‘I Shall Have to Answer Before my Maker…’ Or: Amelia Dyer and the Baby Farming Trade:

I was a bit sceptical about doing a post about Amelia Dyer, and have held it back for quite a few weeks but I’m not sure why. I think it may be because I think its ‘old ground’ and everyone knows the story already. Then I wondered if that’s just me, because the story of Amelia Dyer was one of the first Victorian crimes I ever read about, and I consider myself a bit of a ‘young enthusiast’ in Victoriana – having only had a big interest in the subject for around 18 months to two years, and only blogging since September 2010.

With this in mind, its often difficult to judge what is ‘old ground’ for people interested in Victoriana – what I find exciting and interesting other people may read and be a bit blasé and bored by. But, after a little consideration, I have decided to edit the post a little, and publish it anyway, because it occurred to me that some people who read – not just this blog, but all blogs on all subjects – wont necessarily be enthusiasts or knowledgeable in the blog subject. I know I certainly visited a lot of websites and blogs in the last few years whilst trying to soak up as much knowledge and as many stories as possible.

So, after reading and re-reading my draft about Amelia Dyer, I thought I would shorten it, and add a bit more about the actual baby farming, and leave out the finer details for reasons of length and to keep it fairly interesting. If at the end you are still interested, or your initial interest in the life of Amelia Dyer has been piqued by this and you want to know more, there are many, far more extensive articles than this about her and baby farming, and also a few books too. I know off hand about a book entitled ‘Amelia Dyer: Angel maker’ which is widely available.

Anyway, this is the post, comments, as ever, appreciated:

The old baby farmer, the wretched Miss Dyer
At the Old Bailey her wages is paid.
In times long ago, we'd 'a' made a big fire,
And roasted so nicely that wicked old jade.

Amelia Dyer was born in 1838, the last of five children of Samuel and Sarah in the small village of Pyle Marsh, near Bristol.

Her father was a master shoemaker, and as such the family was fairly comfortable and the children were privileged enough to be taught to read and write – a luxury afforded to very few children in the 1840’s.

Amelia developed a fondness for literature and poetry, but her childhood was not all plain sailing; her mother became ill with the disease typhus and developed a mental illness in the mid to late 1840’s. Amelia, her siblings and father could only watch as her mother writhed in pain, suffering violent fits and outbursts. The family cared for her as best they could until she died – in pain and mad to the point of being a stranger – in 1848. Little Amelia was 10 years old.

After her mother's death, the family struggled to cope, and Amelia, being the youngest child, was shipped off to live with an aunt in Bristol where she became an apprentice to a corset maker. Ten years later Amelia and her siblings became orphans when their father died in 1859. The shoe making business was carried on by her eldest brother, Thomas. 

In 1861, at the age of 24, Amelia moved into lodgings in Trinity Street, Bristol. There she met, and soon married George Thomas, who was 59. On the marriage certificate they both lied about their age – a fairly common practice at the time – he subtracted 11 years from his age, whilst Amelia added 6 to hers, making it appear that she was 30 and he 48.

For a few years after marrying George, Amelia trained to be a nurse, a difficult, yet respectable job during the 19^th century. She trained also with a midwife named Ellen Dane, from whom she learned some useful skills, most notably, an easier way to earn money than nursing; Ellen told Amelia that she could charge young women who had conceived illegitimate and unwanted children to lodge at her home. She could then help them give birth with her new skills, send them away, insisting that she would look after the unwanted child, and then farm the babies off for adoption, or, if unable to do this – just let them die.

In a society of morality where single parents and illegitimate children were frowned upon, the practice of baby-farming, in which women such as Amela Dyer offered to adopt unwanted and illegitimate children in return for regular payments or a single, up-front fee from the babies’ mothers, was, unfortunately, not uncommon.

These baby-farmers could earn good money from the practice, particularly if a baby was the product of a scandalous affair, had well-off parents, or if the father of the child simply wanted to hush up his involvement with the mother. Fees between £50 and £80 were not uncommon in these circumstances. However, it was more likely that the baby-farmers’ ‘customers’ were just poor young women who either could not afford to keep a child, or, more tragically, could not get a place in the workhouse because of their "immorality". The baby-farmers would charge these women a more modest sum of around £5.

