Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I IN THE BEGINNING, 600–1500
- PART II SQUALOR CARCERIS, 1500–1750
- PART III EXPERIMENTATION WITH IMPRISONMENT, 1750–1863
- 11 Diving into the Depths of Dungeons
- 12 Flotsam and Jetsam
- 13 Mr Bentham's Haunted House
- 14 The Angel of the Prisons
- 15 Mr Holford's Fattening House
- 16 Goodies and Noodles
- 17 Silence or Separation?
- 18 The ‘Model Prison’
- 19 The Universal Syllabub of Philanthropic Twaddle
- 20 Bleak House
- 21 Top Marks
- PART IV PUNISH AND BE DAMNED, 1863–1895
- PART V THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, 1895–1965
- PART VI SAFE AND SECURE? 1965–2018
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - Flotsam and Jetsam
from PART III - EXPERIMENTATION WITH IMPRISONMENT, 1750–1863
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 September 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I IN THE BEGINNING, 600–1500
- PART II SQUALOR CARCERIS, 1500–1750
- PART III EXPERIMENTATION WITH IMPRISONMENT, 1750–1863
- 11 Diving into the Depths of Dungeons
- 12 Flotsam and Jetsam
- 13 Mr Bentham's Haunted House
- 14 The Angel of the Prisons
- 15 Mr Holford's Fattening House
- 16 Goodies and Noodles
- 17 Silence or Separation?
- 18 The ‘Model Prison’
- 19 The Universal Syllabub of Philanthropic Twaddle
- 20 Bleak House
- 21 Top Marks
- PART IV PUNISH AND BE DAMNED, 1863–1895
- PART V THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, 1895–1965
- PART VI SAFE AND SECURE? 1965–2018
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A sentence of transportation to Botany Bay translated into common sense is this: ‘Because you have committed this offence, the Sentence of the Court is that you shall no longer be burthened with the support of your wife and family. You shall be immediately removed from a very bad climate, and a country overburthened with people, to one of the finest Regions of the Earth where the demand for human labour is every hour increasing, and where it is highly probable you may ultimately regain your character and improve your fortune. The Court has been induced to pass this sentence upon you in consequence of the many aggravating circumstances of your case, and the hope that your fate will be a warning to others.
Sydney SmithIn 1584 Richard Hakluyt, drawing attention to ‘the many thousands of idle persons’ within the realm, ‘whereby all the prisons of the land are daily pestered and stuffed full of them where either they pitifully pine away or else at length are miserably hanged’, recommended that ‘these petty thieves might be condemned for certain years in the western parts’ in sawing and felling of timber and ‘in the more southern parts’ in planting sugar canes and gathering cotton. England was full and overflowing with the workless; the New World was empty and eager for workers. Emptying the former and filling the latter was to the benefit of both. The indolent would become industrious. Prosperity would replace poverty. Everyone would be a winner. It was this beguiling argument that would sustain transportation throughout its history from the beginning of the seventeenth century to America until the middle of the nineteenth to Australia.
England's, and later Britain's, expansion overseas made this suggestion possible. As early as 1598 an Act ‘for the punishment of rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars’ sanctioned it, along with many other measures. ‘Incorrigible rogues’ were to be banished the realm ‘and at the charge of [the] country shall be conveyed unto such parts beyond the seas as shall be … for that purpose assigned by the Privy Council’. To return without licence was death.
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- Shades of the Prison HouseA History of Incarceration in the British Isles, pp. 139 - 151Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019