Marshalsea

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All that is left of the Marshalsea is a long brick wall, two original gate arches, and a plaque from the local council.^[1]

The Marshalsea was a notorious prison on the south bank of the River Thames in the London borough of Southwark. For over 500 years — from at least 1329 until it closed in 1842 — the prison housed London's smugglers, mutineers and, most of all, its debtors, the length of their imprisonment determined largely by the whim of their creditors.

The Marshalsea became known around the world in the 19th century through the writing of the English novelist Charles Dickens, whose father was sent there in 1824 owing £40 and 10 shillings, when Dickens was 12 years old. Forced to leave school for a job in a factory to support his family, he later based several of his stories and characters on life in debtors' prisons, particularly Little Dorrit, whose father, like his own, was a Marshalsea debtor.^[2]

Much of the prison was demolished in 1849, although some of its buildings continued in use, housing an ironmonger's and a butter shop, and later a printing house for the Marshalsea Press. All that is left of it now is a long brick wall and two original gate arches, leading to an unkempt public garden and a local history library, the existence of what Dickens called "the crowding ghosts of many miserable years" marked only by a plaque from the local council. "It is gone now," he wrote, "and the world is none the worse without it."^[3]

[edit] Background

[edit] Marshalsea Court

Main article: Marshalsea Court

The interior of the Palace Court of the Marshalsea, 1800.

"Marshalsea" means the seat or court of a marshal, or keeper. "Marshal" is derived from the Old Germanic marh ("horse") and scalc ("servant"). It originally meant "stable keeper," and came to refer to those presiding over the courts of Medieval Europe. The Old English word "sea" means "seat."

The Marshalsea prison was originally built to hold prisoners being tried by the Marshalsea Court, or Court of the Marshalsea of the King's Household, although the term "Marshalsea" came to be used of the prison itself.

The court was run by the Lord Steward and Knight Marshal of the King's house,^[4] and in theory, until the mid-1600s, it only had jurisdiction over members of the royal household — "that they might not be drawn into other courts and their service lost"^[5] — who lived within what was called the "verge of the King's Court," which meant a distance of 12 miles radius from the King's person, wherever he happened to be.^[6] In fact, there is early evidence of people with no apparent connection to the royal household being arrested and taken to the Marshalsea.

Because the court travelled when the King did, Marshalsea courts were held in a number of places, both inside and outside London, but the location of the Marshalsea prison remained fixed.^[7]

[edit] Southwark

Main article: Southwark

Further information: History of London, Londinium, The Tabard, The George Inn, Southwark, and Cross Bones

Old London Bridge in 1616, with Southwark Cathedral in the foreground

Southwark (pronounced /ˈsʌðɚk/, locally [ˈsʌvək]) was settled by the Romans in around 43 CE, the name referring to their southern fortifications ("works").^[8] The area served as an entry point into London from southern England, particularly along Watling Street, the Roman road from Canterbury, which ran into Southwark's Borough High Street. As a result, it became known for its travellers, its inns — including Geoffrey Chaucer's Tabard Inn — its "squalid, dejected, and debauched people,"^[9] and its population of criminals hiding out on the wrong side of the old London Bridge.^[10][9]

The itinerant population brought with it poverty, prostitutes, bear baiting, theatres — most famously, Shakespeare's Globe — and, inevitably, prisons. In 1796, there were six within its boundaries — the Marshalsea, the Clink, King's Bench Prison, Horsemonger Lane Gaol, the White Lion, and the Borough Compter — compared to just eighteen in London as a whole.^[11]

Charles Dickens describes the area around the Marshalsea in The Pickwick Papers:

[edit] Debt in England

Further information: Debt bondage, Debtors' prison, Poor Law, Poorhouse, and Sponging-house

A 1904 artist's impression of the young Charles Dickens, forced at the age of 12 to leave school and work in a shoe-blacking factory to help get his family out of the Marshalsea.

