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Overview
There have been more prisons in London than in any other European city. Of these, Newgate was the largest, most notorious and worst. Built during the twelfth century, it became a legendary place - the inspiration of more poems, plays and novels than any other building in London. It was a place of cruelty and wretchedness, at various times holding Dick Turpin, Titus Oates, Daniel Defoe, Jack Sheppard and Casanova. Because prisons were privately run, any time spent in prison had to be paid for by the prisoner. Housing varied from a private cell with a cleaning woman and a visiting prostitute, to simply lying on the floor with no cover. Those who died inside - and only a quarter of prisoners survived until their execution day - had to stay in Newgate as a rotting corpse until relatives found the money for the body to be released. Stephen Halliday tells the story of Newgate's origins, the criminals it held, the punishments meted out and its rebuilding and reform. This is a compelling slice of London's social and criminal history.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780752495552 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 12/31/2007 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 380 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Newgate
London's Prototype of Hell
By Stephen Halliday
The History Press
Copyright © 2013 Stephen HallidayAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9555-2
CHAPTER 1
The Heinous Gaol of Newgate
By reason of the foetid and corrupt atmosphere that is in the heinous gaol of Newgate many persons are now dead who would be alive.
(Proclamation of Richard Whittington, Mayor of London, 1419)
A merciless race of men and, by being conversant with scenes of misery, steeled against any tender sensation.
(William Blackstone's description of the qualities of a gaoler, c. 1770)
Alexander, the severe keeper of Newgate, died miserably, swelling to a prodigious size, and became so inwardly putrid that none could come near him
(Foxe's Book of Martyrs, c. 1554, noting the fate of a cruel gaoler of Newgate)
NEW CATHEDRAL, OLD GATE
In the first years of the twentieth century, as the old gaol of Newgate was being demolished to make way for the Old Bailey, excavation of the site revealed unmistakable traces of Roman construction, suggesting strongly that the original gate was built by the Romans in the wall which they had built to protect the community of Londinium on the banks of the Thames. Six Roman gates are still remembered by names associated with surviving street names or areas of the City. To the east, Aldgate gave access to the roads that led towards Colchester and from 1374 the gatehouse itself accommodated Geoffrey Chaucer and his family when the poet was Controller of Customs for Richard II. To the north, Bishopsgate opened on to Ermine Street, while Aldersgate opened on to Watling Street, with Cripplegate not far away. To the east, Ludgate (allegedly founded by the mythical Kind Lud in 66 bc) and Newgate gave access to the west and to important towns such as Silchester, Cirencester and Bath. Excavations for the construction of Holborn Viaduct in the nineteenth century revealed that Newgate was itself aligned with Watling Street. There was probably also a gate, later known as the Postern gate, north of the present site of the Tower of London. To the south, the City was bordered by the River Thames and there was probably a gate which opened on to London Bridge, later referred to as Bridgegate. By Anglo-Saxon times other gates had been created at Dowgate, Billingsgate and Moorgate.
In 1087, the final year of the reign of William the Conqueror, the Saxon cathedral of St Paul in the City of London was destroyed in a fire. The first, built in 604, had lasted only 71 years before being burned down. It was rebuilt before being destroyed by Vikings in the tenth century and reopened in 962. This Saxon cathedral, therefore, survived for a little more than a century before suffering a fate common to many buildings at a time when wood was the principal component in construction work and precautions against fire were rudimentary. The Norman Bishop of London, Maurice, decided to build a magnificent stone cathedral on a much greater scale than its Saxon predecessors. It was completed in 1310 and would survive until it was itself destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and was replaced by Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece.
Maurice's ambitious cathedral required a much greater expanse of land than did its modest Saxon predecessors. In particular, the site of the new cathedral lay across the thoroughfare which gave access to the Ludgate at the foot of what is now Ludgate Hill. In the twelfth century, as Maurice's successors oversaw the construction of the new cathedral, the ever-expanding building site, occupying something like the area of Wren's later cathedral, began to cause problems to those wishing to travel from the busy trading area of Cheapside, to the east of the cathedral, through the Ludgate on their way to the growing community of Westminster. This was by now becoming the royal residence and seat of government.
