The first agent appointed was Mr. Delafons, but he only acted for a few days previous to the arrival of Mr. James Perrot from Portchester, on April 1, 1797. The superintendent of the transport of the prisoners was Captain Daniel Woodriff, R.N.
On March 23, 1797, Woodriff received notice and instructions about the first arrival of prisoners. On March 26 they came—934 in number—in barges from Lynn to Yaxley, at the rate of 1s. 10d. per man, and victualling at 7d. per man per day, the sustenance being one pound of bread or biscuit, and three quarters of a pound of beef.
The arrivals came in fast, so that between April 7 and May 18, 1797, 3,383 prisoners (exclusive of seven dead and three who escaped), passed under the care of the ten turnkeys and the eighty men of the Caithness Legion who guarded Norman Cross.
1. Officers’ Barracks. 2. Field Officers’ Barracks. 3. Barrack Master’s House. 4. Soldiers’ Barracks. 5. Non-Commissioned Officers. 6. Military Hospital. 7. Magazines. 8. Engine-house. 9. Guard Rooms. 10. Soldiers’ Cooking-houses, 11. Canteens. 12. Military Straw Barn. 13. Officers’ Privies. 14. Soldiers’ Privies. 15. Shed for spare soil carts. 16. Block House. 17. Agent and Superintendent’s House. 18. Prisoners’ Straw Barn. 19. Dead House. 20. Prisoners’ Hospitals. 21. Barracks for Prisoners of War. 22. Apartments for Clerks and Assistant Surgeons. 23. Agent’s Office. 24. Store House. 25. Prisoners’ Cooking-houses. 26. Turnkeys’ Lodges. 27. Prisoners’ Black Hole. 28. Wash-house to Prisoners’ Hospital. 29. Building for Medical Stores. 30. Prisoners’ Privies. 31. Coal Yards. 32. Privies. 33. Ash Pits. Wells marked thus o. A. Airing Grounds. B. Lord Carysfort’s Grounds.
Norman Cross Prison. (Hill’s Plan, 1797–1803.)
Complaints and troubles soon came to light. A prisoner in 1797, ‘who appeared above the common class of men’, complained that the bread and beef were so bad that they were not fit for a prisoner’s dog to eat, that the British Government was not acquainted with the treatment of the prisoners, and that this was the agent’s fault for not keeping a sufficiently strict eye upon his subordinates. This was confirmed, not only by inquiry among the prisoners, but by the evidence of the petty officers and soldiers of the garrison, who said ‘as fellow creatures they must allow that the provisions given to the prisoners were not fit for them to eat, and that the water they had was much better than the beer’. In spite of this evidence, the samples sent up by the request of the ‘Sick and Hurt’ Office in reply to this complaint, were pronounced good.
In July 1797 the civil officials at Norman Cross complained of annoyances, interferences, and insults from the military. Major-General Bowyer, in command, in his reply stated: ‘I cannot conceive the civil officers have a right to take prisoners out of their prisons to the canteens and other places, which this day has been mentioned to me.’
By July 18 such parts of the prison as were completed were very full, and in November the buildings were finished, and the sixteen blocks, each holding 400 prisoners, were crowded. The packing of the hammocks in these blocks was close, but not closer than in the men-of-war of the period, and not very much closer than in the machinery-crowded big ships of to-day. The blocks, or casernes as they were called, measured 100 feet long by twenty-four feet broad, and were two stories high. On the ground floor the hammocks were slung from posts three abreast, and there were three tiers. In the upper story were only two tiers. As to the life at Norman Cross, it appears to me from the documentary evidence available to have been more tolerable than at any of the other great prisons, if only from the fact that the place had been specially built for its purpose, and was not, as in most other places, adapted. The food allowance was the same as elsewhere; viz., on five days of the week each prisoner had one and a half pounds of bread, half a pound of beef, greens or pease or oatmeal, and salt. On Wednesday and Friday one pound of herrings or cod-fish was substituted for the beef, and beer could be bought at the canteen. The description by George Borrow in Lavengro—‘rations of carrion meat and bread from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away’, is now generally admitted to be as inaccurate as his other remarks concerning the Norman Cross which he could only remember as a very small boy.
The outfit was the same as in other prisons, but I note that in the year 1797 the store-keeper at Norman Cross was instructed to supply each prisoner as often as was necessary, and not, as elsewhere, at stated intervals, with one jacket, one pair of trousers, two pairs of stockings, two shirts, one pair of shoes, one cap, and one hammock. By the way, the prisoners’ shoes are ordered ‘not to have long straps for buckles, but short ears for strings’.