Before the Bankruptcy Act of 1869 abolished debtors' prisons, men and women in England were routinely imprisoned for debt at the pleasure of their creditors, sometimes for decades.^[13] They would often take their families with them, the only alternative for the women and children being the shame of uncertain charity outside the jail, so that entire communities sprang up inside the debtors' prisons, with children born and raised there. Lucinda Cory of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Rhode Island writes that other European countries had legislation limiting imprisonment for debt to one year, but debtors in England were imprisoned until their creditors were satisfied, however long that took. When the Fleet Prison closed in 1842, some debtors were found to have been there for 30 years.^[13]

Cory writes that the law offered no protection for people with assets tied up by inheritance laws, or for those who had paid their creditors as much as they could. Because prisons were privately administered, whole economies were created around the prison debtor communities, with the prison keepers charging rent (the so-called "jailor's fee"), bailiffs charging for food and clothing, attorneys charging legal fees in fruitless efforts to get the debtors out, and creditors (often tradesmen) increasing the debt simply because the debtor was in jail. The result was that the prisoner's families, including children, often had to be sent to work simply to pay the costs of keeping their breadwinner in prison, the debts accumulating to the point where there was no realistic prospect of release.^[13]

By 1641, around 10,000 people in England and Wales were imprisoned for debt.^[15] Helen Small of Pembroke College, Oxford writes that, under George III, new legislation prevented debts of under 40 shillings leading to jail, but even the smallest amounts could quickly exceed that once lawyers' fees were added on. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act of 1813, debtors could declare themselves insolvent and request release after 14 days in jail by taking an oath that their assets did not exceed £20; but if any of their creditors objected, they had to stay inside. Even after a lifetime in prison, the debt remained to be paid.^[16]

[edit] Prison in England

Further information: Fleet Prison, King's Bench, Newgate Prison, The Clink, and Tower of London

Until the late 19th century, imprisonment was not in itself regarded as a punishment, at least not by those imposing it. Prisons were designed to hold people until their fate was decided by judges, with punishment consisting of execution, the stocks, flogging, the pillory, the ducking stool, or transportation to one of the colonies.^[17]

Before the Prisons Act of 1877, central government had little responsibility for prisons, with most administered by the royal household, and run for profit by private individuals who purchased the right to manage and make money from them.^[18][19] For example, the Bishop of Durham and the Bishop of Ely both owned prisons, in which prisoners were required to pay fees if they wanted better conditions; in the latter, anyone unable to do so was fastened to the floor on his back, with a spiked collar round his neck and bars over his legs, until he somehow found the money.^[19] In 1729, the Knight Marshal was letting the Marshalsea to his deputy marshal for 140 shillings a year, plus 260 shillings of the yearly rent the deputy received from the prisoners.^[20]

Prisoners had to feed and clothe themselves and furnish their rooms; if food was supplied, it was either bread and water, or something confiscated from the local market as unfit for human consumption.^[19] Anyone unfortunate enough to have no money for food, and no one to bring it in for him, died of starvation. Lord Philips, the current Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, writes that a parliamentary committee reported in 1729 that 300 inmates of the Marshalsea had starved to death within the space of three months.^[19]

[edit] The prison

The Marshalsea occupied two buildings in Southwark, the first from circa 1329 until 1811, at what would now be 161 Borough High Street, between King Street and Mermaid Court.^[4][21] In 1799, the government reported that the prison had fallen into a state of decay,^[22] and decided to rebuild it 130 yards south on Borough High Street, on the site of the White Lion prison, also called the Borough Gaol.^[23]

Notwithstanding that the early Marshalsea existed for 500 years, it is the later Marshalsea that has become known through the Dickens connection, though it existed for only 38 years, from 1811 until the government closed it in 1849.

[edit] Early Marshalsea (ca. 1329–1811)

Further information: Peasants' Revolt, Gordon Riots, and Petition of Right

The old Marshalsea. The building on the right with the five tall windows was the courthouse.

A map of London from 1300, showing Southwark in the south, just over the Thames from London Bridge, and the approximate location of the first Marshalsea prison. The earliest reference to the prison is from 1329.^[24]

There is no record of when the first Marshalsea was built,^[20] but there is an early reference to it in 1329. In June or July 1329, Agnes, wife of Walter de Westhale, surrendered herself to the Marshalsea for having committed "trespass by force and arms" on Richard le Chaucer and his wife, Mary, relatives of the writer Geoffrey Chaucer, by helping her daughter, Joan, marry their son, John, who was only 12 years old and did not have his parents' consent. ^[25]

