1. King’s Bench Prison, for debtors on process or execution, and for persons under sentence for misdemeanour, &c. This was in St. George’s Fields, Southwark, and was considered more wholesome than the London prisons. There were districts surrounding the prison both here, and at the Fleet, where prisoners could dwell, without going inside, by payment of fees. The prisoners inside the King’s Bench, could but obtain leave to go out once every term, or four times a year. There were 300 rooms in the prison, but it was always full, and decent accommodation was even more expensive to obtain, than at the Fleet.
2. The Fleet Prison was one belonging to the Courts of Common Pleas, and Chancery, to which debtors might remove themselves from any other prison, at the expense of six or seven pounds. A contemporary account says:
“It contains 125 rooms, besides a common kitchen, coffee and tap rooms, but the number of prisoners is generally so great, that two, or even three, persons are obliged to submit to the shocking inconvenience of living in one small room!! Those who can afford it, pay their companion to chum off, and thus have a room to themselves. Each person so paid off, receives four shillings a week. The prisoner pays one shilling and threepence a week for his room without furniture, and an additional sevenpence for furniture. Matters are sometimes so managed, that a room costs the needy and distressed prisoner from ten to thirteen shillings a week.
INTERIOR OF FLEET PRISON.
“Those who have trades that can be carried on in a room, generally work, and some gain more than they would out of doors, after they become acquainted with the ways of the place. During the quarterly terms,[81] when the court sits, prisoners, on paying five shillings a day, and on giving security, are allowed to go out when they please, and there is a certain space round the prison, called the rules, in which prisoners may live, on furnishing two good securities to the warden for their debt, and on paying about 3 per cent. on the amount of their debts to the warden. The rules extend only from Fleet Market to the London Coffee House, and from Ludgate Hill to Fleet Lane, so that lodgings are bad, and very dear. Within the walls there is a yard for walking in, and a good racquet ground.”
3. Ludgate Prison, or Giltspur Street Compter, for debtors who were freemen of the City of London.
4. Poultry Compter—a dark, small, ill-aired dungeon—used as a House of Detention.
5. Newgate—which was the gaol both for Criminals, and Debtors, for the County of Middlesex. On the debtors’ side, the overcrowding was something terrible. The felons’, or State side, as it was called, was far more comfortable, and the criminals better accommodated. The prison might, then, be visited on payment of two or three shillings to the turnkeys, and giving away a few more to the most distressed debtors.
6. The New Prison, Clerkenwell, was also a gaol for the County of Middlesex, and was built in 1775. The fare here was very meagre—only a pound of bread a day.