PROBLEMS BREWING
Compared to Coldbath Fields, the dietary for crown prisoners at Lancaster County Gaol in 1812 was relatively straightforward. It consisted of 1lb of bread and a penny’s worth of butter per day, supplemented by a weekly ration of 2½lb of oatmeal and 10lb of potatoes. On Sundays there was an extra ration of ½lb of boiled beef and a quart of broth. Debtors received a county allowance of a shilling’s worth of bread, although when bread prices were high this was supplemented by potatoes. As was the usual practice at this time, those who were able could buy extras to add to the prison issue. The purchase of tea and coffee, however, was denied to female inmates – a matter that caused some complaint. The women, it appeared, were so partial to a daily brew that they had been selling their bread allowance in order to buy supplies and had consequently fallen into a bad state of health. 148
For prisoners at the Fleet, the quality of their beer was a regular concern. One inmate, Philip Maine, described it as ‘flat, thick, and weak, and bad in general’. Another prisoner, James Newham, was deputed by the other Fleet prisoners to complain about ‘the unwholesomeness of the beer’ which he said produced ‘a violent fermentation in my bowels and other injurious effects’. The suppliers, a local brewery company Messrs Barclay, Perkins & Co., were baffled by the complaints and implied that the fault lay with the prison’s keeper of the cellar-head who supervised the storage of the beer.
NEWGATE
By 1818, Newgate had decided that prisoners cooking their own food resulted in too much filth and had ended the practice, although inmates could still use the prison’s own potato steamer. 149 The prison dietary allowance, formerly a daily pound of bread plus a twice-weekly pound of beef, was revised, with the food now being prepared by an employed cook in the prison kitchen. The new dietary comprised a pint of gruel for breakfast and a dinner which alternated between 6oz (cooked weight) of beef and a quart of soup prepared from the previous day’s meat liquor with barley and vegetables added. Members of a Parliamentary Select Committee tasted the bread, soup and gruel and pronounced them good. The bread, baked at the Giltspur Street Compter, was held to be particularly good and wholesome. Nonetheless, complaints from prisoners about the bread led the Select Committee to interview the baker, George Anderson.150 One particularly leaden batch had, claimed Anderson, been due to substandard yeast supplied by a brewer. Other problems were blamed on defective flour, some of which had been ‘damaged’ while being ground in the prison’s own mill. He also revealed that the bread had formerly been baked in large tin pans, sixteen loaves to a pan, but since his oven’s brick bottom had been replaced by proper baker’s tiles he could now place the bread there directly.
LOCAL VARIATIONS
One of the most progressive local prison dietaries recorded by the 1818 Select Committee was that in use at the Maidstone House of Correction. It had resulted from experiments in adjusting the diet and ventilation in the prison following an outbreak of typhus fever there. It included variations for prisoners with and without hard labour, the former receiving a weekly serving of suet pudding – an early appearance of what was later to become a staple of prison menus:
Prisoners engaged in labour
Sunday and Wednesday: 1lb bread, ½lb beef, 1lb potatoes.
Monday: 1lb bread, 1 pint ox-head soup, 1lb potatoes.
Tuesday and Thursday: 1lb bread, ½lb oatmeal, 2lbs potatoes.
Friday: 1lb bread, 1 pint of soup.
Saturday: 1lb bread, 1lb of suet pudding.
For prisoners not engaged in labour
Sunday: 1lb bread, ½lb beef, 1 pound of potatoes.
Wednesday: 1 pint of soup.
Other days: 1½lbs of bread per day.
After 1835, the new prison inspectorate discovered that diets varied widely, even for similar types of establishment. At Grantham’s House of Correction in 1836, the weekly rations comprised just 48½oz of bread and 16oz of meat, while at Haverfordwest the inmates received a massive 288oz of bread, 24½oz of cheese, 21 pints of gruel and 21 pints of milk pottage.151
Even plainer than Grantham’s was the dietary at Derby County Gaol. Here, the inmates’ breakfast and supper each day consisted of a quart of gruel, made with a meagre 2oz of oatmeal, plus a portion of bread. Dinner, every day, comprised 1lb of boiled potatoes and a portion of bread. The total bread allowance each day was 24oz of ‘good wheaten bread’ and there was a daily ration of ¼oz salt. Those imprisoned for more than three months received an additional 2oz of onions a day (or, when onions could not be procured, a red herring was substituted every second day). The prison’s surgeon justified the absence of meat from the diet by his view that ‘the agricultural labourer in Derbyshire has cheese and a little bacon, but butcher’s meat seldom forms a portion of his food’. 152
At York County Gaol prisoners received a weekly ration of 10lb of bread plus an allowance of a shilling to spend as each inmate wished. The inspectors’ criticism of this ‘improper and inconvenient’ practice resulted, by the time of their next report in 1839, in the introduction of a new dietary (below). Seventeen of the week’s twenty-one meals comprised oatmeal pottage and bread, with meat featuring in the remaining four:
Breakfast and Supper
Dinner
Sunday, Tuesday
1 quart oatmeal pottage, ½lb bread
1 quart stew of heads and shins, &c., with ½lb potatoes, ½lb bread.
