The Chronicles of Newgate (Vol. 1&2). Griffiths Arthur
ill smells, and possessed all necessary appurtenances. A yard or place for walking in the open air was attached to this side, and was situate between the door or postern which entered from Newgate Street and the fabric itself. This yard, which was fifty-four feet long by seven feet wide, and was handsomely paved with Purbeck stone, could have been little better than a narrow passage running the whole north side of the prison between the building and its boundary wall. The Press-Yard was for State prisoners, or great and opulent criminals who could afford to pay such high premium at entrance as they and the gaoler might agree upon, and also the weekly rent of their wards. This premium was fixed according to the quality of the individual, and ranged from £20 to £500. The weekly rent of tenancy of the rooms was 11s. 6d. per head, 1s. of which was paid to a woman called the laundress, who made the fires and cleaned the rooms; the remainder went into the gaoler’s pocket. The prisoners themselves provided their fires and candles, as also all other necessaries, “save the beds, which were very good of their kind, and which the gaoler found, sheets being always excepted.” A less aristocratic section of this very select part of the prison was the Castle, which comprised two wards above the Stone ward and King’s Bench ward of the master debtors’ sides, and of the same dimensions, with the same air and light, as the wards immediately beneath. In the Castle wards were divers partitions for beds, for each of which a prisoner paid 2s. 6d. per week.
The remainder of this top floor, with the exception of the high hall, and the second ward for common female felons, was taken up by the prison chapel, which looked towards the south-east. The chapel was partitioned on the north side into large apartments called pens, which were all strongly built, as they contained every Sunday the common debtors and the felons of both kinds. The pulpit stood in the
Newgate (1700).
1st Floor.
| F. Part of Press Yard. G. My Lady’s Hold. | 2. King’s Bench Ward (Master Debtors). 3. Stone Ward. (Master Debtors). 6. 1st Ward (Master Felons). 16. Middle Ward (Common Side Felons). |
north-west angle of the chapel, against it were the pens of the male common debtors, next to them those of the male and female felons, but in separate divisions, and in the pens were gratings through which the occupants could be observed from the chapel pews. On the south side, opposite the felons’ pens, were two very handsome enclosures for the master debtors; adjoining the pulpit was another large pew, wherein were placed such prisoners as were under sentence of death, and here in this same apartment “the blessed sacrament was administered to them at proper times, more particularly on the morning before execution.” Besides these were a number of other handsome open pews, free to all persons who choose to come and sit in them. They were generally well filled on the Sundays when the condemned sermon was preached to prisoners about to die.[66]
A few corroborative facts may be quoted from other authorities as to the horrors of Newgate, the mismanagement, tyranny, and lax discipline which prevailed. Its insanitary condition was chronic, which at times, but only for influential inmates, was pleaded as an excuse for release. Lord Montgomery, a prisoner there in 1697, was brought, Luttrell tells, out of Newgate to the King’s Bench Court, there to be bailed, upon two affidavits, which showed that there was an infectious fever in Newgate, of which several were sick and some dead. He was accordingly admitted to bail, himself in £10,000, and four sureties—the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Yarmouth, Lord Carington, and Lord Jeffereys—in £5000 each. An effort to secure release was made some years later in regard to Jacobite prisoners of note, less successfully, although the grounds alleged were the same and equally valid.
If a prisoner was hopelessly despondent, he could generally compass the means of committing suicide. A Mr. Norton, natural son of Sir George Norton, condemned for killing a dancing-master (because the latter would not suffer him to take his wife away from him in the street), poisoned himself the night before his reprieve expired. The drug was conveyed to him by his aunt without difficulty, “who participated in the same dose, but she is likely to recover.” Nor were prisoners driven to this last desperate extremity to escape from durance. Pepys tells us in 1667, August 1, that the gates of the city were shut, “and at Newgate we find them in trouble, some thieves having this night broken open prison.”
Within the gaol all manner of evil communication went forward unchecked among the prisoners. That same year Sir Richard Ford, the recorder, states that it has been made appear to the court of aldermen “that the keeper of Newgate hath at this day made his house the only nursery of rogues, prostitutes, pickpockets, and thieves in the world, where they were held and entertained and the whole society met, and that for the sake of the sheriffs[67] they durst not this
Newgate (1700).
2nd Floor.
| F. Part of Press Yard. F.a. The Castle. H. Jack Ketch’s Kitchen. J. Press Room. K. Bilbows. | 7. 2nd Ward (Master Felons). 8. 3rd Ward (Master Felons). 12. Debtors’ Ward (Common Side). 17. Waterman’s Hall (for Women). |
day commit him for fear of making him let out the prisoners, but are fain to go by artifice to deal with him.” The keeper at this time was one Walter Cowday, as appears from a State pardon “for seven prisoners ordered to be transported by their own consent,” which he endorses. Sharper measure was dealt out to his successor, Mr. Fells, the keeper in 1696, who was summoned to appear before the Lords Justices for conniving at the escape of Birkenhead, alias Fish, alias South, East, West, &c., one of the conspirators in Sir John Fenwick’s business, and who lay in prison “to be speedily tried.” On examination of Fells, it was stated that Birkenhead’s escape had been effected by a bribe, whereupon the sheriffs were instructed to find out the truth in order to displace Fells. Fells was furthermore charged with showing favour to Sir John Fenwick by suffering him to have pens, ink, and paper alone; a little later he was convicted on two indictments before Lord Chief Justice Holt at Guildhall, viz. for the escape of Birkenhead already mentioned, and of another prisoner imprisoned for non-payment of fine. Fell’s sentence was postponed till the next term at the King’s Bench Bar; but he moved the court in arrest of judgment, a motion which the King’s Bench took time to consider, but which must have been ultimately decided in his favour, as two years later Fells still held the office of gaoler of Newgate.
The crimes of the latter half of the seventeenth century are of the same character as those of previous epochs. Many had, however, developed in degree, and were more widely practised. The offence of clipping and coining had greatly increased. The extent to which it was carried seems almost astounding. The culprits were often of high standing. A clipper, by name White, under sentence of death, was reprieved by the king upon the petition of the House of Commons in order that a committee of the House might examine him in Newgate as to his accomplices and their proceedings. Accordingly, White made “a large discovery” to the committee, both of clippers and coiners, and particularly of Esquire Strode, who had been a witness at the trial of the Earl of Bath (1697). Luttrell says (1696), among twenty persons convicted of coining was Atkinson, the beau “that made such a figure in town about eight years before, and spent an estate of £500 per annum in Yorkshire.” In the lodgings of a parson, by name Salisbury, who was arrested for counterfeiting stamped paper, several instruments for clipping and coining were found. University men were beguiled into the crime of clipping; so were seemingly respectable London tradesmen. Goldsmiths and refiners were repeatedly taken up for these malpractices. “A goldsmith in Leicester Fields and his servants committed to Newgate for receiving large quantities of broad money from Exeter to clip it.”[68] “A refiner’s wife and two servants committed to Newgate for clipping; the husband escaped.” Bird, a laceman, in custody for coining, escaped; but
Newgate (1700).
3rd Floor.
| L. The Chapel. |
10. High Hall. 13. |