The actual babies were, to most baby-farmers, nothing more than an inconvenience. They had to be fed, cared for, bathed and clothed – all things that would cost money. Women who were in the business of baby farming for the cash were reluctant to spend on other peoples babies, so, to save money and even to hasten the death of the babies, they would be sedated with dangerous medicines available from chemists – most of which would contain opium derivatives, and yet were marketed as being good for babies and children. Some of these can be read about in an earlier post of mine here

Many children died as a result of such dubious practices as their supposed carers kept them in a constantly drugged and sedated state so they were still and quiet and, most importantly, unwilling to eat. This led to many cases of children starving to death.

Any mothers concerned for the safety or welfare of their children would often be too frightened or ashamed to tell the police about any suspected wrongdoing.

Back in the hospital, Amelia listened with interest as Ellen Danes described this money-making scheme.

In 1869, Amelia gave birth to a daughter, Ellen Thomas, but her 67 year old husband, George, died, leaving Amelia needing money. She could only think of one thing to do…

At the same time, an advert in the "Miscellaneous" column of the Bristol Times & Mirror newspaper appeared:

‘Wanted, respectable woman to take young child.’

The advert had been placed by Evelina Marmon, aged 25 who had given birth in a boarding house in Cheltenham to a little girl she named Doris.

Evelina, an attractive girl, worked as a barmaid in the Plough Hotel where she was popular with male customers; so popular, in fact, that she now found herself holding a baby thanks to one of the hotel’s patrons - a baby she could not bring up on her own.

 

Evelina purchased the paper to see if her advertisement had been included, and quite by chance, on the same page, saw an advert that caught her eye:

‘Married couple with no family would adopt healthy child, nice country home. Terms £10.’

Evelina contacted the woman named at the bottom, a “Mrs. Harding”. She met "Mrs. Harding" and paid the £10 fee to her to take baby Doris on the 31^st of March 1896.

The following day, the 1^st of April, “Mrs. Harding” took in another child, Harry Simmons. 

Before “Mrs Harding” took in these two children, on 30^th March 1896, a bargeman taking cargo up the Thames at Reading saw a brown paper parcel lying in the river close to the bank.

Having fished it out with a boat hook, he began to unwrap it when a tiny human leg and foot appeared.

The body was that of Helena Fry; illegitimate child of Mary Fry, and a prosperous local merchant.

Baby Helena had been given to Amelia by Mary after the two arranged to meet at Bristol Temple Meads station on 5th March.

However, when Amelia got home to Reading that evening, she did not carry a baby under her arm, but rather, a brown paper parcel around two feet in length.

She hid the parcel in the house, until, after three weeks the smell became unbearable.

Amelia was then seen leaving the house with the package, on her way to throw it in the river. It did not sink, and the body of little Helena Fry was plucked from the river, 25 days after she had died.

The brown paper parcel that Helena had been wrapped in provided a vital clue for the police; it had the name and address of a Mrs Thomas on it. “Thomas”, it transpired, was one of Amelia’s aliases.

It had taken the police some time to trace Amelia due to her high number of aliases and her frequent changing of address, moving, as she did, between Bristol, Reading, Cardiff and London whenever she sensed the police closing in.

After the discovery of Helena Fry, the river was searched and two other tiny bodies were found;

Doris Marmon aged 4 months, and Harry Simmons, aged 13 months. Both bodies were wrapped in a carpet bag and both had white tapes round their necks.

In all, the corpses of 7 babies, all of whom had been strangled, were recovered from the Thames and each one had the same white tape around their neck, this was Amelia’s modus operandi and she would later tell the police “That [the presence of white tape] was how you could tell it was one of mine”

On 4^th April 1896, Amelia Dyer was arrested and charged with murder.

In Reading gaol Amelia wrote her own confession, here, her own spelling and punctuation is preserved:

Sir will you kindly grant me the favour of presenting this to the magistrates on Saturday the 18th instant I have made this statement out, for I may not have the opportunity then I must relieve my mind I do know and I feel my days are numbered on this earth but I do feel it is an awful thing drawing innocent people into trouble I do know I shal have to answer before my Maker in Heaven for the awful crimes I have committed but as God Almighty is my judge in Heaven a on Hearth neither my daughter Mary Ann Palmer nor her husband Alfred Ernest Palmer I do most solemnly declare neither of them had any thing at all to do with it, they never knew I contemplated doing such a wicked thing until it was to late I am speaking the truth and nothing but the truth as I hope to be forgiven, I myself and I alone must stand before my Maker in Heaven to give a answer for it all witnes my hand Amelia Dyer.

