CHAPTER II
EARLY MANAGEMENT
System proposed and Discipline to be enforced—Conduct of Prisoners; riotous in Chapel—Outbreak of Females—Revolt against Dietary—Millbank overgoverned—Constant interference of Committee—Life inside irregular and irksome.
The system to be pursued at the Penitentiary has now been described at some length. Beyond doubt—and of this there is abundant proof in the prison records—the committee sought strenuously to give effect to the principles on which the establishment was founded. Nevertheless their proceedings were more or less tentative, for as yet little was known of so-called “systems” of prison discipline, and those who had taken Millbank under their charge were compelled to feel their way slowly and with caution, as men still in the dark. The Penitentiary was essentially an experiment—a sort of crucible into which the criminal elements were thrown, in the hope that they might be changed or resolved by treatment into other superior forms. The members of the committee were always in earnest, and they spared themselves no pains. If they had a fault, it was in over-tenderness towards the felons committed to their charge. Millbank was a huge plaything; a toy for a parcel of philanthropic gentlemen, to keep them busy during their spare hours. It was easy to see that they loved to run in and out of the place, and to show it off to their friends; thus we find the visitor, Sir Archibald Macdonald, bringing a party of ladies to visit the pentagon, when “the prisoners read and went through their religious exercises,” which edifying spectacle gave great satisfaction to the persons present. Again, at Christmas time the prisoners were regaled with roast beef and plum pudding, after which they returned thanks to the Rev. Archdeacon Potts, the visitor (who was present, with a select circle of ladies and gentlemen), “appearing very grateful, and singing ‘God save the King.’” With such sentiments uppermost in the minds of the superintending committee, it is not strange that the gaoler and other officials should be equally kind and considerate. No punishment of a serious nature was ever inflicted without a report to the visitor, or his presence on the spot. All of the female prisoners, when they were first received, were found to be liable to fits, and the tendency gave Mr. Shearman great concern, till it was found that by threatening to shave and blister the heads of all persons so afflicted immediate cure followed. Two Jewesses, having religious scruples, refused to eat the meat supplied, whereupon the husband of one of them was permitted to bring in for their use “coarse meat and fish, according to the custom of the Jews;” and later we find the same man came regularly to read the Jewish prayers, as he stated, “out of the Hebrew book.” Many of the women refused positively to have their hair cut short; and for a time were humoured. In February, 1817, all the female prisoners were assembled, and went through a public examination, before the Bishops of London and Salisbury, to show their progress in religious instruction, and acquitted themselves greatly to the satisfaction of all present.
Judith Lacy, having been accused of stealing tea from a matron’s canister, which had been put down, imprudently, too near the prisoner, was so hurt at the charge, that it threw her into fits. She soon recovered, and it was quite evident she had stolen the tea. Any complaint of the food was listened to with immediate attention. Thus the gruel did not give satisfaction and was repeatedly examined.
“A large number of the female prisoners still refuse to eat their barley soup,” says the governor in his journal on the 23rd April, 1817, “several female prisoners demanding an increase of half a pound of bread,” being refractory. Next day some of them refused to begin work, saying they were half-starved.
Mary Turner was the first prisoner released. She was supposed to be cured of the criminal taint. Having equipped her in her liberty clothing, “she was taken into the several airing grounds in which were her late fellow-prisoners. The visitor (Sir Archibald Macdonald) represented to them in a most impressive manner the benefits that would result to themselves by good behaviour. The whole were most sensibly affected, and the event,” he says, “will have a very powerful effect on the conduct of many and prove an incentive to observe good and orderly demeanour.”
Next day all of the female prisoners appeared at their cell windows, and shouted vociferously as Mary Turner went off. This is but one specimen of the free and easy system of management. Of the same character was a petition presented by a number of the female prisoners, to restore to favour two other convicts who had been punished by the committee. Indeed, the whole place appears to have been like a big school, and a degree of license was allowed to the prisoners consorting little with their character of convicted criminals.
This mistaken leniency could end but in one way. Early in the spring the whole of the inmates broke out in open mutiny. Their alleged grievance was the issue of an inferior kind of bread. Change of dietary scales in prisons is always attended with some risk of disturbance, even when discipline is most rigorously maintained. In those early days of mild government riot was, of course, inevitable. The committee having thought fit to alter the character of the flour supplied, soon afterwards, at breakfast-time, all the prisoners, male and female, refused to receive their bread. The women complained of its coarseness; and all alike, in spite of the exhortations of the visitor, Mr. Holford, left it outside their cell doors. Next day, Sunday, the bread was at first taken, then thrown out into the passages. The governor determined to have Divine Service as usual, but to provide against what might happen, deposited within his pew “three brace of pistols loaded with ball.” To make matters worse, the Chancellor of the Exchequer arrived with a party of friends to attend the service. The governor (Mr. Shearman’s successor) immediately pointed out that he was apprehensive that in consequence of the newly adopted bread the prisoners’ conduct would not be as orderly as it had ordinarily been. At first the male prisoners were satisfied by raising and letting fall the flaps of the kneeling benches with a loud report, and throwing loaves about in the body of the chapel, while the women in an audible tone cried out, “Give us our daily bread.” Soon after the commencement of the communion service, the women seated in the gallery became more loudly clamorous, calling out most vociferously, “Better bread, better bread!” The men below, in the body of the church, now rose and stood upon the benches; but again seated themselves on a gesture from the governor, who then addressed them, begging them to keep quiet. Among the women, the confusion and tumult was continued, and was increased by the screams of alarm from the more peaceable. Many fainted, and others in great terror entreated to be taken away. These were suffered to go out in small bodies, in charge of the officers, and so continuously removed, until all of the women had been withdrawn. About six of them, as they came to the place where they could see the men, made a halt and most boisterously assailed them, calling them cowards, and such other opprobrious names. After the women had gone the service proceeded without further interruption, after which the Chancellor of the Exchequer (who was present throughout) addressed the men, giving them a most appropriate admonition, but praising their orderly demeanour, which he promised to report to the Secretary of State. Afternoon service was performed without the female congregation, and was uninterrupted except by a few hisses from the boys.
Next morning the governor informed the whole of the prisoners, one by one, that the new brown bread would have to be continued until the meeting of the committee; whereupon many resisted when their cell doors were being shut, and others hammered loudly on the woodwork with their three-legged stools; and this was accompanied by the most hideous shouts and yells. In one of the divisions, four prisoners, who were in the same cell, were especially refractory, “entirely demolishing the inner door, every article of furniture, the two windows and their iron frames; and, having knocked off large fragments from the stone of the doorway, threw the pieces at, and smashed to atoms the passage windows opposite.” One of them, by name Greenslade, assaulted the governor, on entering the cell, with part of the door frame; but he parried the blow, drove the prisoner’s head against the wall, and was also compelled, in self-defence, to knock down one Michael Sheen. Such havoc and destruction was accomplished by the prisoners,