Laura Sellers

Whilst writing my thesis on Victorian Convict Prisons I put together a time line of the key people, places and policies which impacted on my work. I thought’d I’d share it here for anyone else who might find such things useful.

 

1774                The Health of Prisoners Act allowed for medical intervention if health was being threatened during imprisonment and provided cleaning provisions for clothes and bodies, improved ventilation, created sick rooms and began the practise of white-washing walls.

1775                North America stopped taking convicts which forced Britain to find alternative punishments for un-transported convicts. The “temporary” solution was imprisonment in hulks.

1777                Penal reformer John Howard published a critical report on Britain’s gaols.

1779                The Penitentiary Act specified that new gaols had to have separate cells for prisoners, enforce labour and provide religious instruction.

1780                Sir George Onesiphorus Paul built a new prison in Gloucester. It was secure, well-built and separated men, women and children. Prisoners wore uniforms, were taught to read and write, and were reasonably fed and cared for if ill. Other towns soon followed.

1785                Convicts were sent to Australia from 1785 but the “temporary” hulks continued to be used.

1791                Jeremy Bentham proposed his panopticon design for prisons.

1800                James Hadfield attempted to assassinate King George III but was found insane and thus not guilty of treason. His lawyer successfully argued that insanity included delusions rather than total “loss to all sense” as the law previously demanded.

1815                Gaolers in local prisons were to be paid so prisoners no longer had to pay or work for their keep.

1816                Bethlem Asylum relocated and the government negotiated two wings, known as the State Criminal Lunatic Asylum, for insane criminals.

1816                Elizabeth Fry began working with women at Newgate Prison and called for reform. She believed loss of freedom was punishment enough without additional hardships being inflicted.

1816                Millbank Penitentiary partially opened in London as the first convict prison and a (compromised) trial run of Jeremey Bentham’s panopticon design.

1821                Millbank Penitentiary was completed.

1822                An outbreak of dysentery at Millbank was so severe that almost all the women were released from prison and the men transferred to hulks.

1823                From 1823 female prisoners were to be supervised by female warders.

1829                Eastern-State Penitentiary opened in Philadelphia, USA. This was the first-time solitary confinement, known as the “Pennsylvania System” was tried.

1829                The Metropolitan Police Force was established.

1832                The Anatomy Act meant unclaimed bodies in addition to executed criminals could be used for anatomical study.

1834                The Poor Laws stopped money going to the poor except in exceptional situations, instead the poor had to go to the workhouse for relief, probably contributing to rising crime rates.

1835                The Gaols Act introduced inspection of prisons.

1838                Parkhurst became a convict prison for boys. This was one of the first instances of young people being identified as distinct from adults.

1839                William Baly started at Millbank Penitentiary after advising on an outbreak of dysentery.

1842                In February 1842 Edwin Chadwick published his best-seller the Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain.

1842                The Pentonville Prison Act was passed giving royal assent to Pentonville in June 1842. Making Pentonville the only prison with its own act of Parliament. Pentonville opened on 21 December as the new “model prison” replacing Millbank as the national prison.

1842                Millbank became a convict depot for transportees going to Australia, Gibraltar and Bermuda.

1842                Charles Bradley joined the Prison Medical Service at Pentonville alongside George Rees.

1843                The M’Naghten Rules were introduced after the acquittal of Daniel M’Naghten on the grounds of insanity after he shot Edward Dummond. To be found insane it had to be proved the defendant did not know right from wrong when they committed a crime.

1843                Dietary codes were introduced to prisons.

1844                In January 1844 a “successful” diet was introduced by George Rees to Pentonville providing the “scientific minimum” without being hazardous to health and weight.

1844                Joshua Jebb became Surveyor-General of Prisons and Inspector-General of Military Prisons.

1845                Lunacy Act following the Metropolitan Commission of Lunacy. The Act formed the Lunacy Commission which oversaw the care of lunatics and later obliged boroughs and counties to provide pauper asylums.

1845                New wings were added to the local prison in Wakefield between 1845 and 1847, cells were rented by government to hold convicts.

1845                William Baly published On the mortality in prisons and the diseases most frequently fated to prisoners.

1846                The Nuisances Removal and Diseases Prevention Act was passed, and nicknamed “The Cholera Bill”.

1847                The Juvenile Offences Act meant that young people (under fourteen) should be tried in petty sessions, not an adult court, for larceny under five shillings.

1848                Portland Prison opened as a public works convict prison.

1848                The first Public Health Act responded to Edwin Chadwick’s 1842 book and created a General Board of Health. This was ineffectual and underfunded but opened the doors to Local Boards of Health.

1848                Charles Bradley became chief medical officer at Pentonville.

1848                Suggested in the Commons that the separate system be relaxed, particularly for un-convicted persons in prisons.