  — 16^th April 1896

On 22^nd May 1896, Amelia appeared at the Old Bailey where she pleaded guilty to only one murder, that of Doris Marmon.

At her trial, friends and family of Amelia’s testified that they had been growing suspicious and uneasy about her activities, and it emerged that she had narrowly escaped discovery on several occasions. 

A man who had seen and spoken to Amelia when she had been disposing of the two bodies at Caversham Lock gave evidence in court, which proved significant.

Amelia’s daughter, Ellen Thomas, also gave graphic evidence that finally ensured her mother's conviction.

Amelia, in defense, offered insanity: after all, she had been twice committed to asylums in Bristol. The prosecution, however, successfully argued and showed that she had only ‘become mentally ill’ when she thought she was close to being caught; both committals coinciding with occasions when Amelia was concerned her crimes might have been exposed.

It took the jury only four and a half minutes to find her guilty. She was sentenced to death by hanging.

During 3 weeks in a condemned cell, Amelia wrote what she described as “her last true and only confession” which was so extensive that it filled five exercise books. She was visited on the night before her execution by the chaplain who asked if she had anything to confess, she offered him her exercise books, saying, "isn't this enough?’”

On Wednesday 10^th June 1896, 58 year old Amelia Dyer stood on the scaffold at Newgate and was asked if she had anything to say. She replied; “I have nothing to say.” She was hanged at 9am precisely.

She called herself "the angel-maker", as she once explained to her own little daughter who was curious about the babies that kept appearing in the household and then disappearing, that she was sending little children to Jesus because he wanted them far more than their mothers did.

Following the case of Amelia Dyer, which brought to light the abuses in baby-farming, adoption laws were made stricter, and local authorities were given the power to police baby farms in the hope of eradicating future abuse.

Despite this, and these authorities scrutinizing newspaper personal ads for the baby-farmers, the trafficking and abuse of infants continued.

Two years after Amelia was executed, railway workers in Newton Abbot, Devon found a parcel. Inside was a three-week-old girl. The infant, though, was not dead, and was found to be the daughter of a widow, Jane Hill. The baby had been given to a Mrs. Stewart, for £12, who had picked up the baby in Plymouth and dumped her on the next train. It has been claimed that "Mrs. Stewart" was Polly, the daughter of Amelia Dyer.

Victorian Prison: Interview With an Ex-Convict

As a follow up to the previous post describing the efforts of the Governors in Prisons to prevent convicts from re-offending when they were released, here is an excellent piece of investigative journalism from my favourite Victorian writer, James Greenwood, from his publication:

 “Low - Life Deeps: An Account of the Strange Fish to be Found There”

I recommend getting hold of anything by Greenwood, its all worth reading and its fairly light hearted.

This is an interview with a newly-released convict, and although he doesn’t say which prison he has been in, the hints suggest that it could be Pentonville, due to its relatively close proximation to Shoreditch and being located on the outskirts of the Metropolis.

Enjoy the wonderful wit and wisdom of Mr Greenwood:

“IT is now nearly six months since I first made the acquaintance of Master Jonathan Maxsey, and then under circumstances that were peculiarly unfavourable to that young person. It was inside one of the great prisons to be found at the outskirts of the metropolis, in which, for the crime of assaulting and robbing an errand-boy, Maxsey had been condemned to compulsory residence for the term of half a year. In company with the worthy Governor, I had been inspecting the gaol and its inmates, and it was not until our interesting tour had been brought, as I imagined, to a termination, that my friend remarked,

  "By-the-bye, there is one case you have not yet seen. Quite a boy he is, but a terrible fellow. I think it was never my misfortune to meet with such an instance of hopeless depravity. He has been here eight or nine times, and I don't know how often elsewhere. He is at present in the dark cell for insolence and throwing a plug of wet oakum in the face of a warder. You shall see him."

So saying, he led the way into a dismal corridor, at the extremity of which was a low-arched portal and a door. This the warder unlocked, and vanished from sight, and was presently heard to unfasten an inner door.