In 1377, the killer of a sailor was jailed in the Marshalsea, only to be dragged out by the sailor's friends, killed, and hanged.^[26] In 1381, during the Peasants' Revolt, the prison was attacked by a mob led by Wat Tyler, who released all the prisoners with an eye to swelling the number of rioters, a routine occurrence during civil unrest. The 16th century historian John Stow writes that Tyler and his men, "brake down the houses of the Marshalsea and King's Bench in Southwark, took from thence the prisoners, [then] brake down the house of Sir John Immorth, the Marshal of the Marshalsey and King's Bench ..."^[27] Known as a "tormentor without pity," Immorth was beheaded by the mob.^[28]

The prison was attacked again by rebels in 1450, and there was rioting and a mass escape in 1504. In June 1780, all the prisoners were released during the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots, although the Marshalsea was not burned down as some other prisons were, most notably Newgate.^[29]

Ben Jonson, the playwright, was sent to the Marshalsea in 1597 for The Isle of Dogs, regarded as seditious.

The prison was regarded as second in importance only to the Tower of London, and several notable figures were held there, several for sedition. Bishop Bonner, the last Roman Catholic Bishop of London, was imprisoned there in 1559 until his death 10 years later, supposedly for his own safety, and Ben Jonson, the playwright, in 1597 for writing The Isle of Dogs. The poet Christopher Brooke was jailed in 1601 for helping the 17-year-old Ann More to marry John Donne without her father' consent.^[30] George Wither, the political satirist, wrote his best poem "The Shepherd's Hunting" in the Marshalsea in 1613, where he was sent for his satirical Abuses Stript and Whipt, which included a poem attacking the Lord Chancellor.

In 1632, Sir John Eliot, the Vice-Admiral of Devon, was sent to the Marshalsea from the Tower of London, which he described as "[leaving] his palace in London for his country house in Southwark."^[30] John Selden, the jurist, was jailed there in 1629 for his involvement in drafting the Petition of Right, and Colonel Culpeper in 1685 for striking the Duke of Devonshire on the ear.^[31]

Much of the early Marshalsea, as with the later, was taken up by debtors. John Noorthouck wrote in 1773 that "debtors within any part of Westminster, and 12 miles round, may be arrested and carried to this [the Marshalsea] prison for a debt of 40s [shillings]."^[32][33][34] It also held a small number men being tried at the Old Bailey for crimes at sea, including mutiny, smuggling, piracy, and "unnatural crimes."

[edit] Early prison conditions

Further information: Howard League for Penal Reform

As the first Marshalsea appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine, September 1803.

John Howard visited the Marshalsea in 1774.

John Howard (1726-1790), known as the Philanthropist, one of England's great 18th-century prison reformers,^[35] visited the prison on March 16, 1774. He found the building in disrepair, the jailer's fee high, and men and women mingling freely. Although strictly against the law at the time — male and female prisoners were to be "prevented from seeing, conversing, or holding any intercourse with each other"^[36] — it was so common for the sexes to be imprisoned together that prison marriages became the norm. The number of debtors in London was such that over half of all the city's weddings in the 1740s were prison marriages — so-called Fleet Marriages, named after Fleet Prison, another debtor's prison.

Howard wrote that the Marshalsea had no infirmary, no regular food allowance, and the practice of "garnish" was still in place — whereby new prisoners had to pay a fee to old prisoners upon arrival. Many prisoners had no bed to sleep on, and were forced to sleep in the taproom (beer room) on the floor, while a man who was not a prisoner was running a chandler's shop and living with his family in five rooms intended for prisoners.^[37][38] The taproom (beer room) had been let to a prisoner who was living within the rules of the King's Bench prison. Howard writes that, one Sunday, 600 pots of beer were brought into the prison from a public house because the prisoners didn't like the beer being served in the taproom.^[39]

Although legislation prohibited jailors from having any pecuniary interest in the sale of alcohol within the prison, it was a rule that was completely ignored; in the King's Bench Prison in the 18th century, for example, 120 gallons of gin were sold every week.^[19] Howard wrote that rioting and drunkenness were, in fact, the only ways to get the prisoners to "disregard the confinement."^[40]

Edward Cave, writing as "Sylvanus Urban," the fictitious letters editor of Gentleman's Magazine, replied to a reader's letter about the Marshalsea in 1803, reporting that, according to John Howard, debtors were still in the prison as of December 1801. He wrote that 84 prisoners were still living there, accompanied by eight wives and seven children. The building was said to be in a "ruinous and insecure state, and the habitations of the debtors wretched in the extreme."^[41]

[edit] Later Marshalsea (1811—1842)

Part of the Southwark section of a map of London created by Richard Horwood in 1792-99. The number 1 marks the site of the old Marshalsea jail, while 2 marks the site of the White Lion jail — or "Borough Goal" [sic] — which the second Marshalsea was built on in 1811. St. George's Church is marked with a cross. Borough High Street is to the left.