1850                The Act for the Better Government of Convict Prisons meant full-time dedicated medical staff began to be employed.

1850                Portsmouth Convict Prison opened.

1850                Cold Bath Fields became a men only prison after being extended and remodelled. It was used for London criminals on short sentences.

1850                Dartmoor opened as a public works site, in an attempt to move convicts out of prisons and employ them as useful labour.

1850                The Grey Committee advised that the Pentonville model be adopted across the country to bring uniformity to prisons and prison discipline.

1850                Juvenile Offenders Act changed the age of being a young offender from under fourteen to under sixteen.

1852                Dartmoor became 50% invalid prison in an attempt to reorganise the healthcare for convicts.

1853                Brixton Prison became the first all-women’s convict prison in Britain with James Rendle as its Prison Medical Officer.

1853                Officially the end of transportation for women after, in 1852, Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) refused to take any more female convicts. Some women continued to be transported to Gibraltar but the majority stayed in Britain.

1853                The Transportation and Penal Servitude Act theoretically stopped transportation, with exceptions for those sentenced for over fourteen years or for life in penal servitude.

1854                The Youthful Offenders Act was passed. It was the result of work by Mary Carpenter and Matthew Devonport Hill and allowed under-sixteens to be sent to reformatories instead of, or after, a prison sentence.

1854                William Baly and William Gull’s Reports on Epidemic Cholera was published.

1855                The Criminal Justice Act stated all cases of simple larceny be tried in the petty sessions court.

1856                Chatham Prison opened.

1856                Millbank Penitentiary stopped being a convict depot for transportation and became a convict prison again.

1857                The Industrial Schools Act aimed to institutionalise vagrant children before they committed a crime.

1857                The last of the Hulks was burnt and convicts were all housed in prisons on the mainland.

1857                The Transportation and Penal Servitude Act was amended, ending transportation officially, include for those with long sentences. The colonies were no longer willing to accept convicts.

1859                William Baly was appointed Physician Extraordinaire to Queen Victoria. William Guy was appointed to replace him at Millbank. He would lead a number of investigations into prison diet.

1859                Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species which would impact on how criminals were understood, redefining their behaviour in evolutionary terms.

1859                The London Sewage System started to be built.

1860                Woking Invalid Prison opened marking the decision to provide different medical care and punishment for those with long term illnesses, physical disabilities and mental illnesses. John Campbell was appointed as chief Prison Medical Officer.

1861                Capital offences were reduced to just murder and treason, substantially reducing the number of hangings in Britain.

1861                Private individuals could declare bankruptcy thus avoiding imprisonment for debt.

1862                The Discharged Prisoners Aid Act gave released inmates a small sum of money to begin a new life in an attempt to integrate convicts back into society.

1862                Henry Mayhew and John Binny published The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of London Life.

1863                Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum opened.

1863                A Prison Matron, actually journalist Fredrick William Robinson, drew attention to convict lives though A Female Life in Prison.

1863                Edmund Du Cane was appointed as Director of Convict Prisons, primarily overseeing public works.

1863                Garrotters Act reintroduced corporal punishment for armed or violent robbery and harsh punishments for repeat offenders.

1863                Edward Smith was appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science to examine prison diet, and the effects of the treadmill on the body.

1863                Edmund Henderson succeeded Joshua Jebb after his sudden death as Chairman of Directors and Surveyor-General of Prisons and Inspector-General of Military Prisons on 29 July 1863.

1863                A Royal Commission set up by the Home Secretary reported to the House of Commons on prison discipline. They worked alongside the Carnarvon Committee who reported to the House of Lords. The investigations included Select Committees to review prison diet.

1864                A second branch of the Select Committee was appointed. William Guy, Lawrence Bradley and James Rendle contributed to the report. The subsequent diet plan was used in all convict prisons until 1898 with minimal changes.

1864                Parliament passed the Penal Servitude Act, which made the police supervision of ticket-of-leave men mandatory, and increased the length of penal servitude.

1864                Parkhurst ceased to take juvenile convict boys and became a women’s prison.

1864                The Contagious Diseases Act allowed police in certain districts to arrest women suspected of prostitution and examine them for venereal diseases. If found infected the women were forcibly sent to lock hospitals for treatment.

1865                The Prison Act was the “major consolidator of nineteenth-century prison law, formally amalgamated the jail and the house of correction” it also laid down government rules for the running of prisons, wanting them to be “austere and vexatious.”[1]

1866                James Creighton Browne began working at the West Riding Lunatic Asylum, he would work there for ten years making it a renowned research centre.

1868                Capital Punishment (Amendment) Act ended public hangings. Michael Barrett was the last man to be publically hanged on 26 May following his involvement in a bombing in Ireland which killed twelve bystanders and injured many more.

