The Chronicles of Newgate (Vol. 1&2). Griffiths Arthur
of the permanent population of Newgate, as of all gaols, consisted of offenders against commercial laws. While fraudulent bankrupts were hanged, others more unfortunate than criminal were clapped into gaol to linger out their lives without the chance of earning the funds by which alone freedom could be recovered. Debtors of all degrees were condemned to languish for years in prison, often for the most paltry sums. The perfectly innocent were also detained. Gaol deliveries were rare, and the boon of arraignment and fair trial was strangely and unjustly withheld, while even those acquitted in open court were often haled back to prison because they were unable to discharge the gaoler’s illegal fees. The condition of the prisoners in Newgate was long most deplorable. They were but scantily supplied with the commonest necessaries of life. Light scarcely penetrated their dark and loathsome dungeons; no breath of fresh air sweetened the fetid atmosphere they breathed; that they enjoyed the luxury of water was due to the munificence of a Lord Mayor. Their daily subsistence was most precarious. Food, clothing, fuel were doled out in limited quantities as charitable gifts; occasionally prosperous citizens bequeathed small legacies to be expended in the same articles of supply. These bare prison allowances were further eked out by the chance seizures in the markets; by bread forfeited as inferior or of light weight, and meat declared unfit to be publicly sold. All classes and categories of prisoners were herded indiscriminately together: men and women, tried and untried, upright but misguided zealots with hardened habitual offenders. The only principle of classification was a prisoner’s ability or otherwise to pay certain fees; money could purchase the squalid comfort of the master’s side, but no immunity from the baleful companionship of felons equally well furnished with funds and no less anxious to escape the awful horror of the common side of the gaol. The weight of the chains, again, which, till quite recently, innocent and guilty alike wore, depended upon the price a prisoner could pay for “easement of irons,” and it was a common practice to overload a new-comer with enormous fetters and so terrify him into lavish disbursement. The gaol at all times was so hideously overcrowded that plague and pestilence perpetually ravaged it, and the deadly infection often spread into the neighbouring courts of law.
The foregoing is an imperfect but by no means overcoloured picture of Newgate as it existed for hundreds of years, from the twelfth century, indeed, to the nineteenth. The description is supported by historical records, somewhat meagre at first, perhaps, but becoming more and more ample and better substantiated as the period grows less remote. We have but scant information as to the first gate-house gaol. Being part and parcel of the city fortifications, it was intended mainly for defence, and the prison accommodation which the fate afforded with its dungeons beneath, and garrets above, must have been of the most limited description. More pains were no doubt taken to keep the exterior strong and safe against attack, than to render the interior habitable, and we may conclude that the moneys willed by Whittington for the re-edification of Newgate were principally expended on the restoration and improvements of the prison. “Whit’s palace,” as rebuilt by Whittington’s executors, lasted for a couple of centuries, and was throughout that period the principal gaol for the metropolis. Reference is constantly made to it in the history of the times. It was the natural receptacle for rogues, roysterers, and masterless men. It is described as a hot-bed of vice, a nursery of crime. Drunkenness, gaming, profligacy of the vilest sort, went forward in the prison without let or hindrance. Contemporary petitions, preserved in the State papers, penned by inmates of Newgate pining for liberty, call their prison-house a foul and noisome den. The gaoler for the time being was certain to be a brutal partisan of the party in power, especially bitter to religious or political opponents who fell into his hands. But too frequently also he was a rapacious, extortionate, over-reaching despot, whose first and only thought was to turn the prisoners into profit, and make all the money he could out of those whom the law put completely in his power.
With occasional, but not always sufficient, repairs, but without structural alterations, Whittington’s Newgate continued to serve down to the seventeenth century. About 1629 it was in a state of utter ruin, and such extensive works were undertaken to re-edify it that the security of the gaol was said to be endangered, and it was thought better to pardon most of the prisoners before they set themselves free. Lupton, in his ‘London Carbonadoed,’ speaks of Newgate as “new-fronted and new-faced” in 1638. Its accommodations must have been sorely tried in the troublous years which followed. It seems to have been in the time of the Commonwealth when “our churches were made into prisons,” and demands for space had greatly multiplied, that Newgate was increased by the addition of the buildings belonging to the Phœnix Inn in Newgate Street. The great fire of 1666 gutted, if not completely destroyed, Newgate, and its reconstruction became imperative. Some say Wren was the architect of the new prison, but the fact is not fully substantiated. Authentic and detailed information has, however, been preserved concerning it; it is figured in a familiar woodcut which may be seen in every modern history of London, while a full description of the interior, both plan and appropriation, has been left by an anonymous writer, who was himself an inmate of the gaol[2]. The prison was still subordinated to the gate, which was an ornate structure, with great architectural pretensions. But as a writer in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ well put it about a century ago, “The sumptuousness of the outside but aggravated the misery of the wretches within.” Some effort was made to classify, and the Newgate of that day contained five principal divisions or sides: there was the master’s side, for debtors and felons respectively; the common side, for those same two classes of prisoners; and lastly the press yard, for prisoners of note. The right to occupy the master’s side was a luxury dearly purchased, but the accommodation obtained, albeit indifferent, was palatial to that provided for the impecunious on the common side. The only inmates of the Newgate prison I am now describing who were comparatively well off, were those admitted to the press yard; a division composed of “large and spacious rooms” on all the three floors of the prison, and deemed by a legal fiction to be part of the governor’s house.
How desperate was the case of the bulk of the inmates of Newgate will be amply set forth as my narrative proceeds. A few brief facts will suffice here to give a general idea of this foul prison house. The whole place except the press yard was so dark that candles, “links or burners,” were used all day long; the air was so inconceivably disgusting, that the ventilator on the top of the prison could exercise no remedial effect. That malignant disease, the gaol fever, was chronic, and deaths from it of frequent occurrence. Doctors could be got with difficulty to attend the sick in Newgate, and it was long before any regular medical officer was appointed to the prison. Evil was in the ascendant throughout; wickedness and profligacy prospered; the weakest always went to the wall. Tyranny and oppression were widely practised: not only were the gaolers extortionate, but their subordinates, the inferior turnkeys, even the bed-makers, and the gate-keeper’s wife levied black mail on the pretence of affording relief, and with threats or actual ill-usage when payment was withheld. Certain favoured prisoners wielded recognized authority over their fellows. Unwritten but accepted customs suffered the general body to exact “garnish,” or “chummage,” from new comers, fees for the privilege of approaching the fire, and generally for immunity from persecution, the sums thus raised being forthwith expended in strong drink. The “cellarmen” were selected prisoners who could sell candles at their own prices, and got a percentage upon the liquors consumed, with other advantages. Other prisoners were employed in the distribution of food; in the riveting and removing of shackles; even in the maintenance of discipline, and when so acting were armed with a flexible weapon, “to the great terror and smart of those who dispute their authority.” Into these filthy dens, where misery stalked rampant and corruption festered, unhappy prisoners brought their families, and the population was greatly increased by numbers of innocent persons, women, and even children, to be speedily demoralized and utterly lost. Lunatics raving mad ranged up and down the wards, a terror to all they encountered. Common women were freely admitted; mock marriages were of constant occurrence, and children were frequently born within the precincts of the gaol. There was but little restriction upon the entrance of visitors. When any great personage was confined in Newgate, he held daily levees and received numbers of fashionable folk. Thus Count Konigsmark, when arrested for complicity in the murder of Mr. Thynne, “lived nobly” in the keeper’s house, and was daily visited by persons of quality. When