  "Now, 99, turn out here; you're wanted;" and in a few seconds Jonathan Maxsey came shuffling out of the blackness behind him, and stood before us, blinking his eyes rapidly, as though, despite his over-hanging brows, the sudden light painfully affected them. He was not a prepossessing youth - squat-built and square-shouldered, with scarcely any neck, and an almost flat top to his otherwise bullet-shaped head, on which, although it was cropped as short as the gaol scissors could be made to bite it, the reddish brown hair lay as sleek as it does on the hide of dogs of a certain breed. He was said to be fifteen, but looked younger, and, in his tight-fitting suit of prison grey, his hands and feet appeared too large for his body. His legs were slightly bowed, as though in his tender years he had been used to horse-riding - an idea that was favoured by the stablish way in which he carried between his lips a bit of what at first sight looked like straw, but which turned out to be a splinter of wood torn from the hare unplaned "bunk" which in a dark cell is the sole article of furniture.

  "This, I regret to say, sir," said the Governor, laying his hand with the keys in it on the sleek fiat head, "is really the most troublesome boy in the whole prison. I don't believe that he is fifteen years old yet, and to my knowledge he has been in this gaol eight times, and I shouldn't wonder if he is as well acquainted with other prisons. How many times have you been in trouble, 99?"

99 gave the splinter a reflective turn in his mouth, nibbled off a little bit, and spat it out ere he made answer.

  "Oh, I d'n know; what's the good of keepin' count? - wo odds how many?"

  "Twenty times at least, I'll be bound?"

99 drew the splinter into his mouth and chewed and swallowed it with a snort of sulky defiance.

  "So you might be bound if you made it thirty times - five-and-thirty;" said he.

  "I ain't peritickler - wot's the odds?"

  "Well, as I often tell you, 99, the way you seem bent on going can have but one ending. You'll think of what I tell you, and of the good advice you are now so wickedly deaf to, when it is too late."

At this 99 uttered a short laugh.

  "All right, guv'nor; don't you bother. I'm good for the end, whatever it is. You won't funk me by talking about ends, so it's no use your tryin'."

  "Get back to your cell, sir," said the Governor, sternly.

  "Good evenin', gentlemen," remarked Jonathan Maxsey, with a grin and an easy nod; and next instant the double doors shut on him, and he was again buried alive in that vault of pitchy darkness.

I saw the chaplain before I came away, and asked him to let me know how his unpromising patient, 99, progressed; but I heard nothing from him until a few days since, when I received a note, apprising me that no perceptible change had taken place in the young fellow in question, adding, however, that if I still felt any interest in him, he would be discharged from the gaol next morning at ten o'clock, and might be met at the gate.

Nothing could be more plain and simple than such directions, but a greater amount of moral courage was necessary in calmly following them than innocent folk may be aware of. The gaol in which Master Maxsey was confined is a mile or so out of town, and every "delivery day" the meetings at the "gate," or in its immediate vicinity, between discharged prisoners and their friends, are much more numerous than select. It is a queer sight. The rule appears to be not to let out the poor gaol-birds entitled to release all at one flight. The wicket gate swings ajar at intervals of three or four minutes, and they come scurrying forth in ones and twos. There is a broad space to be traversed between the prison portal and the main thoroughfare, and it is both curious and instructive to observe their demeanour on first stepping out again into the free world. In one respect only are they all alike, especially as regards the males. However old their clothes may be, they have in them that constrained and uneasy gait which commonly distinguishes wearers of bran-new suits, and they glance suspiciously at their coat-sleeves, and give their waistcoats a straightening pull, and look down on their trousers and boots as though not more than half satisfied that their moulting from prison plumage is perfect, and that a few of the old tell-tale feathers may not be still adhering here and there.

Perhaps, as a rule, they are amazed that the dilapidated old things should turn out so fresh and smart-looking after their long rest in the gaol wardrobe; perhaps, on the other hand, having yearned for several months for this happy day, when they should, for the last time, strip from their bodies the hateful linsey-woolsey, and encase themselves in their own unconspicuous clothes of honest cut, they are a little disappointed at finding them so wofully seedy and unsuitable for a start in that amended and respectable life they have for so long been resolving to adopt.

One thing is certain, that if, as is asserted, cleanliness as a virtue ranks next to godliness, no body of men could appear as applicants for the renewed confidence of their fellow creatures with a fairer chance of success than these released prisoners. It must, I think, be some peculiar kind of soap with which the gaol-bird performs his final ablution before his emancipation. No common sort with which I am acquainted is capable of imparting such a peculiar chilblainish polish to the ears, or of making the entire countenance appear as though the outer skin had been delicately removed, leaving a surface so pink and tender-looking that the mere act of winking might cause it to crack like an over-ripe plum.