The Marshalsea was rebuilt at a cost of £8,000, at 150 High Street — now called Borough High Street, and the number has changed to 211 — on the south side of Angel Court and Angel Alley, two narrow streets that no longer exist,^[42] just north of St. George's Church, on the site of the 16th-century White Lion prison or "Borough Goal" [sic], as it is known on Richard Horwood's 1792 map of London (see left).^[43] It opened in 1811 with two sections, one for Admiralty prisoners under court martial, and one for debtors, with a shared chapel, which had been part of the White Lion.

[edit] Sources of information

[edit] Dickens connection

Main articles: Charles Dickens and Little Dorritt

Charles Dickens described the Marshalsea in Little Dorrit.

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) became a major source of information about the second Marshalsea after his father, John, was sent there as a debtor on February 20, 1824, under the Insolvent Debtor's Act of 1813, because he owed £40 and 10 shillings.^[44][45]

Twelve years old at the time, Dickens was sent to live in lodgings with Mrs. Ellen Roylance in Little College Street, Camden Town, from where he had to walk five miles every day to Warren's blacking factory at 30 Hungerford Stairs, a factory owned by a relative of his mother's. There he spent 10 hours a day wrapping bottles of shoe polish for six shillings a week to help pay for his family's keep. His mother, Elizabeth Barrow, and her three youngest children, joined her husband in the Marshalsea in April, and from then on, Dickens would visit them every Sunday, until he found lodgings in Lant Street, closer to the prison, in the attic of a house belonging to the vestry clerk of St George's Church. This meant he was able to breakfast with his family in the Marshalsea and dine with them after work.^[46]

His father was released after three months, on May 28, 1924,^[44] but the family's financial situation remained poor, and Dickens had to continue working at the factory, something he reportedly never forgave his mother for. He wrote in David Copperfield, regarded as his most autobiographical novel: "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!"^[14]

He subsequently wrote about the Marshalsea and other debtors' prisons in three novels, The Pickwick Papers (published in installments between 1836-37); David Copperfield (1849–1850); and finally Little Dorrit (1855–1857), in which the main character, Amy, is born in the Marshalsea to a debtor's family imprisoned for reasons so complex no-one can fathom how to get them out. Much of what he wrote is consistent with the reports of other primary sources, though Trey Philpotts writes that he downplayed the licentiousness of Marshalsea life, perhaps to protect Victorian sensibilities.^[4]

[edit] James Neild and other sources

Prison reformer James Neild reported on the Marshalsea after a visit in 1811.

Another primary source of information on the second Marshalsea is James Neild (1744–1814), the prison reformer, who visited the prison in 1811 while the old White Lion jail blocks were being modified. A goldsmith by profession, Neild had become interested in prison reform in 1762 when one of his apprentices was briefly jailed in the King's Bench. He was shocked by what he saw, and began to visit other prisons in London. In 1773, he formed the Society for the Relief and Discharge of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts, and began to write regular reports about prison conditions in England, Wales, and Scotland.^[47]

Trey Philpotts of the University of Delaware compiled a detailed description of the second Marshalsea, first published in 1991 in The Dickensian, and expanded in his The Companion to "Little Dorrit" (2003). He lent heavily on two sources. The first was a report by the Select Committees and Commissioners on the State and Management of Prisons in London and Elsewhere (here called "the Commissioners"), who visited the second Marshalsea between 1815–1818, providing a description of its conditions and culture, and a ground plan. The second was an anonymous tract published in 1833,^[48] called "An Expose [sic] of the Practice of the Palace, or Marshalsea Court," reportedly written by an eyewitness critical of the practice of imprisoning people for debt. Philpotts writes that this pamphlet was circulated just as the Solicitor General was introducing a bill for the "Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt in certain cases."^[4]

[edit] The buildings

[edit] Hygiene

An image from the early 19th century, believed to be the courtyard of the later Marshalsea.

