Source pack Source A: Elizabeth Fry s reforms Elizabeth Fry first visited Newgate prison in 1813. She was so shocked by the conditions that she set up the Association for the improvement of female prisoners in Newgate in 1817. She spent the rest of her life trying to improve things for prisoners. She encouraged them to clean up their cells and found them work knitting socks. Fry was most famous for helping women prisoners to read and write and she began a school for prisoners' children and held bible readings. In 1818 she toured prisons around the country and wrote a book. By 1823 her campaign influenced Sir Robert Peel's Gaols Act; female prisoners now had to have female warders. In 1840 she set up a nurse s training school that inspired Florence Nightingale. During 1841 she visited European countries to spread her message. Source B: New prison design The design gave warders a clear view of a whole wing of the prison from the central area. Huntingdon County Gaol and House of Correction, England, built c1828 to design by William Wilkins. Radiating principle: Treadmills for grinding corn and raising water worked by prisoners: Prison uniform: Chaplain, The Rev. HA Maule. Woodcut, London, 1836. www.teachithistory.co.uk 2017 28071 Page 1 of 7
Source C: The Gaol Act 1823 The Home Secretary, Robert Peel s Gaols Act only applied to the biggest prisons, which meant it applied to 130 in London and the larger towns and cities in the country. The Act said: prisons must be secure and healthy with proper fresh water supply and drains prisoners were not allowed to keep pets prisoners were to be given enough proper food jailers were to be paid and had to wear a uniform magistrates were to visit prisons each prison had to have a paid governor and a chaplain prisoners had to attend chapel and receive religious instruction female prisoners had to be kept separate from male prisoners and have female warders teachers were to be employed in prisons attempts had to be made to reform prisoners. This Act was often ignored but it did have some impact. Source D: Reforms for young offenders The move towards treating young offenders differently and housing them in separate prisons took a long time. In 1838 Parkhurst Prison was opened, the first prison primarily for the young. Prisoners spent four months in solitary confinement except for silent exercise, chapel services and lessons. Then two years were spent in leg irons. www.teachithistory.co.uk 2017 28071 Page 2 of 7
Source E: Development of the separate system The Victorian era was a deeply religious time. Christians could not believe that human beings were totally evil. If only they could get the criminal away from wicked influences, make them face up to themselves, give them Christian instruction, then they would be reformed. In the 1840s this belief led to the separate system in many prisons. Under the separate system prisoners spent nearly all their time on their own in their cells. It was extended solitary confinement. Even when they took exercise prisoners could not see or talk to anyone else. Religious instruction was very important, but even in the chapel prisoners were not supposed to communicate with one another. Many prisoners broke down. In the first eight years at Pentonville, which used the separate system, 22 prisoners became insane, 26 had nervous breakdowns and three committed suicide. The following extracts were written at the time, about the impact of the separate system : A few months in the solitary cell renders the prisoner strangely impressionable. The chaplain can then make the brawny navvy cry like a child; he can work on his feelings in almost any way he pleases. A prison chaplain describes the impact of the separate system As a general rule, a few months in the separate cell makes the prisoner easily persuaded. One can, so to speak, photograph his own thoughts, wishes and opinions on his patient s mind and fill his mouth with his own phrases and language. From a book written in 1861 describing the separate system Under the separate system prisoners were given work to do in their cells like weaving or turning the crank. Prisoners had to turn the handle 20 times a minute, 10,000 times a day and keep going for over eight hours. If a warder did not like a prisoner they would tighten the screw to make the crank harder to turn. This lead to warders being nicknamed screws. www.teachithistory.co.uk 2017 28071 Page 3 of 7
Source F: The silent system From the 1860s critics said that the prison system was not reforming criminals but sending them back onto the streets to commit more crimes. Measures were introduced to make prison life as terrifying as possible. Prisoners faced hard labour and a minimum five-year sentence for a second offence. Punishments became harsher, including whipping, electric shocks for those not working hard enough, bread and water diets and more time in solitary confinement. By the 1870s prison was the main form of punishment for more serious offences. Public opinion was swinging away from reform, towards the view that there was a criminal type. They believed these criminal types could never be reformed; they could only be deterred from committing more crime by harsh punishments and a tough prison system. This was the silent system. For the first nine months prisoners were locked