Images of Crime and Punishment

	'The Attack', c1790, Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) Coloured etching, published by Fores (FA201179)

This display features a wide range of serious crimes and lesser felonies of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Some of the prints are cheap products of the gutter press while others are expensive copies of famous paintings. Some of the incidents are trivial and the punishments unduly harsh. Others, such as the execution of Louis XVI, King of France, changed the course of history. Victims are featured as well as villains and a number of scenes show the interiors of London's most infamous prisons.

See all the objects in the display

More crime took place in 18th-century London than anywhere else in the country. Some of the most notorious landmarks, such as the Bridewell prison and the Tyburn gallows gave their names to similar sites around the realm. The London institutions that dealt with crime, the administration of justice and punishment were situated conveniently close together. The Bridewell and the Fleet prisons lay beside the Fleet River, just west of St Paul's Cathedral and Newgate Prison was next to the Old Bailey Sessions House. The Kings Bench and Marshalsea prisons were just across the Thames in Southwark and the Inns of Court, where the lawyers gathered, were north of Fleet Street and the Strand.

The Marshalsea and the Fleet prisons were already well established when they were sacked during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. They both housed debtors, but since prisoners had to pay for food and lodging, it became increasingly difficult for them to gain their freedom. William Hogarth's father was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison from 1708-1712, a hateful experience to which he refers in his paintings and prints. Charles Dickens's father was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea, which featured in his novel 'Little Dorrit'. Both prisons closed in 1842 when an Act of Parliament phased out imprisonment for debt.

	Detail of John Rocque's map, 'London, Westminster and Southwark, 1746' © http://www.motco.com/MapImages/81002

The Bridewell, a former royal palace, was founded for homeless children and to punish disorderly women. In 1700 it was the first prison to appoint a doctor and it functioned as a prison, hospital and workrooms housing paupers, vagrants, prostitutes and single mothers. Newgate Prison, located on the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall, was the most hated of all and housed some of London's most dangerous prisoners and those awaiting execution. It was set on fire during the Gordon Riots of 1780 when many prisoners died and 300 escaped. On execution days the bell of St Sepulchre's church was tolled and a religious service was conducted inside Newgate for those condemned to die. They travelled in open wagons to be hanged at Tyburn (where Marble Arch stands today), until 1783 when public executions were transferred to Newgate itself.

Trials took place at the Justice Hall or Sessions House, known as the Old Bailey, which lay close to Newgate. The medieval building was rebuilt after the Great Fire in 1666 and again 1774 with a passage to the prison to ensure security and to limit public access. It was decided to record and publish complete transcripts of each trial (now published online: www.oldbaileyonline.org). These corrected many of the errors reported by the press and in the sensational 'Newgate Calender' (www.exclassics.com/newgate). Custodial sentences in the 18th century were not long since so many crimes were punishable by death or transportation. Prisons were run as private businesses; convicts had to pay 'garniture 'on arrival and a 'departure' fee to leave. Extortionate prices were charged for food, drink, candles, soap and other supplies unless provided by families. Many prisoners ran out of money and died in gaol where their bodies lay rotting until relations paid for the corpse. Not surprisingly, prisons were fetid hellholes, full of lice, rats, disease and misery.

For further reading:
Peter Ackroyd, London, the Biography, 2000
Vic Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English people 1770-1868, 1996
Donald A. Low, The Regency Underworld, 1982
Lucy Moore, Con Men and Cutpurses, Scenes from the Hogarthian Underworld, 2000
James Sharpe, Dick Turpin, the Myth of the English Highwayman, 2004