QGR5/38

Minute book of the Visiting Justices [third volume] [see also QGR 4/1-360]. Mentions straw plaiting, female prisoners' diet, tobacco smoke from Debtor's Ward pervading the building, gas, new prisoners' diet. Frontispiece includes prison rules and list of Visiting Justices. Page 38 includes the following:

23 September 1833

From: 1833 To: 1833

Philip Hunt, Thomas Barber, George P Livius. 40 prisoners. Abel Burgess, committed on a charge of highway robbery, complained that the food allowed to the prisoners was insufficient for their supper. A request was made by some of the prisoners committed for trial to be allowed to plait straw, towards gaining money for extra food. The Gaoler stated that when such permission was formerly given, they made strong straw ropes privaltely, to enable them to scale the walls of the prison and escape.

item

Hunt, Philip,
Livius, George P,
Barber, Thomas,
Warner,
Short,
Banfield, James,
Burgess, Abel

BEDFORD, Woolwich, Bedford Gaol, House of Correction, gaol, general justices of the peace, straw plaiting, tobacco, debt, gas, Quarter Sessions, magistrate, imprisonment, punishment, chaplains, gaoler, turnkey, surgeon, treadmill, crime, Game Laws, poaching, debtor, disease, transportation, Straw Plait, escape from prisons, highway robbery