London's Prisons in 1900: Wormwood Scrubs

Arthur H. Beavan, in Imperial London, first published 1901, made a brief survey of London's Prisons at the time, here taking a look at Wormwood Scrubs:

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Wormwood Scrubs prison, not far from Paddington, cannot fail to be seen by every local traveller on the Great Western Railway.

The immense gaol - a huge blotch of brickwork on the horizon - generally contains a thousand male, and two hundred female, convicts, the men mostly on short terms of imprisonment, from eighteen months to two years.

The women may be seen working in the spacious laundries, where all the linen used in the prison is washed; others are employed in the sewing-room, not uncheerful in appearance, well lighted and warmed, and provided with chairs and long tables.

The galleries of this great building radiate, so that in an instant everything out of the regular order can be detected.

The cells resemble those of other modern prisons, but there is one of Egyptian darkness, which no sound can reach, where contumacious felons are immured for a brief time-and it seldom fails to quiet them.

Once, when the writer paid a visit to this prison, he was allowed to enter the cell.

When the bolts were drawn, the key turned, and he was left to himself, the effect was maddening, almost unendurable.

Though shut up only for two minutes, he seemed to have been there an hour!

The impression conveyed by a peep into the kitchen is curious; the convicts - perhaps several dozens - who act as cooks, and bake the brown bread (very excellent, by the way), performing their tasks in dead silence.

In the chapel the prisoners are kept apart in sections behind stout iron barriers, to prevent the possibility of a general and simultaneous attack upon the warders.

To the officiating cleric, it must seem as if he were addressing the inmates of gigantic bird-cages.

Convicts are to be seen in various large rooms pursuing different trades, shoemaking, tailoring, etc, and the warder now and again points out to a visitor, some amongst them who, despite the hideous prison garb - only one whit more ugly than the khaki costume of our South African army - are gentlemen by birth and education, some of them having even been clergymen.

All labour in silence, the fixed rule of every prison.

Treadmill punishment, much dreaded and terribly exhausting, has to a large extent been done away with.

Then there are the Governor's apartments, generally furnished quite plainly, with an air of barrack life about them that speaks of military discipline.

The only other comparatively home-like place in the gaol is the hospital ward, where the rigid rules of the establishment are relaxed, and the sick convict looks something like a civilized human being.

In certain rooms are stored away in presses the prisoners' own clothes, washed, folded, and ticketed, ready for him to don when, with a head of hair given time to again grow long, he comes out ­ a free man once more.

In another room are the triangles for fastening up the culprit who has to be flogged; and (in a drawer) the cat-o'-nine-tails, not very formidable-looking, but which, when wielded by a stalwart gaoler, can scratch and inflict considerable pain.

All these prisons could in 1900 be inspected; Newgate, by an order from the Recorder or the City Sheriffs; the others, by permission of the Home Secretary, and ostensibly in no other way, unless one happens to be personally acquainted with the Governor of the gaol.

Next: London's Prisons in 1900: Police Station Cells