in their cells and after that they faced hard labour, hard fare, hard board. Hard labour was deliberately tough and completely pointless. In some prisons prisoners were forced to walk the treadmill for several hours a day. Some did oakum-picking by separating the fibres from old ships ropes so that they could be reused. Hard board was when hard bunks replaced hammocks. The silent system is applied to a number of prisoners, varying from 40 to 80 in a room. They are seated upon benches, about three metres apart, all facing in the direction of the officer s desk. All pick cotton, except a few who are undergoing the punishment of compulsory idleness. At meals, the same order is observed. The discipline is not merely that the silence of the tongue is observed. No sign, no look is permitted, nor is it often attempted. A prisoner recently committed and not quite sober, once started singing Britons never should be slaves. A quiet smile on the face of some old jailbirds was the only result: not a single head was turned while he was removed from the room. From a book describing the silent system written in 1874 www.teachithistory.co.uk 2017 28071 Page 4 of 7
Summary table Period and style of prison What was good about it? What was bad about it? Main purpose (deterrent or reform?) 1. An old, unreformed prison around 1800 2. After the first reforms, around 1823 3. Under the separate system, around 1850 4. Under the silent system, around 1870 www.teachithistory.co.uk 2017 28071 Page 5 of 7
Task sheet Starter task Discuss in small groups: What should punishment achieve? Can prison be a suitable punishment to achieve all these aims? Crime rates in Victorian England rose from about 5000 cases a year in 1800 to around 20,000 in 1840. What factors do you think may have contributed to this rise? This increase in crime led to an increase in the prison population and the treatment of prisoners varied across the century. Source tasks 1. Use the information on prison reforms in the 1810s and 1820s to make inferences about the state of prisons before this time. 2. Complete your table with information about the four periods of prison reform in the 19 th century. Review tasks The purpose of prison is to show that society disapproves of what someone has done. It also prevents that person from being able to commit more crimes for as long as they are locked up. Some people think prisons should reform the criminal so that he or she will not offend again. Some people think prisons should punish the criminal so severely that he, she or anyone else, will be deterred from offending again. Look back at the four systems you ve investigated. Do you think they reformed, deterred, or both? Based on your evidence when do you think it was best to be in prison? Be ready to share and justify your choice. www.teachithistory.co.uk 2017 28071 Page 6 of 7
Image credits Images from the Bedford gaol register of John Jackson, Catherine May and William Doyle reprinted with kind permissions from the Bedford Prison Archive. Huntingdon County Gaol and House of Correction, England, built c1828 to design by William Wilkins. Radiating principle: Treadmills for grinding corn and raising water worked by prisoners: Prison uniform: Chaplain, The Rev. HA Maule. Woodcut, London, 1836. / Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group / Copyright Universal Images Group / For Education Use Only. This and millions of other educational images are available through Britannica Image Quest. For a free trial, please visit www.britannica.co.uk/trial ENGLISH JUVENILE PRISON. - Boys exercising at London's Tothill Fields Prison: wood engraving from Henry Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor,' 1861. / Credit: The Granger Collection / Universal Images Group / Copyright The Granger Collection / For Education Use Only. This and millions of other educational images are available through Britannica Image Quest. For a free trial, please visit www.britannica.co.uk/trial Prison discipline: Dartmoor prisoner doing solitary punishment at the crank handle. Illustration published London 1884. Wood engraving. / Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group / Copyright Universal Images Group / For Education Use Only. This and millions of other educational images are available through Britannica Image Quest. For a free trial, please visit www.britannica.co.uk/trial Men sitting on long benches in a large room untangling bundles of twine. / Credit: Wellcome Trust Library\UIG / Copyright Wellcome Trust Library / For Education Use Only. This and millions of other educational images are available through Britannica Image Quest. For a free trial, please visit www.britannica.co.uk/trial Prison discipline: Prisoners at hard labour on the treadwheel in an English 'local' jail. The prisoner had 15 minutes on, 5 minutes off the wheel, until his time was finished for the day. The treadwheel was often used to grind flour for the prison. From Cassell's Saturday Journal London, 8 December 1888. / Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group / Copyright Universal Images Group / For Education Use Only. This and millions of other educational images are available through Britannica Image Quest. For a free trial, please visit www.britannica.co.uk/trial www.teachithistory.co.uk 2017 28071 Page 7 of 7