Alexander Paterson (‘Alec’ to his friends, ‘Pat’ to his comrades, ‘A.P.’ to his colleagues) was an extraordinary man who made a deep impression on everyone he met, and whose achievements in penal reform and especially in the development of borstals were celebrated not just in Great Britain but in many other countries wrestling with the problems and purpose of incarceration. A contemporary said of him that he had ‘left the mark of his wisdom and compassion on every aspect of progressive prison administration’ and was ‘as famous in the world of prison reform as Elizabeth Fry and John Howard.’ Yet, now, he is almost forgotten. Who today knows that Paterson Park, a small and undistinguished area of greenery in South London is named after him? He appears in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and in Who Was Who, and there are short biographical sketches in a number of works. Sources are rarely cited and detail is sparse. I became fascinated by this elusive figure when researching a book on the history of incarceration in the British Isles. I looked in vain for a full and comprehensive biography. There is none, an extraordinary lacuna given his significance. It was time to rectify the omission.

Embarking on a biographical trail along which no one has ventured has its challenges as well as its rewards when some or other fact is unearthed or connection made. The following is based upon all I could glean from his writings, including his various reports, articles and book prefaces, as well as from birth, marriage and death certificates, census returns and land registry entries, college archives, newspapers recording his success at the Oxford Union, letters he wrote during the Great War, personal and regimental war diaries, Prison Commission, Home Office and Colonial Office deposits, and books by his contemporaries, friends, colleagues and others.