The opening of Pentonville Prison in 1842



What was the background to the opening of Pentonville?

The movement for reform in the late C18

Many historians have argued that the opening of Pentonville Prison in 1842 represents the end result of the movement for prison reform that had begun back in the 1770’s. Pentonville was hailed as a ‘new model prison’ that was to set the tone and standard for the type and purpose of prisons as a reforming institution in Britain.

The movement for prison reform and a move away from the idea of punishment as a deterrent to a tool for reforming the prisoner had begun in the mid C18 with the work of Jonas Hanway and John Howard.

Howard published a book called ‘The State of Prisons in England and Wales’ in 1777 and this had a wide impact upon government attitudes to the purpose of prisons. Howard had visited many prisons and had made some disturbing findings; He found some prisons had no sewers while others had open sewers running right through them! His own clothes smelt so bad after such visits that he could not travel in his coach. He pointed out that prisoner’s moral behaviour was worsened, not improved by such conditions. In his visits to Gloucester prison he found that 3 times as many died of fever as were hanged. He found prisoners gambled and drank heavily, and the wardens were corrupt.

Howard argued that prisons needed to be healthy and efficient in order to reform the prisoner. He wanted a prison to be less like the actual world.

Despite Howard’s significant work, actions taken to reform prisons across the country remained variable. Further movements for reform were initiated by the architect William Blackburn. He believed in the analogy of moral corruptness as a kind of disease which would continue to spread in prisons as long as the architecture of overcrowding and slum conditions remained. Blackburn initiated the idea of prisons as needing to fulfil 3 requirements: 1) security 2) healthiness 3) Separation of prisoners

The next significant person who continued the move for reform of prisons was George Paul. Paul strongly believed that the cure for criminal behaviour was solitude: because a person is corrupted by bad company. Paul managed to secure parliamentary legislation to build five new county jails and five houses of correction along the lines of the three principles.

In 1791 Bentham designed his own plan for a model prison called the ‘Panopticon’ which would incorporate the ideas of hard work, religious teaching and periods of solitary confinement to reform the criminal. Bentham also wanted to reform the habits of the prison guards and suggested that prison guards should also be monitored. In 1794 Bentham was given the go-ahead to build his vision at Millbank, but the funds were never actually released.

1800-1820’s

Despite the humanitarian reformist movements of the late 18th century, by 1800 there was still no national programme of prison administration and variations at local level were vast. Conditions in prisons did not reflect the idealism of the reformers. There was still disagreement over how prison could work as a method of reform and many critics of the reformers argued that prisons would lose their role as deterrents of crime and end up treating prisoners too well.

The Gaol Act of 1823 passed by the Home Secretary Robert Peel did mark an effort at creating uniformity throughout the country as it forbade the use of alcohol in prisons and called for the appointment of a prison surgeon and chaplain. But in most respects the act was a compromise. It left a wide measure of latitude in the hands of local authorities and no effort was made to close small jails. Thus by 1830’s the government had listened to the ideas of the reformers but they had failed to act effectively upon them.

1830-1842: the Great Debate over the ‘Silent’ and ‘Separate’ system.

By the 1830’s there was a sense of crisis over the direction of policy towards prison. The number of prisoners was increasing and there was a general increase in crime. Transportation were clearly not working and growth of organised working class protest (including the Chartist riots) was putting pressure on the government to retain order in society.

In 1835, greater national coherence was introduced to the prison system in the form of the creation of the first prison inspectorate of 5 prison inspectors. It was clear that if transportation was not going to continue then prisons would need to be able to cope with the long-term sentences criminals would be completing in them.

As a result the reform movement gained pace again by arguing that to solve the crisis and reform criminal elements, prisons would have to be become far more structured and prisoners would have to be prevented from communicating altogether. It was argued that if prisoners could be prevented from communicating then they would be less able to seduce others to a life of sin and idleness.

Two main ideas for how prisons should be run emerged: The Separate System and the silent system.

The Silent system offered a structure where prisoners would complete work and prison life in absolute silence and reinforced punishments for those who violated the rules. Even guards were to look out for the slightest gesture amongst prisoners. The silent system placed chief emphasis on the idea that prisoners would need to develop work habits.

The separate system, however, attracted more support. The system would isolate the convict for hours in his own cell to allow him to communicate with his conscience. The skills of architects were to design prisons which would prevent communication between the prisoners in their cells and deprive them of any glimpse of the outside world. Advocates of the separate system argued that it better prepared the mind to receive impressions and the soul to hear the message offered by the prison chaplain. English supporters of the separate system argued that prisoners should be set to work like in the silent system, but that labour alone would not be sufficient. The separate system supposedly offered a true conversion of the prisoner.

The building of Pentonville, 1842

As a result of the prison inspectorate and increasing pressure from prison reform groups, coupled with the need for central control of prisons in the fact of a growing mass of prisoners, Lord John Russell authorised the building of a brand new national prison in London which would encompass the values and ideals of the separate system.

Thus in 1842 Pentonville Prison was opened and the use of the separate system was a product of the all of the years of the reformist movement. This was a new, model prison, which was created with the purpose of morally, socially and spiritually reforming the criminal. It was to stand as an example to the nation. It was intended to become a model for the construction of local prisons.

The main features of Pentonville Prison were:

• It held 520 prisoners in separate cells

• It had a structure designed with 4 wings radiating out of a central point from which one could observe each cell door

• Walls hindered communication between prisoners

• Guards wore padded shoes and were forbidden to talk to convicts and made to do a steady patrol which was controlled by a clock

• Each cell was exactly the same – 13 ft deep, 7 wide and 9 high.

• Prisoners wore hoods when they emerged from their cells and names replaced numbers.

• Prisoners had separate stalls in the chapel as well as separate exercise yards.

• When they took exercise the prisoners walked in silent rows, holding a rope that had knots tied in it at five yard intervals to keep each man apart from the next.

In essence Pentonville was the direct creation of the idea that by producing a totally controlled environment, you could produce a reformed and autonomous individual.

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