The Horror of Gaol Through the Ages

Gaol Through The Ages

One or two of my ancestors seem to have had a shady past !

Gaol has its own history, not a very pleasant one but it became fascinating reading in the end.

From the feudal systems devised by strong leaders of men, who could cut off your hand for stealing or hang you for rape there evolved an agreed series of punishments and laws to enforce them.....the journey too those laws is filled with  horrors I had never believed possible.

It caused me to look at the system and the conditions those of my ancestors who fell foul of the law, would have experienced and endured and as a result I discovered some facts and aspects that have both fascinated and horrified me in equal measure. 

The early history of Wales with its raids from the Irish for slaves, The Vikings for slaves, treasure and eventually land and settlement, and the English to gain strongholds........ is almost a thing of the past though there would be Saxon raids to come as yet.

William the 1st has invaded and raised many of his Norman Knights to power throughout England. In 1073 from his base as the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury; Roger Montgomery leads raids into Wales devastated Ceredigion and established Montgomeryshire.

This is where  many of my ancestors are known to have been born, and died in a succession of centuries.

William the Conqueror begins the Doomsday Books in 1086 which results in 35 books.

Roger Montgomeryshire built many defencive castles along the Welsh border including Clun , Shrewsbury, Ludlow and Oswestry. Roger died in 1095 and unrest and reforms followed for many years. Henry 111 eventually brought a measure of peace to the Welsh Borders but not without cost and in the meantime Gaol is being birthed and Wales is entering into the Justice System of Britain.

To gain a perspective of the actual population in Wales I looked at the overall population of the world in the 11th C and discovered it was 0.31 Billion.....for the whole world. In Britain that meant roughly 5.5 million people spread throughout the land and according to the Doomsday Book the Welsh Marches had about 3 people per square mile as a population. Such is human nature that there will always be those who step outside of the guides, the rules, the demands of those in power and so punishments , justice if you will.....became The Law :-

One has to remember that for many centuries people where living in slavery. The common man, the 'smallfolk' where more often than not slaves, indentured or villagers who owed their entire livelihood to the Lord of the Manor, whoever that might be.

The Lord could change overnight as Kings bestowed land on their favoured Knight, passed decrees for Earldoms and the like.

The people were forced to take arms and War . If his Lord called upon him, he was forced to render his goods and chattels at the Lords behest. To refuse was a crime and the laws that became common to the land where based on common treatments of people perceived almost as cattle, they had no rights, or very few.

Say something that the Lord didn't like and risk having your eyes burned out of your head or your tongue ripped from your mouth. Be caught stealing and have a hand chopped off or be hung as a felon.

By the 12th century these conditions still prevailed as did war; both countries and fiefdoms warred frequently. Lord against Lord, King against King. Many wives dreaded the spring equinox (March 21st) the coming of spring meant men left home after helping with ploughing the land...to go to war. Those who survived would come home again in the autumn to help with the harvest but many a family where left without a man.

Times where changing, commerce had begun to hold the leverage over the Kings purse, he didn't want wars anymore, he wanted goods to trade, foods stuffs and rare oils, herbs and spices. Trade meant the need for workers, and people had begun to demand rights and the world changed. 

It continued to change over the centuries. Slowly but surely slavery of the common man was left behind ( so it was thought, evidence proves otherwise sadly in our modern world) but the indentured servant, the people living on the land of the manor and the agricultural labourer where increasing and with that the need for laws and reforms.

The Freemen where gathering power by the simple aspect that more Freemen where being created or born to Freemen and as they did, they added to the cause for more reforms to come into being.

The law was enforced during the 12th to 19th centuries in a manner which in our modern world would be considered inhumane. In those times if you where a criminal you where seen as being not much more than an animal, and treated accordingly. 

If you had the misfortune to be locked away in the early centuries then it was the Tower or the Dungeon, cold, dark and above all places a place where you had no rights.There was also the Cage a small metal construction that didn't allow for a body to bend, lie or stretch but squashed the person in an uncomfortable position guaranteed to cause discomfort. Which was then placed on a rampart or a place where the weather added to the discomfort and food and water where denied. Also the infamous Oubliette, a dark hole where the prisoner was lowered down into what was literally a hole where the prisoner died in the dark, no creature comforts of any kind.

Torture Chambers are not a media mad creation, they truly existed and people where Racked, Pressed, cut, had various devices clamped onto their body parts or ripped parts of the body off, burned out, cut out or pressed into their defenceless flesh.

