QGR3/2

General Annual Report of the Justices of the Peace to the General Quarter Sessions, including the reports of the Keeper of the Gaol & House of Correction; the Surgeon of the prisons and the Chaplain of the prisons. Includes the following:

20 Oct 1840

From: 1840 To: 1840

The Gaoler reported at Epiphany Session that the prison was in good condition and contained seven day rooms, seven airing yards and fifty cells. That on 22nd April last Thomas Griggs, a prisoner confined in execution for debt has made his escape from prison a little before 9 o'clock p.m.(the usual time of confining debtors to their bedrooms). For such escape the Gaoler has been compelled to pay the debt and costs in one action and£150 in another which together with the cost of men, horses and coaches and advertisements amounted to nearly £260. That having on the 10th June received in the Gaol another Debtor charged with a debt of upwards of £300 he appointed a Night Watchman. That he had in his custody in the Gaol 11 debtors whose debts together amounyed to £1100 a much greater number than was ever in Gaol at any one time and more than three times the average number of debtors, the Gaoler therefore requested the night watchan be continued. The Surgeon reported at Epiphany Sessions that in the House of Correction the petechial scurvy had been prevailing during the whole quarter. Several had the symptoms usually preceding its full development but by adopting a better diet and giving powerful tonics it had been prevented assuming its worst character. At Midsummer Session the Surgeon reported that there were in the Gaol more females than usual, that all of them had been ill, but not seriously. That in the House of Correction the period had been marked by much illness of a serious nature. That several prisoners of the worst character had assumed it in various ways, in the hope of getting excused from labour, and expecting to have other indulgencies. At Michaelmas Sessions he had reported that there had been some case of Fever in a mild form with one exception of Typhus in its worst form from which the patient had recovered. One prisoner committed on a charge of murder was seriously ill from the effects of arsenic on the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels and continued so for some time but was recovered. The Chaplain's report for Michaelmas included the following observations: 'that owing to conjugal discord and misery and the consequent parental neglect of children it might be said that morally speaking the majority of criminal Boys and Young Men with whom he was concerned, had been orphans from their cradle, untaught, uncontrolled, left to take whatever wild and wayward course they chose. That some such had grown to a height of wickedness, and vicious hardihood, that it was truly appalling....Some few he had known in the prison who could not only read and write well but possessed some taste for reading, but it was not a taste for that knowledge which wouldturn them from the error of their ways, and which is eternal life but for that which pollutes the imagination and debases the heart. Infidel & immoral publications, they were acquainted with. This was true chiefly of those that lived in towns. That it was striking that some of the most accomplished villains he had known in prison were the best scholars. The Chaplain reported at the Easter Quarter Sessions that those from Luton and Dunstable particularly were ignorant and depraved in the extreme. As an instanceof the direful nature and effects of association in the Day Room, he begged to state that in February the Gaoler discovered that two Prisoners were actually swearing and otherwise grossly misbehaving purposely to hinder and annoy another prisoner who was reading. That the general demeanor and conversation of some he had but too good reason to believe was of the basest and most revolting kind. That this intercourse might be said on the part of youthful offenders to amount to a positive criminal education. The Visiting Justices reported that the Gaol contained seven day rooms and the injurious effects from Prisoners congregating together day after day were too evident to require further comment. Number of prisoners committed in the course of the year has been 506 an increase of 94 in the number of the preceding year. The greatest number of prisoners at any one time in the past year was 129 being an increase of 12 upon the number of the previous year.

item

Griggs, Thomas,
Tregenza, John,
Banfield, James,
Short, C,
Maclear, George

BEDFORD, Bedford Prison, County Gaol, House of Correction, magistrate, general justices of the peace, chaplain, surgeon, imprisonment, crime, punishment, health, illness, disease, scurvy, EDUCATION, general learning & literature, literacy