It must be a trying time that getting over the open space between the prison gates and the common street pathway, where, if a man have a mind to, he may speedily be lost in the crowd. In its way, the sensation must be something like that of "walking the plank" aboard ship - just a few steps, and then you go souse into that teeming sea from which you were stranded and left so dismally in the lurch six months ago. It is easy enough to separate the black sheep - the jet black animals, who no more than a blackamoor may be scrubbed white - and the misguided sheep who has strayed from the honest flock, perhaps only this once in all his life, and would give his ears to get back again. Their way of crossing the before-mentioned open space is entirely different.

The sheep whose dye is ingrain and to the roots of its wool leaves the prison with pretty much the same air as a visitor from the country quits the train, and with easy confidence casts about him on the platform for those kind friends who he knows will be there to greet him and convey him straight to the refreshment room. He carries himself with a make-believe easy swagger, and generally with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, excepting when he releases one of them to wave a friendly salute to a faithful ally waiting in the distance. Just the opposite is it with the not utterly lost sheep. As soon as the grate opens to him he would like to take to his heels and run with all his might. He would do so if it were night time, but he don't know who may be looking, and so the next best thing is to endeavour to pass as some workman of honest occupation employed to do a little job within the spiked walls; and it is easy to understand with what delight this sort of man at that moment would exchange the painful cleanness of his face and hands for a whitewash-splashed visage, or a sprinkling of sawdust and a ladder to carry.

It must not be imagined, however, that while with the rest of the porters at the gate, or loitering about the lamp-post at the corner, or peeping over the inner shutter of the beer shop on the opposite side of the way, I am noting these interesting objects in forgetfulness of Master Jonathan Maxsey.

Here he comes at last.

As he quits the prison gate he raises his greasy old cloth cap and bows politely, but with a grin, to the warder on duty - who grins too, and says something which causes Master Maxsey to laugh outright - and then softly whistling, with a brisk step he crosses the open, and reaching the street pavement halts there and looks to the left and to the right, and across the road. There was no fear of my mistaking him, though he was so differently attired when last we had met. He was not conspicuously shabby or ragged. He wore a sort of cutaway black coat, with ample side pockets, and a gay coloured waistcoat, and a bright silk neckerchief of such bulky dimensions that the lobes of his great clean ears rested on it at the sides. His trousers were tight in the legs, and he wore light shoes. There, however, were the same quick, deep-set eyes, the same never-ceasing nibbling at his under and upper lip; and there, though very little was visible of, it outside the close-fitting cap, was the sleek foxy-brown hair close clipped to the skin. I was glad to perceive that he looked up and down the street in vain, though, judging from the scowl that gradually grew on his- bright face, it was evident that he had expected someone who was not there.

The business I had been deputed to negotiate with Master Maxsey was of a nature that might be best attempted without the presence of a third person - especially if that person happened to be one of Master Maxsey's own sort, anxious to welcome that young gentleman back to the lawless life from which, for six months, he had been estranged. After lingering yet a little longer, he turned his face in an easterly direction, and walked away so rapidly that we were nearly a quarter of a mile distant from the prison before I overtook him. He changed colour somewhat, and came to a dead halt as I pronounced his name. One swift glance, however, convinced him that his sudden terror was groundless, and he remarked savagely,

  "What do you want a follerin' me for? What's your game?"

  "To do you a good turn, if you have no objection. I suppose that you are not overwhelmed just now with friends who will take the trouble to run after you for that purpose?"

  "Have you been a running after me?" inquired Master Maxsey, in tones of disgust.

  "I came after you as you left the prison," said I; "we have met before; do you recollect me?"

I could tell by the twinkle in his quick eyes that he did so as I spoke, but, folding his arms, he affected to scrutinize my features reflectively for at least half a minute, at the expiration of which, and with startling suddenness, he seized my hand and shook it warmly.

  "To be sure I recollect you," he exclaimed, with all the heartiness of an old friend. "You come to see me that evenin' when I was in the coal-scuttle; you come along of Old Crabshells. 'Ow are yer?"

I was hardly prepared for this affectionate recognition, but though I strongly suspected its genuineness, I accepted it with the best grace at my command. At the same time, however, I informed him that he was mistaken as to the person who had accompanied me on the painful occasion alluded to - that it was the Governor himself.

  "It's all the same; it's the same party," responded Master Maxsey, cheerfully; "we calls him Old Crabshells, because of the uncommon large size of his shoes. But about that there good turn you was speakin' about just now."