1869                Habitual Criminal Act was the first legislative move to deal with a specific class or type of criminal and also the first to allow different treatment of different groups of criminal.

1869                The final batch of convicts was sent to Australia, before the absolute end of transportation from Britain, despite the 1857 Transport and Penal Servitude Act.

1869                Brixton Prison ceased to be exclusively for women.

1869                Edmund Du Cane took over as Surveyor-General of Prisons and Inspector-General of Military Prisons from Edmund Henderson and became Chairman of the Board of Directors of Convict Prisons.

1869                Imprisonment for debt was abolished apart from fraud and refusal to pay.

1870s               A series of Education Acts made schooling compulsory, taking children off the streets and reducing the number of young offenders.

1871                Prevention of Crimes Act tidied up problems from the 1869 Habitual Criminals Act. The courts now had the ability to decide on the level of supervision and surveillance a released convict needed. Prison registers and photography made compulsory.

1871                “The Wing” was added to Woking Invalid Prison to separate the sane and the insane.

1872                A review of prison diet was called. William Guy was appointed to lead the Investigation, but having created the dietary plans in the first place he was not inclined to see flaws in it.

1874                The cases of Henry Balls and John Maloney highlighted that there was no plan for insane convicts at the end of their sentence, they were simply released because they were not certified to enter an asylum.

1874–1875      Outbreak of typhoid at Wakefield Prison.

1876                The Home Secretary Richard Ashton Cross was given permission to bring in the appropriate legislation to nationalise all prisons and manage them all like the convict prisons using the separate system.

1876                Cesare Lombroso’s Criminal Man published in Italy

1876                Henry Clarke started at Wakefield Prison.

1877/8             Robert Gover appointed as Medical Inspector to Prisons following a stint as surgeon at Millbank.

1877                Officially all insane male convicts had to be moved to Woking Invalid Prison.

1877                The Prisons Act was passed to transfer direct control of local prisons to central government (the Home Office) and the Prison Commission headed by Du Cane.

1878                Henry Clark and William Bevan-Lewis published “The Cortical Lamination of the Motor Area of the Brain.”

1878                On the 18 February the new Prison Act came into force making all prisons government prisons.

1880                John Campbell retired from Woking Invalid Prison.

1883                Until the 1883 when the Trial of Lunatics Acts was passed, if a defendant was found insane they were also found not guilty: the Act allowed for a “guilty but insane” verdict.

1884                John Campbell published his memoir Thirty Years’ Service of a Medical Officer in the English Convict Service.

1884                William Bevan-Lewis became the director of the West Riding Lunatic Asylum.

1886                Woking Invalid Prison ceased to be a prison and became a military barracks.

1890                Havelock Ellis published The Criminal.

1890                Millbank Prison closed and demolished after long term structural and sanitation problems made it uninhabitable.

1894/5             Chaired by Herbert Gladstone the Gladstone Committee published their “Report of the Departmental Committee on Prisons” recommending unproductive labour like the treadwheel be ended and labour be performed in association rather than separation. They also recommended that reformatories should take offenders up to 23 years of age and habitual offenders receive an additional 5–10 years on their sentence as a deterrent.

1895                Cesare Lombroso’s Female Offender published in Italy.

1895                Edmund Du Cane retired.

1898                After much discussion many of the Gladstone Committee’s recommendations were ignored or watered down as part of the Prison Act 1898. It was also the end of the dietary plans which had been proposed by William Guy and the Select Committee in 1864/1872.

1899                Cesare Lombroso Le Crime; Causes et Remédes published in Italy. (The English translation was not published until 1911).

1902                The treadwheel was banned.

1903                The first Borstal Prison opened in Borstal, Kent. Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Rise oversaw the construction following from the 1895 recommendations from the Gladstone Committee.

1903                Holloway became a women only prison.

1907                Most young offenders received probation and fines rather than imprisonment.

1908                Henry Clarke left Wakefield Prison.

1908                The Prevention of Crime Bill introduced a system of prison establishments for young offenders which became known as Borstals, named after the institution which had opened in 1902.

1909                Forced feeding was introduced by Herbert Gladstone for suffragettes on hunger strikes.

1911                Walter Scott introduced a severely edited and reduced version of Lomboroso’s Criminal Anthropology to Britain.

1913                In April 1913, the Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge on Ill-Health Act was passed. This allowed the temporary discharge of prisoners on hunger strike combined with their re-arrest later once they had recovered.

1913                Charles Buckman Goring published The English Convict: A Statistical Study which was a statistical and biometric study of criminals. He saw criminals as having defective physique which was visible in their biometric data and mental capacity.

1922                Sidney and Beatrice Webb published English Prisons Under Local Government the first history of English prisons.

[1] McConville 1981: 349.