Gaols themselves in the beginning followed the same conditions and actions as their previous structures what we now consider to be torture and inhumane was a common event both to extract a confession or information or as part of a punishment.;-

Gaols ,where places where it cost you money to eat, to have a blanket or fuel to keep warm. You wore your own clothes and friends or family could bring you food.  you had no-one to feed you?, then you paid the gaoler and if you had no money...you begged through the bars to passers bye or you starved. You paid to have your shackles removed or the manacles you had been transported in and you paid for a candle...literally you paid for everything and that would include bribes to various gaolers to guarantee your good treatment.

You rubbed shoulders with murderers, rapists and debtors and thieves alike and many suffered the bullying, the dominating by stronger, harsher, and more physically abusive persons. Being incarcerated with many people to a cell, which was often a simple structure of bars around a space often with a window so you could beg from passers bye. Some prisoners would be allowed to sell things at the prison gates.3.

A cell as modern day gaols are was a rarity.  Rape was known to happen to inmates, as was 'bloody murder' and the insane where as likely to be in your Gaol as the sane. Fleas, typhoid, cholera, lice and all manner of ailments where rife though mice and rats would be as likely to be seen as a food source as anything else. If you had no money then it was quite possible for a prisoner to starve to death, to dehydrate, and if the luckless soul was placed in the darkest of the cells , without money for candles then they would have no light source at all.

In 1166  HENRY II  built the first Gaols including Newgate Prison in London. He also established the first modern Jury of '12 good men and true' and the first legal text book which later helped form the Common Law of the land.

By1215 - The Magna Carta was signed by King John the brother of King Richard the 1st. This marked the beginning of English judicial rights. The Magna Carta stated:-

Article 39 - "No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land."

If you refused to a trial by Jury you where put straight into prison and stayed there until you agreed to a trial.

The status of a prisoner at that time was often determined by his wealth, you paid for everything while in Gaol. Kings however rarely paid for their crimes King John misdeeds included hanging 28 sons of rebel Welsh chieftains he had been holding hostage, and starving an enemy's wife and son to death in prison. Hugh Despenser was considered a famous criminal, he was executed as a traitor. He had become one of the richest men in the kingdom by killing his enemies and seizing their lands in South Wales.

By the 1400's enough people live in villages and towns that vagrancy has become a problem and Houses of Correction are built .

These early reform buildings are filled quickly and become a common need in building a new town.

Of Welsh descent, Henry Tudor in 1485, gained the English throne and was crowned King Henry VII.The support of the Welsh people ( who hoped he was the Mab Darogan) wanted him to restore Britain to the Brythons. His coronation led to the cementing of Wales into the English administrative and legal system under his son, Henry VIII. .2.

Around 70,000 people suffered the death penalty during the reign of Henry VIII. That penalty was carried out in several different methods.

Beheading ( the person laid their head on a block and it was hacked off with an axe),

Hanging (from the gallows which where often built in sight of the cell where the prisoner was kept.) ,The convict was placed in a horse drawn cart and blindfolded. The noose was then placed around his/her neck, and the cart pulled away and the criminal dangled until they died, a long drawn out process of strangulation, painful in the extreme. It was common for friends or family of the convicts to help speed the process and put them out of their misery by pulling on their legs. Sometimes the most serious offenders were hanged near the place of their crime, sometimes as a lesson to those who lived there, sometimes so Justice was seen to be done.

Deep concern at the disorder and sometimes the riots which occurred at such scenes contributed to the 1752 Murder Act.

Burning ,being found guilty of treason or petty treason meant Women were sentenced to be burned alive at the stake. Executioners where known to have strangled women with a cord before lighting the fire. In 1790 burning at the stake was abolished and replaced by drawing and hanging.

Being 'Pressed' (A prisoner would be laid in a hole and a plank or a large flat stone placed on top of them, then stones where thrown on top of this until the person was crushed to death) , If you chose not to answer charges this form of punishment was used with the added aspect that a sharp stone would be placed beneath your spine so the weight snapped your spine eventually, to add to your agony. Commonly used for those believed to be ‘against the church or Head of state.)

Boiled alive ( to be physically boiled alive in a big bowl or cauldron of hot water).

It was in the 16th Century that the Guillotine was still in use in the city of Halifax.

Drawn and Quartered. A man found guilty of treason would be sentenced to be Drawn (dragged) to the place of execution on a Hurdle. Once there he was hanged, cut down still living, and then disemboweled. The stomach would  be slashed open the entrails where often 'wound out of him' an excruciating pain. Then castrated, beheaded and quartered. The last convicts to be sentenced at the Old Bailey to be drawn and quartered were known as the Cato Street Conspirators( 1820) though it is believed that only part of the sentence was carried out. .1.

Lesser crimes had some pretty torturous methods of punishment.