  "First of all," said I, as we crossed to the quiet side of the road and walked along together, "let me ask you if you recollect the few remarks the Governor addressed to you - you know when - and the answers you made?"

  "Let me see," murmured Master Maxsey, communing with himself; "what was it I'd been up to?" and then the pleasant recollection suddenly flashing to his memory, he broke into a fit of laughter loud and long. "Oh, I know now!" he exclaimed; "it was for shying a lump of wet oakum at the redraw" (back slang for warder) "Jolly lark it was! 'You're a quarter of a pound short,' he ses, when he come to weigh my day's dose what I'd been picking in my cell. 'Where is it, yer wagabone?' ses he. 'Find it hinstantly.' 'Oh, please, sir,' I ses, 'it was only a hard bit wot I put in my slop-bowl to soak; and here it is, sir. P'r'aps yer might tell me if it do well enough now, sir?' and turning round sharp, I slapped the whole lot in his blessed eye!"

Master Maxsey wriggled in mirthful convulsions, and laughed until tears ran down his cheeks. This was far from encouraging; but I was under a promise to a philanthropic friend, and I resolved to execute my mission.

  "Now let us talk soberly and quietly for a few minutes. You are at liberty once more, Maxsey. What are you going to do?"

  "How do you mean?" he asked, warily.

  "Have you come to the sensible resolution of keeping at liberty should a fair chance offer itself to you?"

He appeared to consider the question for several seconds, and then replied,

  "Oh yes; that's right enough. I mean to look arter all the fair chances that comes in my way, and I mean to keep my liberty as long as my luck lasts. No fear, I ain't so fond of the steel (prison) as all that."

  "I should say not. You need not set your foot inside a prison again if you will take hold of and stick to the chance I bring you. You appear to be a strong lad, and you are not afraid of work, I suppose?"

  "Course I can work when I'm put to it," returned Master Maxsey, hesitatingly "what kind of work was you thinkin' of guvner?"

  "Well, to come to the point," said I, "there is a friend of mine who, knowing all about you, would be willing to take you, and feed you, and lodge you, and teach you a trade, and if you could but find courage to be industrious, and behave yourself, by the time you are one-and-twenty he would make a bright man of you. The trade you would have to learn is that of a tanner."

  "Ah! how much a week did you say?" Master Maxsey remarked, after a pause.

  "Well, at first some trifle of pocket-money, I dare say; but not very much."

  "Ho. And how many hours a day?"

  "I can't say exactly; ten perhaps."

  "And that's what you call doin' a cove a good turn, is it?" and he turned up the tip of his plastic nose scornfully.

  "As good a turn as any one in the world could do for you," said I.

  "Then wot I got to say is this," returned Master Maxsey, signifying by the abrupt manner in which he came to a standstill that he wished the conference to be terminated then and there - "wot I got to say is this: You and that there tanner wots your friend can keep your jolly good turn, as you calls it, and tie yerselves together with it, and jump over London Bridge. I don't want it; not while I can prig enough in any a hour, p'r'aps, to keep me for a week. Ten hours a day at 'tannerin for a bit of grub, and a fourpenny lodgin'! Not if I knows it. Why, it 'ud be wus to me than a summery conwiction!"

And, too indignant even to bid me good day, the awful young thief turned abruptly into Church-street, Shoreditch, and was quickly lost to view.”

So did the Victorian prison system, work? Obviously not every time. Open the Daily Mail on most days and you’ll read about someone like Jonathan Maxsey, preferring a life of crime to honest work. The other demonised minority is the benefits claimants being targeted by the new government.

This article was written in the 1870’s, have we moved on that much since then?

Victorian Prison: Instruction and Probabtion Rather Than Oppressive Discipline

In the 19^th century, prisons were genuinely repellent places where prisoners were treated the way criminals should be, or were they? Whilst the thought of the Victorian prison often conjures up images of shivering convicts picking oakum, this wasn’t the case in the latter part of the century.

For my writing, I’ve done a bit of research on two prisons in particular, one in London (Pentonville) and one in Dorset (Portland). These prisons were very different establishments. Pentonville was far more modern, and regarded as a prison of the future due to Joshua Jebb’s radical design (see below), where as Portland, despite being six years newer than Pentonville, was a far more traditional style “hard labour” prison. So, I thought I’d share a little, if there’s appetite, I’ll post a bit more.

