Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I IN THE BEGINNING, 600–1500
- PART II SQUALOR CARCERIS, 1500–1750
- 4 Bridewells, Counters and the Clink
- 5 Higher than the Stars
- 6 Treason in the Cheese
- 7 Plague, Pudding and Pie
- 8 A Newgate Pastoral
- 9 The Ordinary and Extra-Ordinary
- 10 Gaol Delivery
- PART III EXPERIMENTATION WITH IMPRISONMENT, 1750–1863
- 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
10 - Gaol Delivery
from PART II - SQUALOR CARCERIS, 1500–1750
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
- 4 Bridewells, Counters and the Clink
- 5 Higher than the Stars
- 6 Treason in the Cheese
- 7 Plague, Pudding and Pie
- 8 A Newgate Pastoral
- 9 The Ordinary and Extra-Ordinary
- 10 Gaol Delivery
- PART III EXPERIMENTATION WITH IMPRISONMENT, 1750–1863
- 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
As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw a solitary cell;
And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint for improving his prisons in Hell.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeThe universal destruction of the prisons was a vast project, but such a one as was not altogether improbable to be a favourite scheme with a lawless rabble.
Thomas HolcroftPopular detestation of English prisons came to its climax in 1780, one of the last times when they were the direct targets of mob attack. This was during the course of the anti-Catholic Gordon riots, which took place between two Fridays, the 2nd and 9th of June, and caused more damage to London in those few days than was done to Paris in the whole course of the French Revolution.
These citadels of justice – or of oppressive state power – were not alone in coming under attack, and Catholics were not the only objects of ire. There were other grievances mingling with prejudice, as well as soft and lucrative targets aplenty. Foreign embassies and their ‘papist’ chapels suffered, as did the Irish community whose chapels, schools and houses were all vulnerable. The Bank of England, the embodiment of capital, was another potential victim. The Old Bailey was badly damaged and plans were afoot to destroy the Inns of Court. Specific agents of the law were subjected to rough justice. The house of Sir John Fielding, the magistrate who examined the first rioters arrested and whose brother, Henry, had founded the Bow Street Runners, was besieged, as was that of the Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, whose singular lack of anti-Catholic bigotry made him the most prominent victim of the mob. The latter's property, undefended by the troops nearby, was completely destroyed and with it his vast and irreplaceable legal library. It was ‘a martyrdom’.
Prisons proved an irresistible magnet, incarnating popular disquiet. Newgate, the Fleet, Marshalsea, both compters, the King's Bench prison, New Prison, the Clink and the Tothill Fields bridewell in Westminster were all ‘liberated’ and several were destroyed. Such were the fruits of popular detestation. Newgate was top of the list, the most hated of all, the elaborate ornamentation of its facade mocking the squalor within, the use of leg-irons as a decorative motif on the windows being an abiding provocation.
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- Shades of the Prison HouseA History of Incarceration in the British Isles, pp. 112 - 122Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019