At one time, there were not only prisons for containing wrongdoers in custody, there were also places called ‘lockups’. The difference between a prison and a lockup is the amount of time spent there. Lockups were to be found in most villages when official prisons and criminal courts were some distance away.
Temporary Accommodation
They were intended to be temporary holding places, not permanent ones for long stretches of confinement. So if a drunk wasn’t thrown into the stocks, he may well find himself held in the lockup instead and released the following day. It was also used to hold people who were to be tried by the local magistrate. Some were house-shaped, but quite often they were round one-roomed buildings.
Different Designs
Lockups came in all shapes and sizes, as can be seen from the illustrations here, and they were often one-roomed buildings. The County Police Act of 1839 had seen more police stations having their own holding facilities within them, so lockups fell out of use.
Prisons
Prisons have also changed over time. The dungeons of castles could be considered prisons, but not all early castles had dungeons. What some castles had within the main tower was an ‘oubliette’.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
It could be used as either a very secure place to keep the castle owner’s most valuable assets or somewhere to keep a prisoner. But not a great place to stay if that’s where you found yourself. It was basically a shaft in the ground with a trap door at the top that a prisoner could not reach once inside.
Standing Room Only
Often that prisoner had only enough room to stand but could not sit or lie down. The name was apt, as it comes from the French verb ‘oublier’, which means ‘to forget’, and sadly that is often what happened to prisoners once they were dropped through its trap door.
Ecclesiastical Jail
Gradually things changed to become more like the sort of place we envisage today when we think of prisons. The first of them had only one cell and was built in South London by the Bishop of Winchester in 860. It was expanded in 1076 when the then Bishop got larger premises and was able to include more cells. Originally, his prison was intended for offenders within the church. A later Bishop of Winchester in 1152, moved the prison into the grounds of his palace and added a court where religious offenders could be tried.
New Prison
Prison reform followed John Howard’s publication of “State of the Prisons in England and Wales” in 1777. It was followed two years after by the first Penitentiary Act. Just five years later, Millbank Prison in London was built at a huge cost of £500,000 (nearly £29 million today).
Prison Reformer
Elizabeth Fry, the Quaker prison reformer, social reformer, and philanthropist, started regularly visiting Newgate prison in the same year. Newgate had existed since the 9th century and was only demolished in 1904. The oldest prison still standing is at Shepton Mallet. It was built in 1610, only closed in 2013, and is now a Heritage site. It is still kept busy, though; people can take a guided tour, go on ghost tours, or enjoy a 12-hour stay there.
Takeover
Takeover
Nationalisation of prisons took place in 1878 when they were controlled by the Prison Commission section of the Home Office. Scottish and Irish prisons were also nationalised shortly after.
By 2022 there were 141 prisons in the United Kingdom, and things have changed somewhat since the Bishop of Winchester enhanced his garden with his ecclesiastical prison.