Monday,
Wednesday,
Saturday
Same
1 quart oatmeal pottage, ½lb bread; or occasionally, ½lb boiled rice, made from 4oz in a raw state, seasoned with a small quantity of allspice, and ½lb bread.
Thursday
Same
5oz beef without bone, after boiling, 1lb potatoes, ½lb bread.
Friday
Same
1 quart broth from the beef of yesterday, &c.; ½lb bread, with leeks or onions, and ¼oz oatmeal for each prisoner.
1oz salt per week for each prisoner.
Across the Pennines, at Lancaster County Gaol, prisoners on hard labour received the same breakfast and supper as at York, but enjoyed a somewhat more varied dinner menu with around five times the allowance of beef, and potatoes served almost every day.
Sunday
1 quart stew made from cows’ shins, one shin to every 14 prisoners.
Monday
½lb beef, boiled, and potatoes.
Tuesday
1 quart rice soup, and potatoes.
Wednesday
½lb beef, boiled, and potatoes.
Thursday
1 quart peas soup, and potatoes.
Friday
½lb beef, made into scouce [scouse].
Saturday
Potatoes and cheese.
3½oz salt per week for each prisoner.
Of the 153 dietaries examined by the prison inspectors in 1836, just over half served meat, usually in the form of beef, with occasional instances of mutton or bacon. Ox heads were often used in soup recipes. Cheese was included in twenty-eight dietaries, mostly in agricultural areas in northern England and the south Midlands. Beer appeared on the regular menu at only five prisons, although at some of the others it could be bought or was provided as a perk to wardsmen. Tea and coffee featured rarely, usually at prisons where they were given to very short term prisoners. Inmates at the Gloucester County Gaol and Penitentiary were unique in receiving a daily pint-and-a-half of mint infused in (presumably hot) water. 153
At the other end of the country, the Exeter Gaol and House of Correction prescribed three dietaries in their 1841 regulations. Dietary No 1, the most generous, was given to prisoners awaiting trial, to those who were condemned, sentenced to transportation or hard labour, or to females nursing their children. The smaller rations of Dietary No 2 were given to those serving a sentence without hard labour. Dietary No 3, the lowest scale, was reserved for vagrants. The allowances for each of the Exeter dietaries are shown below:
Dietary
Males
Females
No. 1
22oz bread and 1½lb potatoes daily; 1lb bacon per week
16oz bread and 1lb potatoes daily; 1lb bacon per week
No. 2
16oz bread and 1½lb potatoes daily; 1lb bacon per week
Same as No. 1
No. 3 (1st imprisonment)
22oz bread and 1½lb potatoes daily
16oz bread and 1lb potatoes daily
No. 3 (2nd and subsequent imprisonments)
22oz bread daily
16oz bread daily
Most prisons by now had separate arrangements for debtors, who either maintained themselves or, if they could not afford to do so, lived on the daily ‘county allowance’ – typically 1lb of bread and 1½lb of potatoes. This was sometimes supplemented by charitably funded contribution – at Lancaster it included a weekly provision of four red herrings and 1lb of rice. Lancaster’s debtor inmates, as elsewhere, were noted as being a particular nuisance. Despite rules to the contrary, they invariably demanded garnish from new arrivals. They were also each allowed to introduce up to a quart of beer a day into the prison, which was often ‘sold’ at twice its value on an internal black market conducted in one of the prison rooms which acted as an informal tavern. It was observed that the allowance of those not requiring or unable to pay for beer was always taken up by those involved in this enterprise.154
More shady dealings were revealed by the prison inspectors’ 1837 report on London’s Giltspur Street. Here, it was discovered that wardsmen – convicted prisoners appointed in each ward to help maintain order and cleanliness – were making an income by illicitly selling goods such as coffee, sugar, butter, raw bacon, eggs, flour and beer. One wardsman’s account book recorded that he had sold one prisoner 12½ pints of beer in a single day.
EARLY RECIPES
As well as the dietaries, official reports sometimes included recipes, or at least ingredient lists, for dishes on prison menus. At Maidstone in 1818, soup and suet pudding were on offer:
Receipt for soup for eighty persons:— 2 bullock’s heads, 14 bushels of potatoes, 6lbs of whole rice, 1½ gallons of pea-flour, onions, leeks, pepper, and salt.
Suet-pudding for eighty persons:—8 gallons of flour, 8lbs of suet.