Pentonville prison, or “The Model Prison” as it was known, was designed by Jebb, the former military engineer who went on to become the surveyor general of convict prisons because transportation had ended, and so prisoners had to be dealt with at home. With Millbank being the only ‘large’ prison in London, Jebb set about designing a prison that could utilize prisoners to the advantage of society.

His prison, “Pentonville” was opened in 1842, and the home secretary at the time, Sir James Graham said that it was to be a prison of:

“Instruction and probation, rather than oppressive discipline”.

To a certain extent, it was. Whilst incarcerated at Pentonville, a convict could learn trades such as shoe-making or tailoring, or if he was well behaved enough, work in the kitchen making food for other inmates. The idea was that the man could go into the prison as a criminal and come out as a tradesman, or at least with some degree of education ready to serve society and pay his taxes rather than turn to crime.

Clearly, they weren’t making Saville Row suits, they made uniforms for other prisoners, but the kernel of a trade was there for them to develop once they were released. By all accounts, the surroundings were less than oppressive too.

When Henry Mayhew visited Pentonville in 1862, one gets the feeling from his first impression that he was expecting some kind of Newgate-style Gaol, but he was quite surprised:

“The first thing that strikes the mind on entering the prison passage, is the wondrous and perfectly Dutch-like cleanliness pervading the place. The floor, which is of asphalte, has been polished, by continual sweeping, so bright that we can hardly believe it has not been black-leaded, and so utterly free from dust are all the mouldings of the trim stucco walls, that we would defy the sharpest housewife to get as much off upon her fingers as she could brush even from a butterfly's wing. In no private house is it possible to see the like of this dainty cleanliness, and as we walk along the passage we cannot help wondering why it is that we should find the perfection of the domestic virtue in such an abiding-place.”

The building was light and airy and – as Mayhew said – very clean. The inmates cleaned the prison as a strict morning ritual that was carried out “with military precision” and there was a chapel and even a schoolroom.                      
However, there was some controversy over one aspect of “The Model Prison” Whilst the “Instruction and Probation” element was there to be seen with the teaching of trades, the contentious feature of Pentonville was its use of “The Separate System”.

Pentonville

“The separate system is defined by the Surveyor-General of Prisons as that mode of penal discipline ‘in which each individual prisoner is confined in a cell, which becomes his workshop by day and his bed-room by night, so as to be effectually prevented from holding communication with, or even being seen sufficiently to be recognized by a fellow-prisoner.’
The object of this discipline is stated to be twofold. It is enforced, not only to prevent the prisoner having intercourse with his fellow-prisoners, but to compel him to hold communion with himself. He is excluded from the society of the other criminal inmates of the prison, because experience has shown that such society is injurious, and he is urged to make his conduct the subject of his own reflections, because it is almost universally found that such self-communion is the precursor of moral amendment.”

So the prisoners were kept in their cell, in which they slept, worked and ate, kept away from other prisoners who may be a bad influence on them and cause them to commit further crimes upon their release. A good idea?

The prisoners neither spoke, nor saw anyone else whilst they were in their cell. Remember: “Instruction and probation, rather than oppressive discipline”.

There were some objections to the separate system. A lot of people found the discipline was too severe, and that the separate system was:

“abandoning its victim to despair, by consigning a vacant or guilty mind to all the terrible depression of unbroken solitude. Indeed, it is often condemned as being another form of solitary confinement, the idea of which is so closely connected in the public mind with the dark dungeons and oppressive cruelty of the Middle Ages, as to be sufficient to excite the strongest emotions of abhorrence in every English bosom.”

Other critics claimed that the physical health of a prisoner would deteriorate through sitting alone in a cell all day, and that solitude would make him feel like he has been cast out of society completely for his crimes, some even said it could turn the solitary man “mad”.

(The separate system should not be confused with solitary confinement, in which, due to bad behaviour or refusal to work, a prisoner is taken to a separate wing, or often, a cellar of some sorts within the prison, and chained in a tiny, windowless cell and fed nothing but bread and water as a punishment.)

The only exercise the prisoners got was in the yard, in which they walked in circles, roughly two feet apart at all times. This distance was regulated by a length of rope with knots tied in it at two-foot intervals. The prisoners would each hold a knot, thus guaranteeing that they were all the requisite distance apart. Everything at Pentonville was done with exact timing to the minute, and each task was signalled to start by the prison bell, and timed by warders.

If today’s media is to be believed with regards to 21^st century prisons, Victorian prison life seems a world away from what today’s inmates would recognise.

