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Marshalsea
The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition, it became known, in particular, for its incarceration of the poorest of London's debtors. Over half the population of England's prisoners in the 18th century were in jail because of debt. Run privately for profit, as were all English prisons until the 19th century, the Marshalsea looked like an Oxbridge college and functioned as an extortion racket. Debtors in the 18th century who could afford the prison fees had access to a bar, shop and restaurant, and retained the crucial privilege of being allowed out during the day, which gave them a chance to earn money for their creditors. Everyone else was crammed into one of nine small rooms with dozens of others, possibly for years for the most modest of debts, which increased as unpaid prison fees accumulated. T ...
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Marshalsea Prison, London, 18th Century (3)
The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition, it became known, in particular, for its incarceration of the poorest of London's debtors. Over half the population of England's prisoners in the 18th century were in jail because of debt. Run privately for profit, as were all English prisons until the 19th century, the Marshalsea looked like an Oxbridge college and functioned as an extortion racket. Debtors in the 18th century who could afford the prison fees had access to a bar, shop and restaurant, and retained the crucial privilege of being allowed out during the day, which gave them a chance to earn money for their creditors. Everyone else was crammed into one of nine small rooms with dozens of others, possibly for years for the most modest of debts, which increased as unpaid prison fees accumulated. T ...
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Marshalsea Court Interior
The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition, it became known, in particular, for its incarceration of the poorest of London's debtors. Over half the population of England's prisoners in the 18th century were in jail because of debt. Run privately for profit, as were all English prisons until the 19th century, the Marshalsea looked like an Oxbridge college and functioned as an extortion racket. Debtors in the 18th century who could afford the prison fees had access to a bar, shop and restaurant, and retained the crucial privilege of being allowed out during the day, which gave them a chance to earn money for their creditors. Everyone else was crammed into one of nine small rooms with dozens of others, possibly for years for the most modest of debts, which increased as unpaid prison fees accumulated. T ...
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Little Dorrit
''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Clennam encounters her after returning home from a 20-year absence, ready to begin his life anew. The novel satirises some shortcomings of both government and society, including the institution of debtors' prisons, where debtors were imprisoned, unable to work and yet incarcerated until they had repaid their debts. The prison in this case is the Marshalsea, where Dickens's own father had been imprisoned. Dickens is also critical of the impotent bureaucracy of the British government, in this novel in the form of the fictional "Circumlocution Office". Dickens also satirises the stratification of society that results from the British class system. Plot summary Poverty The novel begins in Marseilles "thirty years ago" (c. 1826), with the noto ...
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Marshalsea Court
The Marshalsea Court (or Court of the Marshalsea, also known as the Court of the Verge or the Court of the Marshal and Steward) was a court associated with the Royal Household in England. Associated with, but distinct from, the Marshalsea Court was the Palace Court. The Marshalsea Court It was a court of record held by the Steward and Marshal of the Royal Household, to administer justice between the sovereign's domestic servants "that they might not be drawn into other courts and their service lost". It dealt with cases of trespass committed within the verge of the court, fixed at 12 miles round the sovereign's residence, if only one party was in the sovereign's service, and with debts, contracts and covenants, where both parties belonged to the royal household, in which case the inquest was composed of men from the royal household only. Its criminal jurisdiction had long fallen into disuse by the time its civil jurisdiction was belatedly abolished in 1849. Associated with the ...
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John Baptist Grano
John Baptist Grano (c. 1692 – c. 1748) was an English trumpeter, flutist and composer, who worked with George Frederick Handel at the opera house in London's Haymarket. Grano is best known for having been imprisoned for a debt of £99 in the notorious Marshalsea prison in Southwark from May 1728 until September 1729. He kept a diary of his time there, the manuscript of which is held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It was published in 1998 as ''Handel's Trumpeter: The Diary of John Grano'', edited by John Ginger, with a foreword by Crispian Steele-Perkins. The diary has become an important primary source of material about the Marshalsea. It details Grano's friendships, love affairs and adventures as he struggles to earn enough money to buy his freedom. Personal life Grano's father, John Baptist Grano (also written Granom), and his mother Jane Villeneuve, originally from France, lived in London toward the end of the 17th century. An entry in the poor rate returns in 1698 place ...
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Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ref ...