As Ludgate became less accessible, Newgate became more important for travellers entering and leaving the City to the west. John Stow, in his Survey of London, first published in 1598, explains that:
The next gate, on the west and by north, is termed Newgate, as latelier built than the rest, and is the fifth principal gate. This gate was first erected about the reign of Henry I ... This gate hath long been a jail or prison for felons and trespassers.
Stow was wrong about the date of construction, as we have seen, since Newgate had existed in one form or another since Roman times. The most likely explanation for Stow's error is that, as a result of the construction of St Paul's, Newgate replaced Ludgate as the principal access point to the west of the City.
NEWGATE THE PRISON
The legal reforms instituted by Henry II (1154–89) gave the king a far more important role in the administration of justice than had applied in the chaotic reign of his predecessor, Stephen, whose nineteen-year rule had amounted to little more than a prolonged civil war over who should be king. Henry's Assize of Clarendon (1166), reinforced in 1176 by the Assize of Northampton, required that gaols be constructed in every locality in which the king's judges would administer the process known as 'gaol delivery'. Those confined within the gaols would have their cases considered by the king's justices at regular intervals, normally twice a year, according to a common set of principles ('Common Law'), which would gradually come to apply throughout the kingdom. These courts came to be known as assizes and they continued until they were replaced by the Crown Courts in 1971. Hence Henry II may claim to be the father of the Common Law. Some communities resented the intrusion of royal judges, despatched from Westminster, into local justice and it was probably for this reason that Edward III agreed that one of the justices responsible for gaol delivery at Newgate would be the mayor of the City of London. The gaol in the gatehouse of Newgate may have been one of the first to be established to meet the needs of gaol delivery since the first reference to it serving this purpose occurs in 1188, the penultimate year of Henry's reign. It was not London's first gaol. Apart from the Tower of London itself, whose many roles included that of prison, there is a record of repairs being made to the Fleet prison, to the north of the present site of Ludgate Hill, as early as 1155. Newgate appears to have acquired early its bad reputation as a place of incarceration since an early letter book held at the Guildhall refers to the 'heinous gaol of Newgate'. It was sufficiently unpopular to be attacked by Wat Tyler's followers in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Over the centuries that followed, Newgate was a frequent object of official and, particularly, royal attention. In 1218 the young Henry III (1216–1270) ordered the Sheriffs of the City of London 'to repair the gaol of Newgate for the safe keeping of his prisoners' and in 1253 a much angrier Henry sent the City Sheriffs to the Tower of London for a month because they had allowed the escape from Newgate of a prisoner who had had the temerity to kill the Queen's cousin. The prison, or threat of it, was also employed when His Majesty needed to raise some money by exploiting some sinister prejudices. In 1241 some Jews had been hanged in Norwich for allegedly circumcising a Christian child. Henry took the opportunity to inform their London brethren that they would have to pay him 20,000 marks 'or else to be kept perpetual prisoners in Newgate'. The unfortunate Jews appear to have paid up. Newgate was also used as a warning to potential malefactors. In 1345 four servants were executed at Tyburn for murdering their master, a member of the King's household. The murder of a master by a servant was classified as 'petty treason', as against high treason, which was committed against the King. Their heads were exhibited on poles at Newgate.
An examination of Medieval records reveals the wide variety of offences for which incarceration in Newgate (usually for an unspecified and thus indefinite period) was the remedy. Thus in 1378 a parish clerk was sent to Newgate because he spoke ill of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, a younger son of Edward III, who was thought by orthodox clergy to be unduly sympathetic to the heretical John Wycliffe and the Lollards. This clerk did not claim 'benefit of clergy', an arrangement by which clergymen were exempt from the harsher provisions of the criminal law. This clerical privilege had lain at the heart of the dispute between Henry II and Thomas à Becket. Nuns also qualified. Since clergymen were among the few citizens who were literate, the benefit was effectively extended to anyone who could read or write. The arrangement eventually deteriorated to the point where anyone who could read the first verse of Psalm 51, 'Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness', was deemed to qualify for benefit of clergy. Experienced but illiterate criminals therefore took the precaution of learning these few words (known as 'the neck verse') by heart. Many judges went along with this deceit in order to mitigate the savagery of the law since the ecclesiastical courts imposed far milder sentences than did the king's.
