The King’s Bench Ward (2) lay over the Hall Ward. Its dimensions were twenty-one feet by fifteen, and it was ten feet high. It had one window six feet by four, with a southern aspect probably like that of the Hall ward. The bed partitions were the same, but on the floor, which was of oak plank. The fees too were similar. The Stone Ward (3), alongside, is described as the very best, and pleasantly situated over the gateway towards Holborn, and therefore facing west. But the beds were all on the floor, which was of stone, with fire-place fees and so forth, as in the other rooms. At the head of the stairs, between the King’s Bench Ward and the Stone Ward, was a small apartment called “my Lady’s Hold,” in which were only two beds, for the accommodation of any female debtors who came to the master’s side. “This small apartment,” says one author (B. L.), “is the very worst part of the master’s side.”
II. The lowermost apartment in the Master Felons’ Side was a large cellar (4), some four feet below the level of the street, comprising a central drinking-room or hall, with three wards alongside, two of which were appropriated to men and one to women. Prices ruled as follows in this underground tavern: wine was sold at 2s. a bottle, strong drink at 4d. per quart, and brandy at 4d. per quartern. A “cellar-man,” so called, was selected by the turnkeys from among the prisoners for the regulation and government of his fellows, who was allowed to make what profit he could on the sale of candles, as well as a penny upon every quart of beer or bottle of wine sold, “with other advantages.” Immediately over the drinking vaults was “a spacious hall,” named the “Gigger” (5), after the small grate or gigger in the door, at which prisoners in the various wards on this side were permitted to have interviews with their friends from outside. The privilege of entrance to this hall, or to the cellar below, was conceded only on payment of a fee of 1s. 6d. per diem. The same sum was charged to any felon’s friend who was admitted to the gigger, and desired to see his friends in the tap-room; besides which they paid the cellar-man for a candle to light them down, and the price of a quart of beer, or 5d. Above the gigger again stairs led to the first ward (6), in which was “a good light, a good fire-place, and convenient lodging-rooms, as also very good flock beds, for the use of which each felon pays 3s. 6d. per week. Over this ward are the other two (7 and 8), which are both of the same magnitude and light, with the like appurtenances belonging thereto.” B. L. further tells us that the prisoners were generally utilized for all prison services. Not only did they perform all menial offices, and distribute the allowance of food, such as it was, but they were also employed to rivet on and remove the irons of their fellows. Discipline even was entrusted to them; and B. L. speaks of certain prisoners who maintained order “with a flexible weapon, to the great terror and smart of those who dispute their authority. Every felon at his coming in pays 14s. 10d. for fees and garnish money only, 1s. 6d. for coals, and 1s. to be spent amongst the prisoners of the ward.”
III. The Common Side for Debtors comprised four apartments, all situate towards Newgate Street, in other words, facing north. The ground-floor apartment was named the “Stone Hall” (9); its dimensions are not given, but it owned a cistern for water, and on the north side a chimney, “in which no fires are made except at Christmas, when there is a quantity of beef boiled there to be given to the felons.” This Stone Hall led to some subordinate chambers; in the north-east angle was the iron hold for fetters, and in the south-east a chamber for the confinement of refractory prisoners, styled “the Partner’s room,” where four men could lie at a time. In the south-west of the room was a large place called the “tap-house,” in which were sold beer, ale, brandy, wine, tobacco, and pipes, at the customary prices, “which of their kind are absolutely good.” Of the tap-house itself B. L. speaks in less complimentary terms. “It is great pity,” he says, “that greater decorum is not maintained among the prisoners of the common side, especially in the tap-house, for therein, by connivance, the felons are permitted to converse and drink with the debtors; by which means such wretchedness abounds therein, that the place has the exact aspect of hell itself, and by this means ’tis much to be questioned whether one debtor in ten who enters therein an honest man comes out the same, the wickedness of the place is so great.”
At the west side of the Stone Hall was a staircase, leading to a large room called “High Hall” (10), wherein felons alone were admitted to walk. I have placed this High Hall in the plan on that part of the gate-house which lay to the north side of Holborn. There is no precise evidence that it was exactly so situated, but as all other rooms on this first floor can be pretty accurately placed, I think the conclusion is just that High Hall was approximately where I have put it. High Hall was large, being thirty-three feet by twenty-eight, and in altitude twelve. In the midst of the place was a stone anvil, whereon the irons were knocked off the unhappy persons sentenced to death, when they came down from the chapel (on the third floor), on their way to the cart which was to carry them to Tyburn.
