Base of Debtor's Flashcards
As we continue…
our stroll, you can see the Victorian cell to your right, be sure to come back and explore it after the tour
So by 1790…
we had a very different kind of prison. Our new governor Daniel Harris built this wing, D-Wing, where we are now. Prisoners were given food and medical care as we had the beginning of the prison reform. But as time went on, England’s crime rate increased meaning that prisons became harsher and more punitive
Victorian prisons were…
very harsh, prisoners were kept in silence and were made to do hard labour for eight to ten hours every single day such as the capstan wheel mentioned at the beginning of the tour. Prisoners were given individual cells, partly to slow the spread of disease but also to keep the prisoners isolated and prevent any socialising
The intention was…
to have prisoners be so miserable during their stay that they would not want to commit crimes upon their relief and risk being sent back. Over here you can see mugshots taken from Oxford Prison during the reign of Queen Victoria
We can see…
that many of the people locked up here had committed theft, often motivated by the poverty that plagued Victorian Society. Many prisoners here were very young and were forced into a life of crime by their desperate situation
Our very youngest…
inmate was a girl called Julia Ann Crumpling. She was just 7 years old when she was accused of stealing. She had borrowed a pram from outside her neighbour’s house but forgot to ask them first. So, the neighbours reported the pram stolen and for this she was sent to prison
However, she had a…
very rich father and he persuaded the judge to reduce her 21-day prison sentence, which was the minimum sentence for any prisoner at the time, to a 7-day sentence on the basis that Julia attended school. This may sound like a fair compromise but schools were much stricter than the ones we know of today with teachers brutally hitting students if misbehaving
Whilst in prison…
Julia would have likely either been washing laundry or Oakum Picking as part of her sentence. Both were extremely ruthless tasks for such a young girl to endure with laundry involving the handling of corrosive chemicals and Oakum Picking involving untying tar-covered knots on a big rope thread-by-thread. These processes left prisoners with cramped and bleeding hands.
However, Julia’s…
time in prison was clearly useful after all as she never committed a crime or returned to prison ever again. Hey, got to teach them early, right? Julia ended up living a more than satisfactory life as when she grew up she moved to London, married an Italian man and lived to the ripe old age of 80 which is remarkable for someone living in the Victorian Era.
I’m sure your absolutely…
delighted to hear that your time with me is almost over. We just need to climb up one more load of steps to further up debtor’s tower. I may sound like a stuck record now but please do mind your heads on the doorframe when climbing up and watch your footing on the steps