The crimes for which people were sent to Newgate reflected, then as now, public anxieties. Thus towards the end of the reign of Edward I there was public concern about street robberies, which we would call muggings. Accordingly, the act of drawing a dagger was punished with fifteen days in Newgate while drawing blood was punished with forty days. One Roger le Skirmisour was sent to Newgate for keeping a fencing school, an activity that was forbidden by a statute of 1287 since it was thought to encourage sword fights. Riotous assemblies were rewarded with a year and a day in the gaol.
Others were not so coy as John of Gaunt's critic about taking advantage of this legal anomaly. In 1406 William Hegge, a burglar, was sentenced to death by hanging, but when he claimed benefit of clergy he was sent to Newgate to await the arrival of an 'Ordinary' (a representative of the bishop), who could impose a sentence in an ecclesiastical court. In 1487 those claiming benefit were branded on the thumb and thereafter forfeited benefit of clergy for future offences unless they could prove that they genuinely were clergy. The ecclesiastical courts kept much of their jurisdiction until 1576 and benefit of clergy was not finally abolished until 1827.
BARBAROUS PRACTICES
Some penalties were savage and reflected both the barbarous practices of the time and also a desire to avoid the expense of providing prisons for long sentences. In the reign of William the Conqueror mutilation replaced the hangings that had been favoured by the Anglo-Saxons for many offences, so castration, amputation of hands or ears, slitting of noses, excision of eyes and branding with a hot iron became common punishments for many offences of dishonesty. Vagabonds were branded with a V, thieves with a T and brawlers with the letter F to signify 'fraymaker'. The letter S signified a serf without a master. The Conqueror's son, William Rufus, reintroduced hanging for those who poached royal deer and his successor, his brother Henry I, adopted it for a wider variety of crimes. The first hanging at Tyburn was recorded in 1196, though other sites were also used for prisoners from Newgate, notably at St Giles' Fields near the present site of Tottenham Court Road Underground station. From the thirteenth century capital punishment became more common, particularly for crimes against property or its owners. By Tudor times the death sentence could be imposed for theft of property worth 1s (five new pence) or more. Smithfield, close by Newgate, was a common execution place in Medieval times where crowds could assemble to watch the spectacle.
Those hanged or beheaded could count themselves fortunate. The gruesome penalty of hanging, drawing and quartering for treason was introduced by Edward I in his campaigns against the Welsh and Scots, being inflicted on William Wallace at Smithfield in 1305. In November 1330 Edward's grandson, Edward III, seized power from his mother and her lover Roger Mortimer, who had deposed and murdered the King's father, Edward II, three years earlier. The Queen Mother was sent into exile while Mortimer was found guilty of the murder and executed at Tyburn. He was spared the ritual disembowelling and suffered the less gruesome penalty of a public hanging. In 1531 the cook to the Bishop of Rochester, a man called Rouse, was boiled alive at Smithfield for attempting to poison his master and inadvertently poisoning several colleagues. Near Newgate there was one possible refuge from these grisly penalties. From 1439 the College of St Martin-le-Grand, founded in 1056 in the reign of Edward the Confessor by two of that king's cousins, offered sanctuary to those fleeing justice administered both by the royal and ecclesiastical courts. Thieves and debtors were granted sanctuary, but Jews and traitors were turned away. One of those who sought refuge there and 'rotted away piecemeal', according to the account of Sir Thomas More, was Miles Forest, one of the alleged murderers of the Princes in the Tower. Enterprising criminals continued to take advantage of this opportunity to escape the noose, the axe, or worse, until the arrangement ended in 1697.