Between the 12th and 15th Centuries .Slitting of ears, breaking of limbs, so as to make amputation necessary, castration. beating or cutting out of eyes, the cutting off of hands, fingers (except the thumb) where all still considered 'just means' to punish the felon.

Whipping , often while tied to a tree stump or a whipping frame in the late 1700's but before that a whipping was meant to not only cause pain and 'bloody the back' but to shame and for this the person was stripped to the waist (men and women) and whipped down the length of the central street of the city/town/village.

Having limbs cut off such as a hand if you stole.

The Scolds Bridle or Brank which was a metal cage with a tongue depressor locked around the head.

M.F or T being branded into the flesh, usually on the thumb for Murder, Felon or Theft. Convicts who successfully pleaded and those found guilty of manslaughter or 'benefit of clergy', instead of murder, were branded on the thumb so that they would be unable to receive this benefit of justice more than once. Between 1699 and January 1707, those convicted of theft were branded on the cheek, but this meant convicts where almost unemployable and in 1707 they went back to the thumb. The last sentence of branding at the Old Bailey in London was in 1789.

You could be manacled to a T shaped wooden device by the hands (Pilloried) or the locking planks of the Stocks around the feet and passers bye could torment you. The pillory turned so that all the crowd could get a good view. They could and did express their disapproval of the offence the prisoner was displayed  for by pelting them with blood and guts from slaughterhouses, rotten eggs , dead cats, rotten fruit and vegetables, mud and excrement, stones or bricks and some died from the abuse. It was common for friends and sometimes local law keepers to have to form a ring around the person being Pilloried to protect them from too much abuse. In the Stocks the prisoner had the use of their hands to deflect missiles.

The Ducking Stool which was especially for Women accused of witchcraft, a stool attached to the end of a long pole, balanced on a fulcrum to allow the prisoner to be 'dipped or ducked' into water until they drowned or not to prove their innocence, if you drowned you where not a witch if you didn't drown you where a witch and hung or burned.

The Drunkards Cloak which was a large wooden barrel strapped over the person, their hands and feet pushed through holes cut into the barrel and forced to walk around 'wearing the drunkards cloak.

Those convicted of coining and petty treason were sentenced to be drawn on a Hurdle through the town. The man would be mounted on the inverted V shaped wooden block, his legs tied beneath and his hands and dragged over the earth and cobbled streets to be shamed and (badly) bruised.

Elizabeth 1st and subsequent monarchs continued with these punishments during their reign.

Going to Gaol.

Being sent to Gaol was a different set of horrors to be faced. In the early prisons you wore your own clothes, and where fed by your family or friends, or else you paid the Gaoler, not until 1840 would there be the Prison Uniform, the homespun cloth stamped with black arrows.

The  " Bridewell "or house of correction, was a 16th Century design both to punish and reform petty criminals  with a short period of gaol and hard labour.

In the 1700s ,too many criminals where being sent to the gaols and a solution was found in Transportation. Sending a criminal to another country to work off their sentence was seen as a method of removing the problem entirely.

  

Up until the outbreak of The War of Independence in America (1775) 50,000 criminals , where transported to penal colonies in America, then the war began and prisoners were sent to penal servitude in Australia.

The First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay on 22 January 1786 with 736 (some records say 786) prisoners, followed by three large fleets between 1787 and 1791. and is considered a landmark event in the colonial history of Australia. Among the 548 male and 188 female convicts aboard the First Fleet were two Welsh women and four Welshmen, the prison colony they were part of came to be known as New South Wales. Over 160,000 people were transported and there was no distinction between men or women or children, the youngest Transported is recorded as being 9 years of age. During times of war the criminal could be sent to fill the ranks of soldier and sailor and where they would be sent to the front line more often than not.

Overcrowding began to be a real problem and decommissioned boats called HULKS where brought into use originally used as holding prisons for those waiting to be transported. Many people died on the journey, which could take between four and six months with the convicts living in conditions so bad that even some of the Captains of the ships complained. Cholera and Typhoid which had been rampant on the Hulks was often brought on board by the prisoners and many hundreds died in the crossings. In 1851 Gold was discovered in Australia and fewer criminals where transported, the last transportation's recorded is in1868.

Imprisonment: Hard Labour

Many convicts were sentenced to a term of gaol and hard labour. Those imprisoned sometimes worked a water pump or on dredging the Thames and in the naval dockyards. Some were sentenced to work on ballast lighters..

The Death sentence

It is recorded that The Death Sentence was given for crimes as diverse as horse stealing, pick pocketing, stealing bread, rape, murder. In the matter of Rape and Murder more often than not the person was executed swiftly but for lesser crimes, even though the Death Sentence had been passed the criminal was then ,Transported. Up to 60% of those sentenced to death where executed during the late 1700's early 1800's but many felt the sentence itself was harsh and the criminal would be Transported , usually for 7 years for each crime. 