The prison building was white-washed once a year, and the Commissioners noted that it was "tolerably" clean, and there had been no outbreaks of infections. Most of the diseases the prisoners suffered from, according to the Commissioners, arose out of "debauchery, dissipation, and drinking."^[49]

That there was little infection was surprising. The prison yard overflowed with "waste water," there were choked drains, and the smell of the nearby privies drifted into the kitchen. There was a debtors' committee in the prison, which employed one of the prisoners as a "scavenger" to clean the drains six times a year, and empty the privies. Philpotts writes that the contents of the latter, for reasons that remain unclear, were carried though the house of the prison keeper before being disposed of, reportedly greatly inconveniencing him and his family.^[4]

The drinking water was by all accounts foul. Philpotts quotes the anonymous eyewitness, who wrote that it tasted of iron ("chalybeate") and "smell[ed] horribly."^[50] The deputy marshal insisted it was the same as the water used by the entire Borough of Southwark, though he wouldn't drink it himself, and sent out for his own instead.^[4]

[edit] Admiralty section

The so-called Admiralty division housed a few prisoners under naval courts martial — for mutiny, desertion, smuggling, piracy, and what the deputy marshal called "unnatural crimes."^[4]

Philpotts writes that, unlike other parts of the prison that had been built from scratch in 1811, the Admirality division — as well as the northern boundary wall and the buildings that housed the dayroom and shared chapel — had been part of the old Borough gaol, and were considerably run down.^[4] The cells were old and rotten, barely unable to confine prisoners; in 1817, one prisoner actually managed to break through his cell walls. The relatively low boundary wall together with the irregular use of spikes, or chevaux-de-frise, meant that the Admiralty prisoners were often housed in the infirmary, chained to bolts fixed to the floor.^[52]

They were supposed to have a separate yard to exercise in, so that criminals weren't mixing with debtors — this was one of the concessions made in 1682 to ensure better treatment of imprisoned debtors — but in fact the prisoners mixed often, and according to Dickens, happily.^[53] The Select Committee reported that they deplored this practice, arguing that the Admiralty prisoners were mostly young midshipmen and warrant officers, characterized by an "entire absence of all control, the riot in which they live, and the licentious examples that are before them."^[51] Dickens writes that, despite the rules, the two categories of prisoner mixed freely, except at "certain constitutional moments when somebody came from some Office, to go through some form of overlooking something, which neither he nor anybody else knew anything about."^[53]

[edit] Debtors' section

The prison was located just to the north of St George's churchyard. Photograph by Gordon Joly, 2005.

The Commissioners report that the debtors' section consisted of a brick barracks building, a kitchen and public room, and a "tap room" or snuggery.^[55] Debtors could drink as much beer as they wanted, at a cost of fivepence for a pot in 1815, plus an extra penny if they drank it in the tap room.^[4]

The barracks was less than ten yards wide and 33 yards long, and was divided into eight houses with three floors, with 56 rooms in all.^[4] Nield reports that each floor had seven rooms facing the front and seven in the back.^[47]

Most rooms were 10½ ft square and 8½ ft high, with boarded floors, a fireplace, and a glazed window. The Commissioners report that each room contained two or three male prisoners. The rooms were too small for two beds, so prisoners had to share a single bed. Female debtors were housed in rooms over the tap room.^[4][47]

Instead of having internal hallways, the rooms were accessed directly from eight narrow wooden staircases from the outside. The Commissioners regarded these narrow staircases as a fire hazard, as they were the sole exits from houses separated from each other only by thin lath and plaster partitions.^[4]

The Comissioners reported that the prison yard was an alley five yards wide; Neild wrote that it measured 177 x 56 feet.^[47] It was surrounded by high external walls, leaving "no sufficient area for any active exercise except walking; nor is there any convenience for any sort of exercise in bad weather."^[57] The Commissioners warned that "from the confined situation of the prison itself, the scanty yard, the want of a free circulation of air, the quantity of waste water that covers the court, the health of the prisoners may be materially affected."^[58]

[edit] Life for the debtors

[edit] New prisoners

The debtors invariably saw themselves as incarcerated for a short time only, until their affairs could be sorted out, the misunderstandings with the creditors clarified. Dickens wrote in The Pickwick Papers:

