Essex Prisons
 

Prisons in Essex

Saffron Walden

This prison is within the walls of the workhouse. The Male Criminals are confined in four Cells: two of which are together, having a Yard. The Cells are 8 feet long, 6 feet 6 inches wide, and 9 feet high. There is in each a barrack bestead, 7 feet by 3 feet. Two of the Cells open into a Yard, 16 feet by 15 feet, and the others into a Yard, 16 feet long by 12 feet 10 inches wide.

Above the Men's Cells is an Apartment for female Prisoners, the windows of which look into the Yards below, to which the men have at all times access.

The Borough contracts with the County for sending a part of the prisoners to Chelmsford, a distance of 28 miles. The cost of conveying a prisoner is £1-16s-6d. The total number of Prisoners confined in the Borough Gaol in 1835 was 15. In the first six months of 1836 there were 17. The greatest number in custody at one time, in 1836, has been seven. During that year there were 15 prisoners at Chelmsford at the expense of the Borough. At the period of our visit, seven prisoners were in custody.

The Magistrates are prepared to build a new Prison, and the County Magistrates in this division of Essex, feeling the great inconvenience which arises from the want of a County prison, are, we believe, disposed to unite with the Borough Magistrates in the erection of a Gaol sufficient for the
custody of prisoners committed within their concurrent jurisdictions. 

This prison is in a very dirty state, and the prisoners appeared to us to be neglected. There is not sufficient room for two persons in the men's barrack bedstead. No vigilance is exercised in excluding improper books. We found in the Cells a novel, intituled, "The Old English Baron" - "Paul and Virginia" - and "Almoran and Hamet" At the period of our inspection there were three women in one apartment. Two were hardened "Tramps" who had been convicted of Forging Passes, and sentenced to Transportation. They were evidently experienced offenders. The third was a decent servant girl, aged 16, belonging to a neighbouring village, who had been sentenced to a month's imprisonment. She had been well brought-up, and her connexions were respectable. She had been, however, for some weeks in close contact with these women, during which she had not had a separate bedstead. This was the more inexcusable as there were several bedsteads in an adjoining room, in which the girl might have been confined apart.

Source: 1837 prisons report p 041
Submitted by Alan Longbottom

Page updated August 06, 2007 by Rossbret