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John Dickens
John Dickens (21 August 1785 – 31 March 1851) was the father of famous English novelist Charles Dickens and was the model for Mr Micawber in his son's semi-autobiographical novel '' David Copperfield''. Biography The son of William Dickens (1719–1785) and Elizabeth Ball (1745–1824), John Dickens was a clerk in the Royal Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth in Hampshire. On 13 June 1809 at St Mary le Strand, London, he married Elizabeth Barrow, with whom he had eight children. He was later transferred to London and then to Chatham, returning to live in Camden Town in London in 1822 to work in Somerset House. John Dickens found it difficult to provide for his growing family on his meagre income. Soon his debts had become so severe that all the household goods were sold in an attempt to pay his bills, including furniture and silverware. He had eight children in all and his oldest child was Frances Elizabeth Dickens whilst his second-oldest was Charles Dickens. John's debts be ...
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Knight Marshal
The Knight Marshal is a former office in the British Royal Household established by King Henry III in 1236. The position later became a Deputy to the Earl Marshal from the reign of King Henry VIII until the office was abolished in 1846. The Knight Marshal and his men were responsible for maintaining order within the King's Court ( Court of Marshalsea or Palace Court) which was abolished in 1849. According to ''The Present State of the British Court'', published in 1720, The Knight Marshal was appointed by the Crown for life by letters patent under the great seal frequently in the form of grants in reversion. Board wages were fixed at £21 5s 10d in 1662. In 1685, a salary of £26 was provided. This was raised to £500 in 1790 but reduced to £271 in 1816. The separate office of Knight Marischal exists in the Royal Household of Scotland, but has not been filled since 1863. List of Knights Marshal *temp Richard III : William Brandon *temp Edward IV : Sir Ralph Assheton ...
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Edmund Bonner
Edmund Bonner (also Boner; c. 15005 September 1569) was Bishop of London from 1539 to 1549 and again from 1553 to 1559. Initially an instrumental figure in the schism of Henry VIII from Rome, he was antagonised by the Protestant reforms introduced by 1st Duke of Somerset, Edward Seymour and reconciled himself to Catholicism. He became notorious as "Bloody Bonner" for his role in the persecution of heretics under the Catholic government of Mary I of England, and ended his life as a prisoner under Queen Elizabeth I. Early life Bonner was the son of Elizabeth Frodsham, who was married to Edmund Bonner, a sawyer of Hanley, Worcestershire. John Strype printed an account, with many circumstantial details, stating that Bonner was the natural son of George Savage (and therefore grandson of Sir John Savage and great-nephew of Thomas Savage who had also served as Bishop of London, before he became Archbishop of York), rector of Davenham, Cheshire, and that his mother married Bon ...
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Thomas Malory
Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' was published by the famed London printer William Caxton in 1485. Much of Malory's life history is obscure, but he identified himself as a "knight prisoner", apparently reflecting that he was either a criminal or a prisoner-of-war. Malory's identity has never been confirmed. However, since modern scholars began researching his identity the most widely accepted candidate has been Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, who was imprisoned at various times for criminal acts and possibly also for political reasons during the Wars of the Roses. Identity Most of what is known about Malory stems from the accounts describing him in the prayers found in the Winchester Manuscript of ''Le Morte d'Arthur''. He is described as a "", ...
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John Eliot (statesman)
Sir John Eliot (11 April 1592 – 27 November 1632) was an English statesman who was serially imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he eventually died, by King Charles I for advocating the rights and privileges of Parliament. Early life The son of Richard Eliot (1546 – 22 June 1609) and Bridget Carswell (c. 1542 – March 1617), he was born at Cuddenbeak, a farm on his father's Port Eliot estate in St Germans, Cornwall. He was baptised on 20 April at St German's Priory, immediately next to Port Eliot. The Eliot family were an old Devon family that had settled in Cornwall. John Eliot was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, and matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 4 December 1607, and, leaving the university after three years, he studied law at one of the Inns of Court. He also spent some months travelling in France, Spain and Italy, in company, for part of the time, with young George Villiers, afterwards 1st Duke of Buckingham. Parliamentary career Eliot ...
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John Selden
John Selden (16 December 1584 – 30 November 1654) was an English jurist, a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned men reputed in this land." Early life He was born at Salvington, in the parish of West Tarring, West Sussex (now part of the town of Worthing), and was baptised at St Andrew's, the parish church. The cottage in which he was born survived until 1959 when it was destroyed by a fire caused by an electrical fault. His father, also named John Selden, had a small farm. It is said that his skill as a violin-player was what attracted his wife, Margaret, who was from a better family, being the only child of Thomas Baker of Rustington and descended from a knightly family of Kent. Selden was educated at the free grammar school at Chichester, The Prebendal School, and in 1600 he went on to Hart Hall, Oxford. In 1603, he was admitted to Cliffor ...
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