Interlude: Arriving at a Victorian Prison:-

A few months ago I was lucky to get hold of an excellent old book from 1878 entitled “Five Years Penal Servitude” by an anonymous author calling himself “One-Who-Has Endured-It” Essentially, the book is the journal, or memoir, of someone who has spent five years in various prisons. The prisons in which the author was held are Newgate, Millbank and Dartmoor. In it, you get a great description of being admitted to prison. I’ve had to put it into my own words for my notes, taken from several pages of the book, so sorry for the lack of descriptive language and the “note form” but the description of the basic admittance routine is as follows:

Upon arrival at prison, the convicts sit in the cold reception room in silence, a yard apart from each other and watched by a warder to ensure no communication took place.

One by one they are called to a desk to surrender personal property. As the items are laid out a warder enters their description into the property book. No personal items are allowed into the prison at all.

Prisoners are made to step on, and crush items such as combs or toothbrushes before removing their clothes and being searched before bathing.

The baths were filthy, prisoners would enter together and be separated by corrugated iron partitions covered with slime. The water was not clear, but a kind of grey. Skin conditions and disease flowed and they all bathed in the same water, then dried on the same large towel.

After bathing, they were led to another desk where they were shown their clothing. “Do you identify these as your clothes?” they were asked, before watching their clothing get cast aside and set upon a pile of other clothes and rags.

Next came the medical examination in which they were weighed, measured and looked at by a doctor before being pronounced either fit or unfit for labour.

Lastly, the hair is cut as close to the scalp as the scissors will go, cut and pulled off in great lumps and with great haste until the officer is satisfied he can feel the scalp.

The beard also comes off in this process.

A cloth disc bore the prisoner’s number, which was his cell number and his new name. this disc was to be hung on the top button of his jacket.

The rules were then read to the new prisoners by the principal warder, this took 30 – 60mins but most prisoners would probably be too shocked or scared to remember them all.

The day would drag and seem endless due to the constant waiting around at each process. After being read the rules, they were shown to their cells.

Portland Prison, as I hinted earlier, was a different proposition to Pentonville altogether. The Pentonville cells were, in prison cell terms anyway, light and airy and just a bit bigger than the interior of an omnibus. They contained gas lighting, a copper basin, a water tap, a hammock and the eating utensils the prisoner required. At Portland, however, the cells were gloomy and dark, with cold corrugated iron walls and stone or asphalt floor which probably got extremely cold on winter nights with the sea breeze battering the prison, and very hot in the summer.

No trades were taught at Portland, neither was there a schoolroom, but there was work; Portland stone was quarried by the prisoners around a mile from the prison. They used hammers, picks and cranes to break the stone away from the ground, and then took it back to the prison to be broken by hammers in the yard if required for things such as railway tracks, or the stone was shipped away as large blocks used for building.

Stone Dressing at Portland Prison

In London, The Bank of England, Mansion House and the National Gallery are made of Portland stone, as well as the cenotaph in Whitehall and of course, St Paul’s cathedral.

The Nottingham Council House, is built with Portland Stone, and the public buildings in Cardiff's civic centre.

In Liverpool, both the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building, are clad with Portland stone. 

The journey to Portland in the late 1800s would have been an arduous one for convicts, wherever they were from in the UK. They would start at a short-term prison, such as Pentonville, mentioned above, and be loaded into omnibuses, chained to each other by the ankle and accompanied by armed warders. This omnibus would take them to the train station where they would board the train to Portland. In the days when the top speed of trains’ was around 50-60mph, this was a long journey.

At the other end, in Portland, after a long journey on the train. They would be put in another omnibus and taken to the prison, where the previously mentioned greeting routine would take place.

Victorian Prisons are fascinating, the governors, and government, seemed to have so many ideas about the best way to treat the prisoners, be it through rehabilitation or punishment. Some prisons were, obviously better than others and there is plenty of journalism to be found that was written during the Victorian period on all kinds of aspects on prisons.

Both of the prisons mentioned here still stand today. Portland held convicts until 1921, when it became a Borstal (a prison for youths) and then in 1988 it became a Young Offenders Institute, taking prisoners between 18 and 21 years of age.

So not all Victorian prisons were like Newgate. It could be said that today’s “softly softly” approach to prisoners that the newspapers and radio stations talk about is not attributed to Tony Blair and New Labour at all, but to a seed planted 168 years ago at Pentonville Prison.