The anonymous eyewitness reports that new prisoners entering the Marshalsea became "witness to the various methods of time-killing, viz. drinking, singing, gambling, fornication, adultery, and, in short, every kind of debauchery."^[59]

The tradition of "garnish" was still practised, so the first thing a debtor imprisoned for having no money was confronted with was a request for money. Philpotts writes that prisoners were expected upon entry to make a donation to the prisoners' committee general fund — five shillings and sixpence when the Commissioners reported to Parliament between 1815-1818, increased to eight shillings and sixpence by the time the anonymous witness was writing in 1833. Women were asked for a smaller sum. This allowed the prisoners to use the snuggery, where water could be boiled and meals cooked, and candles and newspapers obtained.^[4] The anonymous eyewitness reports that prisoners failing to pay the garnish were publicly declared to be defaulters by the prison crier, and their names were written up in the public kitchen.^[60]

After garnish, prisoners were each given a "chum ticket," which told them which room was theirs. The lucky ones arrived when a room was vacant, but most were expected to "chum" with other prisoners, though sometimes they would spend the first night in the infirmary until a room could be made ready. Philpotts reports that there was a strict principle of rotation, whereby the newest arrival was placed with the youngest prisoner who was living alone. A wealthier prisoner could pay his roommates to go away — "buy out the chum" — for half-a-crown a week, and could live alone, while the outcast chum would either pay for lodgings somewhere else in the prison, or sleep in the tap room.^[4] According to the anonymous eyewitness, the unluckiest of the prisoners would spend three or four nights walking around the yard before a chum could be found for them, even though they were already being charged for the room they didn't have.^[59]

The only prisoners not expected to pay "chummage" were the debtors who had declared themselves insolvent by swearing an oath that their assets were worth less than 40 shillings. If their creditors agreed, they could be released after 14 days, but if anyone objected, they remained confined to the so-called "poor side" of the building (near the woman's side), receiving a small weekly allowance from the county and money from charity.^[61]

The prison gates were closed at ten every night until eight the next morning. Visitors, including women, could come and go freely, with a bell warning them half an hour before closing time, and an officer walking around the prison calling "Strangers, women and children all out!"^[62]

[edit] Women of the Marshalsea

The presence of wives, lovers, daughters, and prostitutes was taken for granted at the Marshalsea. Women were allowed to come and go, and even live with the prisoners, without being asked who they were, if they behaved themselves.^[64] The anonymous eyewitness reports that some of the rooms were specifically let out for use by prostitutes.^[59]

There were also women prisoners living on the women's side of the main barracks, but who were also allowed to mix freely with the men. Whether there as visitors or prisoners, women in the Marshalsea risked being "ruined," with or without their consent. The anonymous witness talks about the risk of rape or of being tempted into prostitution: "How often has female virtue been assailed in poverty? Alas how often has it fallen, in consequence of a husband or a father having been a prisoner for debt?"^[63]

The prison doctor, a surgeon, lived outside the Marshalsea and would arrive at the prison every other day to attend to prisoners, and sometimes their children — to "protect his reputation," according to the Parliamentary Commission — but would not attend to their wives, for reasons left unexplained. This left the women to give birth alone, or as in Little Dorrit, with the help of other prisoners.^[4] A Marshalea surgeon told the Parliamentary Commission that he could recall having helped just once with a birth, and then only as a matter of courtesy. "I do not consider that as included in my salary," he told them.^[65]

[edit] Prison staff and debtors' committee

Philpotts writes that the daily business of the prison was mostly governed by the prisoners themselves, with the deputy marshal, who was the prison keeper, inspecting it only once a week, or once a fortnight.^[4] There were six officers in addition to the keeper: the head turnkey (jailor) appointed for life by the Knight Marshal; a subordinate turnkey; two watchmen, one of which would also be a third turnkey; a chaplain, and a surgeon.^[66] Much of the prison business was run by a debtors' committee of nine prisoners and a chair — a position held by Dickens's father, John^[67] — who were appointed on the last Wednesday of each month, and met every Monday at 11 a.m. ^[66]

