Such is a general outline of the plan of the prison. Any more elaborate description might prove as confusing as was the labyrinth within to those who entered without such clues to guide them as were afforded by familiarity and long practice. There was one old warder who served for years at Millbank, and rose through all the grades to a position of trust, who was yet unable, to the last, to find his way about the premises. He carried with him always a piece of chalk, with which he blazed his path, as does the backwoodsman the forest trees. Angles at every twenty yards, winding staircases, dark passages, innumerable doors and gates,—all these bewildered the stranger, and contrasted strongly with the extreme simplicity of modern prison architecture. Indeed Millbank, with its intricacy and massiveness of structure, was suggestive of an order that has passed. It was one of the last specimens of an age to which Newgate belonged; a period when the safe custody of criminals could be compassed, people thought, only by granite blocks and ponderous bolts and bars. Such notions were really a legacy of mediævalism, bequeathed by the ruthless chieftains, who imprisoned offenders within their own castle walls. Many such keeps and castles long existed as prisons; having in the lapse of time ceased to be great residences, and they served until recently cleared as gaols or houses of correction for their immediate neighbourhood.
On the 9th February, 1816, the supervisors reported that the Penitentiary was now partly ready for the reception of offenders, and begged that a committee might be appointed to take charge of the prison, under the provisions of an act by which the king in Council was thus empowered to appoint “any fit and discreet persons, not being less than ten or more than twenty, as and for a Committee to Superintend the Penitentiary House for the term of one year, then next ensuing, and until a fresh nomination or appointment shall take place.” Accordingly, at the court at Brighton, on the 21st of February of the same year, his Royal Highness the prince regent in Council nominated the Right Hon. Charles Abbot, Speaker of the House of Commons, and nineteen others to serve on this committee, and it met for the first time at the prison on the 12th of March following. The Right Hon. Charles Long, George Holford, Esq., and the Rev. J. J. Becher, were among the members of the new committee, but they continued their functions as supervisors distinct from the other body, until the final completion of the whole building in 1821.
The first instalment of prisoners did not arrive till the 27th of July following. In the interval, however, there was plenty of work to be done. The preparation of rules and regulations, the appointment of a governor, chaplain, matron, and other officials, were among the first of them; and the committee took up each subject with characteristic vigour. It was necessary also to decide upon some scale of salaries and emoluments; to arrange with the Treasury as to the receipts, custody, and payments of the public moneys; and to ascertain the sorts of manufactures best suited to the establishment, and the best method of obtaining work for the convicts, without having to purchase the materials.
On the 10th of March Mr. John Shearman was appointed governor. This gentleman was strongly recommended by Lord Sidmouth, who stated in a letter to the Speaker that, having been induced to make particular inquiries respecting his qualifications and his character, he had found them well adapted to the office in question. Mr. Shearman’s own account of himself was, that he was a native of Yorkshire, but chiefly resident in London; that he was aged forty-four, was married, had eight children, and that he had been brought up to the profession of a solicitor, but for the last four years had been second clerk in the Hatton Garden police office. Before actually entering upon his duties, the committee sent Mr. Shearman on a tour of inspection through the provinces, to visit various gaols, and report on their condition and management.
He eventually resigned his appointment, however, because he thought the pay insufficient, and because the committee found fault with his frequent absences from the prison. He seems to have endeavoured to carry on a portion of his old business as solicitor concurrently with his governorship. His journals show him to have been an anxious and a painstaking man, but neither by constitution nor training was he exactly fitted for the position he was called upon to fill as head of the Penitentiary.
At the same time, on the recommendation of the Bishop of London, the Rev. Samuel Bennett was appointed chaplain. Touching this appointment the bishop wrote, “I have found a clergyman of very high character for great activity and beneficence, and said to be untainted with fanaticism.... His answer is not yet arrived; but I think he will not refuse, as he finds the income of his curacy inadequate to the maintenance of a family, and is precluded from residence on a small property by want of a house and the unhealthiness of the situation.”
Mr. Pratt was made house-surgeon, and a Mr. Webbe, son of a medical man, and bred himself to that profession, was appointed master manufacturer; being of a mechanical turn of mind, he had made several articles of workmanship, and he produced to the committee specimens of his shoe-making, and paper screens.
There was more difficulty in finding a matron. “The committee,” writes Mr. Morton Pitt, “was fully impressed with the importance of the charge, and with the difficulty of finding a fit person to fill this most essential office.” Many persons were of opinion that it would be impracticable to procure any person of credit or character to undertake the duties of a situation so arduous and so unpleasant, and the fact that no one had applied for it was strong proof of the prevalence of such opinions. Mr. Pitt goes on: “The situation is a new one. I never knew but two instances of a matron in a prison, and those were the wives of turnkeys or porters. In the present case it is necessary that a person should be selected of respectability as to situation in life. How difficult must it be to find a female educated as and having the feelings of a gentlewoman, who would undertake a duty so revolting to every feeling she has hitherto possessed, and even so alarming to a person of that sex.”
Mr. Pitt, however, had his eye on a person who appeared to him in every way suitable. He writes: “Mrs. Chambers appears to me to possess the requisites we want; and I can speak of her from a continued knowledge of her for almost thirty years, since she was about fifteen. Her father was in the law, and clerk of the peace for the county of Dorset from 1750 to 1790. He died insolvent, and she was compelled to support herself by her own industry, for her husband behaved very ill to her, abandoned her, and then died. She has learned how to obey, and since that, having kept a numerous school, how to command. She is a woman forty-three years of age, of a strong sense of religion and the most strict integrity. She has much firmness of character with a compassionate heart, and I am firmly persuaded will most conscientiously perform every duty she undertakes to the utmost of her power and ability.” Accordingly Mrs. Chambers was duly appointed.
The same care was exhibited in all the selections for the minor posts of steward, turnkeys male and female, messengers, nurses, porters, and patrols; and most precise rules and regulations were drawn up for the government of everybody and everything connected with the establishment. All these had, in the first instance, to be submitted for the approval of the Judges of the Court of King’s Bench, and subsequently reported to the king in Council and both Houses of Parliament.
The supreme authority in the Penitentiary was vested in the superintending committee, who were required to make all contracts, examine accounts, pay bills, and make regular inspection