Opposite the entrance to the tap-house was a passage leading to a second common-side debtors room. This came to be called “Tangier” (11) in due course, no doubt from the stifling atmosphere. “The air in this ward is very bad,” says B. L., “occasioned by the multitude of the prisoners in it, and the filthiness of their lodging.” The room was large, but “dark and stinking,” and it only contained “divers barracks for the prisoners to lie on.” Debtors’ Hall (12), a third room for common-side debtors, was on the floor above. It also faced Newgate Street, and being higher up, enjoyed very good air and light. It had a very large window, which was, however, unglazed, and subjected the prisoners not only to the weather, but also to all kinds of rain, snow, sleet, &c., which the north-eastern winds produce. Unlike those in Tangier, the prisoners in Debtors’ Hall had no barrack-beds to lie on, and were obliged therefore to sleep upon the boarded floor. Close by Debtors’ Hall was a kind of kitchen, containing a large fire-place and grate, and known in B. L.’s time as the Hangman’s, or Jack Ketch’s kitchen, “because it is the place in which that honest fellow boils the quarters of such men as have been executed for treason.”[64] Over this kitchen again, on the third floor, that is to say, was “an indifferent good ward,” called the Women’s Ward (13), and devoted to common debtors of that sex.
These poor debtors were but ill lodged and provided for. They had no firing save what they themselves found. They had to provide their own beds or sleep on the boards supplied by the sheriffs. But every debtor on the common side was allowed “each day one coarse household wheaten loaf, almost the bigness of a common penny white loaf; and there is also given a certain quantity of beef every week, in proportion to the number of debtors. Every debtor at his entrance paid 11s. 6d. garnish money, which was expended among the prisoners of the ward, and on discharge or removal a further fee of 7s. 10d. as on the master’s side. ‘The conversation of these debtors,’ says B. L., ‘was generally very profligate, being, as before mentioned, perpetually drinking and conversing with the felons.’”
IV. The Common Felons’ Side, which was adjacent to that for the common debtors, was evidently a foul disgrace to the prison and to those charged with the administration of the law. B. L. describes it as “a most terrible, wicked, and dreadful place.” In this side were five wards. The first, known as the Stone Hold (14), was an underground dungeon lying beneath the “middle ward,” which I fix somewhere near the Tangier Ward of the debtors’ common side. “The Stone Hold,” says the authority already quoted, “was a terrible, stinking, dark, and dismal place, situate underground, into which no daylight can come. It was paved with stone; the prisoners had no beds, and lay on the pavement, whereby they endured great misery and hardship. The unhappy persons imprisoned therein are such as at their unfortunate entrance cannot pay the customary fees of the gaol.” Alongside the Stone Hold was the “Lower Ward” (15), another large dungeon, in which were confined felons for non-payment of fines. The Middle Ward (16), on the floor above, was for those who had paid their bare fees, no more. Here also they had no beds, but the floor on which they lay was of oak, not stone. There were two wards for common female felons. The first, on this second floor, was called “Waterman’s Hall” (17), a very dark and stinking place; the floor is of oaken planks, which is all the bed allotted to its miserable inhabitants. Water was, however, well supplied to this ward. Close by it were other rooms applied to ghastly uses. One was the “press-room,” still used in the writer’s time for the execution of the frightful sentence of pressing to death culprits arraigned who refused to plead; another the Bilbows,[65] adjacent to the press room, also very dark, “and used as a refractory cell for such as occasioned quarrel or disturbance.” Near this again was the women’s condemned hold, “a small, dark, dismal dungeon, wherein is a barrack for the prisoners to lie on, but no fire-place, and it is therefore cold at all times. A second ward (18) for common side females existed on the third, or floor above all, “the highest part of the whole gaol in the north part thereof, and is of large extent, in which is one window only, and that very small.” Barracks were fixed on the walls on each side, but without any kind of bed whatsoever. “The persons imprisoned therein were generally those that lie for transportation, and they, knowing their time to be short here, rather than bestow one minute towards cleaning the same, suffer themselves to live far worse than swine, and, to speak the truth, the Augean Stable would bear no comparison to it, for they are almost poisoned by their own filth, and their conversation is nothing but one
Newgate (1700).
Ground Floor.
