Newgate

London's Prototype of Hell

Stephen Halliday

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780750938969
• eBook ISBN: 9780752495552
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Notes

Chapter One

1. Gordon Home, Roman London, London, Benn, 1926, has a good account of the Roman gates of London.

2. John Stow, Survey of London, 1603 edn., Oxford, 1971, p. 35.

3. The term ‘Lord Mayor’ was not used before the sixteenth century; Edward III’s concession is recorded in Liber Albus, compiled by John Carpenter in 1419, 1861 edn., London, p. 357.

4. W.J. Loftie, History of London, London, Edward Stanford, 1884, vol. 1, p. 437.

5. John Stow, Survey of London, p. 36.

6. Ibid., p. 50.

7. Ibid., p. 36.

8. A. Marks, Tyburn Tree, London, Brown Langham, 1908, p. 104.

9. A. Griffith, Chronicles of Newgate, 1987 edn., London, Bracken Books, 1883, pp. 17–22.

10. These cases and those that follow are to be found in Memorials of London Life in the 13th 14th and 15th Centuries, ed. H.T. Riley, London, Longmans Green, 1868, pp. 229, 470, 562.

11. A. Babington, The English Bastille, London, Macdonald, 1971, pp. 26 et seq.

12. Sir Thomas Skyrme, History of the Justices of the Peace, Chichester, Barry Rose Publishers, 1991, vol. 1, p. 174.

13. See Chapter 6 for an account of Elizabeth Fry’s work.

14. Sir Thomas Skyrme, History of the Justices of the Peace, vol. 1, p. 174.

15. A. Babington, The English Bastille, p. 27.

16. John Stow, Survey of London, p. 191.

17. British Mercury, London, 1790, pp. 336–7.

18. Sir Thomas Skyrme, History of the Justices of the Peace, vol. 1, p. 173.

19. A. Griffith, Chronicles of Newgate, p. 24.

20. Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, London, 1583, Chapter 23.

21. A. Babington, The English Bastille, p. 30.

22. John Stow, Survey of London, p. 37.

23. R. Sharpe, Memorials of Newgate and the Old Bailey, London, Blades, 1907, p. 4.

24. Memorials of London Life in the 13th 14th and 15th Centuries, H.T. Riley, ed., p. 673.

25. The expression ‘Lord Mayor’ did not come into use until Tudor times, a century after Whittington.

26. Hard to translate into twenty-first century terms, but certainly the equivalent of a multi-millionaire.

27. John Stow, Survey of London, p. 35.

28. A. Babington, The English Bastille, p. 18.

29. Ibid., p. 23.

30. See Chapter 2 for an account of later sponging houses.

31. A. Babington, The English Bastille, p. 20.

32. Ibid., p. 6.

33. P. Ackroyd, London, the Biography, London, Vintage, 2001, p. 247.

34. John Stow, Survey of London, p. 351.

35. P. Ackroyd, London, the Biography, p. 248.

36. There are many editions of Foxe’s famous book; these extracts quoted are taken from a version available on the Internet at www.bible.crosswalk.com/Historey/Ad/FoxsBookofMartyrs

37. Yale edition of the complete works of More, Yale University Press, 1963, vol. 8, p. 21.

38. A. Griffith, Chronicles of Newgate, p. 45.

39. Luke Hutton, The Discovery of a London Monster Called the Black Dog of Newgate, London, 1612.

40. A. Griffith, Chronicles of Newgate, p. 41.

41. Ibid., p. 63.

42. Ibid., p. 67.

43. Ibid., p. 67.

44. Journal of the House of Commons, vol. 2, 1641, p. 394.

45. A. Griffith, Chronicles of Newgate, p. 123.

46. D. Lupton, London Carbonadoed, 1632, p. 70, Guildhall Library Ref. 2464ii.

Chapter Two

1. For an account of the New River Company see S. Halliday, Water: A Turbulent History, Stroud, Sutton Publishing, 2004.

2. Henry Chamberlain, History and Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, London, 1770, p. 120; a similar account is found in William Maitland, FRS, History of London from its Foundation to the Present Time, London, 1775, p. 950.

3. Pennant’s Tour of London, 1805, Guildhall Library ref. SL 84.

4. A. Babington, The English Bastille, London, Macdonald, 1971, p. 56

5. B.L., London, An Accurate Description of Ne...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• 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