What was considered heinous crimes punishable by death ranged from what one would expect, for instance murder too cutting down a tree and it wasn't until 1823 that the death sentence was rescinded for acts such as  Horse Stealing to Stealing Bread . Sir Robert Peel cut the amount of acts punishable by death to some 100 where previously the number of crimes linked to that sentence was in the region of as many as 200 when he first took office .

Though some of the old style punishments had fallen into disfavour, other punishments began to be used, some of which drove the prisoner mad literally.

In 1779 in lieu of branding, a clause in the Penitentiary Act allowed a fine to be levied .Fines were frequently used following this, often in conjunction with a term of imprisonment.

Defendants who pleaded insanity in 1843 where following the dissemination of the "M'Naughton Rules" , the number of defendants receiving this sentence increased considerably.

The changes needed, perceived as being necessary where called Reforms, several people where renowned for the Gaol Reforms. 

Prison Reform Campaigners

 John Howard of Bedford (1726 - 1790) As High Sheriff of Bedfordshire, Howard studies prison conditions for 17 years. In 1777  He proposes that gaols should be healthy and disease-free, and that gaolers shouldn't be charging prisoners for sustenance. His book called The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, is influential but not put into practise in any real sense until the 19th Century. He had studied prisons in Europe where prisoners in general had one man one cell, and where fed by the authorities. The Howard League for Penal Reform - still influential today - is named after him.

In 1815 Gaolers are finally forbidden to charge inmates for food and Magistrates are informed they will in future inspect the prisons themselves.

In 1817 Elizabeth Fry began to work tirelessly to encourage Reforms in the penal system for women. She clothed and gave work to women, particularly Newgate Prison, instigated schools and her many observations where heard as evidence in Parliament. She influenced Sir Robert Peel in his Prison Reform Acts of 1823.

By 1835 there are proper Prison Inspectors and by 1877 all the staff  have been salaried.

Prisoners worked anything up to 10 hours a day in many prisons. From the beginning of Gaols being created the prison population had been seen as a cheap source of labour and many knew what it was to break stones in quarries, or untwist hemp and many other diverse productivity's but from 1839 it is possible to read of in depth details of the many structured reform works prisoners are involved in .

Prisoners lived and worked in their cells 24 hours a day , 7 days a week, and were  allowed out for exercise once a day. Many prisons used a system of isolating the prisoners, sitting in 'booths' in church, at the dinner table, even in working situations the prisoner was isolated, cells where individual now and some of the prisoners suffered this 'separate confinement and where driven mad. It would be 1922 before The Separate Confinement is abolished.

Mid 1800's the wooden "guard beds" with wooden pillows were what the Prisoners slept on for the first 30 days of their sentence.

Not until 1843 was there a regulation directive as to the food prisoners where given, until 1815 the prisoner paid for his or her food and it had resulted in many starving to death in some cases dehydrating to death. The food reforms meant that though it was a monotonous diet the prisoner would at least receive a regular intake of food and drink. This reform was slow to become simply because the powers that be where reluctant to have prisoners better fed than the poor outside the prison.

1948 - CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT .This is the base for all subsequent reforms and future guidelines concerning Gaol.

.1.

There are regular reports recorded of pardons from 1739 until 1796 and of executions from 1743 until 1792 which are available to read through a variety of sources notably Crime and Justice websites.

.2.

The Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–1542 annexed Wales to England, which abolished the Welsh legal system, and banned the Welsh language from any official role and status, from this time no Welshman could speak his home language in his defence, being unable to understand English (in which case not understanding the charges made) was not considered a defence. Though those laws relaxed in time it is not until 1993 that the Welsh Language Act of 1993 places the Welsh language on an equal footing with English and not until the Government of Wales Act 2006 granted powers to the Welsh Government to enact some primary legislation that Wales is allowed to create laws of its own pertaining to its needs.

.3. Rodgers 91).

Written by:-

Susan Morrison-Jones 2012

Resources.

david-pilling.suite101.com/penal-transportation-to-australia-1700s1800s-a140692

oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp#corporal

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4887704.stm

inverarayjail.co.uk/the-jails-story/life-in-jail.aspx

Criminal Registers Published by Ancestry

wikipeadia.com

The Transportation Act of 1718

Bound for America. The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775” by A. Roger Ekirch.

McConville, S, “A History of English Prison Administration: Volume I 1750-1877 “(London, Boston & Henley: 1981)

 The National Archives