At Wakefield House of Correction in 1842, the gruel was enlivened by a pinch of spice while the dinner menu included scouse and onion porridge.155
Gruel — four ounces of oatmeal to each quart, seasoned with ground ginger or allspice.
Scouse — one pint and a half made from four ounces of beef, cut off from the bone, one pound and a half of potatoes, and a proportionate quantity of pepper, salt, onions and vegetables.
Broth — to be made from the bones of the preceding day’s beef, together with one ox-head, to every fifty prisoners, thickened with one ounce of oatmeal to each pint, and a proportionate amount of salt, herbs, and pepper.
Soup — stewed from the preceding day’s bones, broken small, along with four ounces of peas, pearl or Scotch barley, to each pint, seasoned with herbs, salt and pepper.
Onion porridge — two ounces of oatmeal and a proportionate quantity of onions to each pint and a half.
DIETARY STANDARDISATION
The prison inspectors’ investigations of the nation’s local prisons soon made it apparent that reforms were urgently needed. In 1842, under the direction of Home Secretary Sir James Graham, a comprehensive review was launched. One particular focus for the inspectors’ inquiry was the subject of prison dietaries and how these varied in relation to the prisoners’ age, sex, length of sentence, imposition of hard labour and so on.
Their report, in 1843, proposed a scheme in which prisoners were allocated to one of ten dietary classes according to the length of their sentence, whether it included hard labour, etc. The guiding principle behind the dietaries was that the quantity of food provided should be ‘sufficient, and not more than sufficient, to maintain health and strength, at the least possible cost’. The inspectors were clear, however, that ‘diet ought not to be made an instrument of punishment’. 156 Within these constraints, it was recommended that prisoners should always receive three meals a day, of which at least two should be hot, that a considerable portion of the food should be solid, and there should be occasional variety. For prisoners employed at hard labour, ‘animal food’ (i.e. meat) was required to form part of the diet. The proposed minimum rations for each dietary class are listed in the tables below:
CLASS 1 — Prisoners confined for any term not exceeding three days.
Males
Females
Breakfast/Supper
1 pint oatmeal gruel.
1 pint oatmeal gruel.
Dinner
1lb bread.
1lb bread.
CLASS 2 — Convicted prisoners for any term exceeding three days, and not exceeding fourteen days.
Males
Females
Breakfast/Supper
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner
12oz bread.
6oz bread.
Prisoners of this Class employed at hard labour to have, in addition, one pint of soup per week.
CLASS 3 — Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms between fourteen days and six weeks.
Males
Females
Breakfast/Supper
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 8oz bread.
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner—
Sun, Thu.
1 pint soup, 8oz bread.
1 pint soup, 6oz bread.
Tue, Sat.
3oz cooked meat without bone, 8oz bread, ½lb potatoes.
3oz cooked meat without bone, 6oz bread, ½lb potatoes.
Mon, Wed, Fri.
8oz bread, 1lb potatoes, or 1 pint gruel when potatoes cannot be obtained.
6oz bread, 1lb potatoes, or 1 pint gruel when potatoes cannot be obtained.
CLASS 4 — Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms between six weeks and three months.
Males
Females
Breakfast/Supper
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 8oz bread.
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner—
Sun, Tue, Thu, Sat.
3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes, 8oz bread.
3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes,
6oz bread.
Mon, Wed, Fri.
1 pint soup, 8oz bread.
1 pint soup, 6oz bread.
CLASS 5 — Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms exceeding three months.
Males
Females
Breakfast—
Sun, Tue, Thu, Sat.
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner
4oz cooked meat without bone, 1lb potatoes, 6oz bread.
3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes,
6oz bread.
Breakfast— Mon, Wed, Fri.
1 pint cocoa, made of ¾oz flaked cocoa or cocoa nibs, sweetened with ¾oz molasses or sugar. 6oz bread.
1 pint cocoa, made of ¾oz flaked cocoa or cocoa nibs, sweetened with ¾oz molasses or sugar. 6oz bread.
Dinner
1 pint soup, 1lb potatoes, 6oz bread.
1 pint soup, ½lb potatoes, 6oz bread.
Supper, all days.
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
CLASS 6 — Convicted Prisoners not employed at hard labour for periods exceeding 14 days.
Males
Females
Breakfast/Supper
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 8oz bread.
1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner—
Sun, Tue, Thu, Sat.
3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes, 8oz bread.
3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes,
Mon, Wed, Fri.
1 pint soup, 8oz bread.
1 pint soup, 6oz bread.
CLASS 7 — Prisoners sentenced by Court to solitary confinement — As Class 6.
CLASS 8 — Prisoners for examination, before Trial, Misdemeanants of 1st Division — As Class 4.
The Prison Cookbook Page 11
