QGR3/17

Gaol and House of Correction General Annual Report 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:

Michaelmas 1855

From: 1854 To: 1855

At the Easter Quarter Sessions two deaths were reported William Taite an Irish vagrant charged with arson who died of disease of the lungs and Alfred Allen a convict from the preceding Bedford Borough Sessions under sentence of two years imprisonment who committed suicide by hanging in his cell. At each Quarter Sessions the Visiting Justices and the Governor called the attention of the Court to the increased number of juvenile offenders many of whom had been almost driven into crime by absolute destitution or led into it by the neglect or evil example of their parents. The Visiting Justices considered it a serious evil that no other institution than a prison was available for such youths and that no means were devised for their employment and reformation when discharged so that in most instances they were unable to obtain honest employment and were obliged to return to their old associates in crime: the subject has however been taken up most zealously by the Magistracy and public and there is now a prospect of the early establishment of a Reformatory School in this County for Juvenile Offenders. At the Midsummer Quarter Sessions John Ash aged 75 who was committed on 25th June for trial it the ensuing Assizes died on the seond of July following apoplexy and a verdict accordingly was returned upon the Coroners request.

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Roberts, Robert Evan,
Taite, William,
Allen, Alfred,
Ash, John

BEDFORD, Bedford Prison, County Gaol, Carlton Reformatory, Bedfordshire Reformatory School, House of Correction, magistrate, justices of the peace, chaplain, surgeons, imprisonment, crime, punishment, health, illness, disease, suicide, vagrancy, employment, DEATH