Lesser crimes, such as vagrancy, were punished with a public whipping, the stocks or the pillory. From 1405 every parish was required to maintain stocks and most had a pillory and whipping post as well. Whippings were regarded as a form of public entertainment, drawing large crowds. Elizabeth Fry successfully campaigned to end the public whipping of women in 1817. The Museum of London's exhibits include such a whipping post. The object of the stocks and the pillory was to humiliate the culprit by exposing him to the ridicule, as well as the missiles, of the crowd, but the outcome was sometimes fatal. In 1384 two defendants failed to appear at their trials because they had been left in the stocks and forgotten. Their feet had rotted in the cold winter weather and they died. The pillory was more hazardous since this device constrained the victim's hands and neck so that he had no means of defending himself from the assaults of the crowd and it was not unknown for an angry or drunken mob to launch such an onslaught that the victim died. As late as 1570 an unfortunate prisoner called Penedo, who had counterfeited the seal of the court of Queen's Bench, was nailed to the pillory by his ears and was only able to escape at the expense of losing them.
In 1380 some malefactors were lodged in Newgate for three nights and brought out to be pilloried for three days for 'pretending to be dumb'. They had exhibited what they claimed were their tongues, mounted in silver frames, which had supposedly been extracted by a hook, also on show. The whole enterprise had been designed to improve their earnings from begging. Sometimes the pillorying was attended by some ceremony as with John de Hakeford in 1364. He was sent to Newgate for perjury for one year and 'within the year to be pilloried four times, once in every quarter of the City'. He would be preceded on the journey to his place of punishment by two trumpeters with a stone hung round his neck covered by a placard reading 'false liar'. Jurors could themselves be pilloried if they did not carry out their task conscientiously. In 1468 jurors who had returned a false verdict in return for a bribe were obliged to ride from Newgate to the pillory at Cornhill with 'miters' (dunces' caps) on their heads. The pillory survived into the nineteenth century. In 1790 two valets convicted of homosexuality were pelted by a huge mob with potatoes, stones and, more expensively, eggs (one of the culprits was called Bacon), and barely escaped with their lives. Twenty years later, 1810, two men were pilloried in Leadenhall in London and fifty women assailed them with stones, dung, dead cats (a favourite missile) and offal thoughtfully provided by butchers from the nearby market. They were taken away blinded and unconscious. The pillory was finally abolished in 1837.
PEINE FORTE ET DURE
One of the most gruesome practices was associated with Newgate's 'pressing room'. Felons (an archaic term used to describe those who had committed serious crimes, including theft) who were found guilty forfeited all their property, leaving families destitute. Such forfeiture was not abolished until 1870. The only way to avoid this penalty was to refuse to enter a plea. Prior to 1426, those who took this course were starved to death, one victim being Hugh de Beone who died in Newgate in the late fourteenth century, but so many prisoners made this grim choice that the authorities decided to subject such recalcitrants to 'peine forte et dure'. In the words of Sir Thomas Smith, written in 1583, 'he is judged mute, that is dumb by contumacy, and to his condemnation is to be pressed to death, which is one of the cruellest deaths that may be'. The prisoner was made to lie prostrate and almost naked on the ground beneath a board on which metal or iron weights were placed. More weights were added each day, a process which continued until he was pressed to death. An eighteenth-century occupant of the prison, the robber John Hall, described these wretched prisoners 'having no Food or Drink but Black Bread or the Channel Water which runs under the gaol, if his fainting pains should make him crave to eat or drink'. Few could endure the suffering, but some hardy souls died in this way in order to secure the welfare of their families. The penalty was last used at Cambridge Assizes as late as 1741, after which it was abolished. For obstinate female prisoners pressing could be replaced by the practice of tying cords tightly round the thumbs – a penalty inflicted on Mary Andrews in 1721 until her thumbs snapped.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Newgate by Stephen Halliday. Copyright © 2013 Stephen Halliday. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface Newgate in the English Penal System,One The Heinous Gaol of Newgate,
Two An Abode of Misery and Despair,
Three The Bloody Code,
Four Catching the Criminals,
Five After the Riots,
Six The Reformers,
Seven Newgate in Literature: Final Days,
Notes,
Bibliography,