bread being provided instead of brown. Each prisoner was also given an orange at each meal. In the longer term, it was recommended that the amount of meat in the diet should be increased, that only good quality white bread be used, and that at least one meal a day should be given in solid form. The potato ration was not restored, however.
Although the change in the Millbank diet appeared to produce a rapid improvement in the prisoners’ health, there was then a widespread relapse. It was decided that the building itself was contributing to the problems and would have to be evacuated while the necessary changes were made. Four naval vessels at Woolwich were pressed into service as prison hulks, the Ethalion and Dromedary (housing 467 male convicts) and the Narcissus and Heroine (167 females). The transfer of Millbank’s residents began in August 1823 and the prison was closed for a year, during which time all the rooms were fumigated with chlorine and extensive improvements made to the ventilation and drainage. For the Millbank prisoners now on the hulks, conditions were often no less unpleasant than those they had left behind. The continuing level of sickness among the women in particular led to many of them being given free pardons, while some of the men were transferred to the fleet of regular hulks.
Despite the efforts to improve the running of Millbank, it continued to suffer from problems and a frequent turnover of governors. More seriously, it became increasingly clear that keeping prisoners separated over long periods was not without its consequences. In 1841, a disturbing increase in the numbers of inmates diagnosed as insane led to the initial period of separation being reduced to three months. Finally, in 1843, the Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, admitted that, as a penitentiary, Millbank had been an entire failure and it would become a short-term holding prison for those awaiting transportation.
THE SEPARATE AND SILENT SYSTEMS
During the 1830s, considerable debate took place about the relative merits of two systems of discipline, both of which had come into use at different prisons in America. The ‘silent’ system, developed at Auburn prison in New York State, allowed prisoners to associate during their daytime activities but not speak. The alternative ‘separate’ system, deployed at prisons such as Cherry Hill in Philadelphia, kept prisoners in isolation – work, exercise and mealtimes all took place in solitude. Opponents of the silent system criticised the corporal punishment that was invariably required to suppress communication and saw the separate system as one that fostered penitence and reformation. Opponents of the separate system saw it as depriving prisoners of natural human contact and, in purely practical terms, being more expensive to implement in terms of the accommodation and staff required.
Use of the separate system in England gained momentum following the 1835 Prisons Act, which increased central involvement in all the country’s prisons. Each prison’s rules were now required to be submitted for the Home Secretary’s approval, and inspectors were appointed to visit every prison at least once a year. The inspectors appointed for the ‘Home District’ were the Reverend Whitworth Russell (a former chaplain at Millbank) and William Crawford – both staunch supporters of the separate system. In the scheme they favoured, inmates would sleep, work and eat in a spacious and self-contained cell, with no contact allowed with other prisoners. The daily routine would include time for reflection, religious devotions, exercise and receiving regular visits from prison officers, particularly the chaplain.
Crawford and Russell produced a number of designs for model prisons in which their scheme could be implemented, with some of their plans being taken up by local prisons interested in introducing the separate system. This trend was given added impetus in the 1839 Prisons Act under which all new prison plans required approval from the central government in the shape of Joshua Jebb, the Home Office’s advisor and subsequently Surveyor General of Prisons. The Act effectively gave official endorsement to the separate system which, it insisted, was quite different from solitary confinement.
Crawford and Russell’s greatest success, however, came in 1838 when their proposal to erect a large model prison in London gained support from the Home Secretary, Lord Russell, who also just happened to be Whitworth Russell’s uncle.
PENTONVILLE
The site chosen for the new ‘Model Prison, on the separate system’ was at Pentonville in north London. Construction began in April 1840, and the first inmates arrived in December 1842.
In addition to its role as a model prison, Pentonville’s function within the penal system was to provide an initial term, normally eighteen months, of probationary discipline and labour for selected convicts prior to their transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. Those behaving well would receive a ‘ticket-of-leave’, effectively freedom in their new country. Those performing indifferently would be given a probationary pass, a status which imposed some restrictions of their movement and earnings. For those whose conduct at Pentonville was deemed unsatisfactory, their destination would be a convict labour settlement.
The architect of Pentonville was Joshua Jebb, but its design was clearly based on the ideas of Crawford and Russell. The main prison building comprised a central administration block from which four wings radiated like the spokes of a half-cartwheel. Each wing contained 130 cells arranged in three galleries, one above the other, with each floor containing forty or so individual cells. From the central hall it was possible for staff to have a view of every cell door. Inside each cell was an alarm handle which rang a bell and raised a semaphore indicator outside the cell’s sound-proof door.
The regime imposed at Pentonville was a rigorous form of the separate system. Prisoners slept, worked and ate in their cells, only going outside for exercise or to attend chapel, at which times they wore turned-down caps (later masks) to conceal their faces. The circular exercise yards were divided into individual segments at the centre of which was an observation post. The chapel, too, was constructed with partitions between each seat to prevent communication.
An important aim of Pentonville was to equip each inmate with a trade by which they could earn their living in Australia. Instructors were employed for a variety of trades including carpentry, shoemaking, tailoring, rug and mat weaving, linen and cotton weaving, and basket making. Prisoners were also provided with twice-weekly classes which included reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, grammar and scripture. A Bible, prayer book and hymn book were given to every inmate able to use them.
A bird’s-eye view of Pentonville prison showing the prison buildings, segmented circular exercise yards and perimeter wall.
Pentonville cells, 13ft by 7ft by 9ft high, were fitted with a hammock, table and stool, and a copper wash-basin which drained into an earthenware lavatory. Each cell had a non-opening window high up in its
wall, with ventilation and heating provided through a system of flues and gratings in the walls.
The individual high-sided pews in Pentonville’s prison chapel were intended to prevent inmates communicating during services. However, the governor’s report for 1852 noted seventy attempts to do so, plus a further six of ‘dancing in chapel, mimicking chaplain, and other misconduct during divine service’.
Convicts exercising at Pentonville in the 1850s. The masks prevented all communication, even by facial expression, and also prevented prisoners from recognising one another.
As at Millbank, the daily routine, from rising at 05.30 until lights out at 21.00, was timetabled with military precision. Parties of sixteen prisoners, in single file at 5-yard intervals, were marched from their cells for sessions of exercise, worship or labour – pumping water from the prison’s own 370ft deep artesian well. The warders’ activities were regulated by special clocks around the prison, with levers requiring to be pressed at preset times. Moving inmates from their cells to the chapel, for example, was to occupy exactly six and a half minutes.
The formulation of the dietary at Pentonville received special attention, with the prison’s medical officer, Dr Owen Rees, examining those in use at other prisons, on board the hulks and in hospitals and workhouses. He also weighed prisoners regularly to assess the adequacy of the food. His initial dietary, comprising bread, cocoa, gruel, five meat and potato dinners a week, and two cheese dinners, resulted in 62 per cent of the prisoners losing weight. Increasing the daily bread allowance from 16oz to 20oz reduced weight losses but still resulted in health problems such as ‘debility’. Restoring the bread to 16oz but serving meat and potato dinners every day still resulted in a modest but widespread weight loss. Upping the daily bread allowance to 20oz and the potato ration from ½lb to 1lb, at last gave an acceptable level of weight maintenance.132 The final dietary is shown below:
The Prison Cookbook Page 9