The prison seemed to run smoothly, with the Commissioners reporting that, as of 1818, no riots had been reported. The debtors' committee was responsible for imposing fines for rules violations, an obligation they appear to have fulfilled with some enthusiasm. The Commissioners wrote that debtors could be fined for theft; throwing water or filth out of windows or into someone else's room; making noise after midnight; cursing; fighting; singing obscene songs; smoking in the beer room between eight and ten in the morning, or twelve and two in the afternoon; defacing the staircase; dirtying the privy seats; urinating in the yard; stealing newspapers or utensils from the snuggery; drawing water before it had boiled — and criticizing the committee, which the Commissioners wrote had "too frequently been the case."^[68]

[edit] The prison as a haven

As dreadful as the Marshalsea was, it was seen as a haven for some prisoners. Dr. Haggage, the debtor who helps bring Little Dorrit into the world, tells Mr. Dorrit not to be ashamed that his daughter was "born to you in a place like this":

Margot Finn, the editor of the Journal of British Studies, writes that this was not an uncommon attitude, especially among debtors who had no prospect of regular employment outside the prison. In 1861, a man presented himself at Bedford jail asking to be admitted. He was turned away twice, but was eventually let in at eight o'clock that evening "far advanced in Liquor."^[70] In Salford, a coal dealer in debt was admitted who had previously been allowed to tour the prison, a tour that was suspected of having been a reconnaissance trip to identify the good rooms.^[71]

In 1833, the keeper of Lincoln Prison negotiated with a prisoner's creditors so that the latter could be discharged on payment of a small sum; the prisoner, William Holewell, who had been jailed for over five years, refused the offer. The keeper of the Queen's Prison who offered to help an inmate be released was told the inmate preferred to die in jail. Finn writes that, as a result, discharge from the prison could be used as a form of punishment. The officers of the Palace Court expelled an unwilling Marshalsea debtor in 1801 for "making a Noise and disturbance in the prison."^[73]

[edit] Closure and abolition

This wall, which formed the southern boundary of the prison, is all that remains of the Marshalsea.^[74]

The Marshalsea prison was closed by an Act of Parliament in 1842, and the inmates of the Marshalsea and Fleet prisons were relocated either to Bedlam if they were mentally ill, or to the King's Bench Prison, at that point renamed the Queen's Prison.^[75] Prison fees were abolished, and in the 1870s, administration of the prison was taken over by the Home Office, which closed and demolished it. On December 31, 1849, the Court of the Marshalsea of Household of the Kings of England was abolished, and its power transferred to Her Majesty's Court of Common Pleas at Westminster.^[76]

Dickens visited what was left of the Marshalsea on May 5, 1857, 15 years after the prison had closed, days before finishing Little Dorrit. Helen Small writes that he entered the prison site through the entrance in the Angel Court alleyway, finding a butter shop in the front lodge area. At that point, many of the houses that had made up the main prison block were still standing.^[16] London Footprints reports that llustrations from the 1930s show the buildings in use by the Marshalsea Press, and parts of the main structure survived into the 1970s, housing an ironmongers and a Hardings hardware store.

All that remains of the Marshalsea today is the brick wall that marked the southern boundary of the prison, now serving to separate the John Harvard Local Studies library from a small public garden that used to be part of St. George's churchyard. The boundary wall is marked on the garden side — on what would have been the external wall of the prison — by a plaque from the local council. One of the windows from the prison has been retained by the Dickens House Museum, and the Cuming Museum has one of its pumps.^[77]

[edit] See also

• Board of Green Cloth
• Cross Bones
• Liberty of the Clink
• Little Dorrit (film)
• Marshalsea Road

[edit] Notable Marshalsea inmates

• Edmund Bonner (c. 1500-c. 1569)
• Henry Chettle (c. 1564-c. 1607)
• Richard Cox (c. 1500-1581)
• Sir John Eliot (1592-1632)
• Hannah Glasse (1708-1770)
• Nicholas Grimald (1519-1562)
• Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles (1599-1680)
• John Gerard, S.J. (1564-1637)
• Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
• George Morland (1763-1804)
• St. Nicholas Owen, Jesuit martyr (ca. 1550-1606)
• Sally Salisbury (c. 1692–1724)
• John Selden (1584-1654)
• St. Ralph Sherwin Jesuit priest and martyr (1550-1581)
• Robert Wingfield (1403-1454)
• George Wither (1588-1667)

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further reading and external links

[edit] How to find the remains of the Marshalsea