Coldbath Fields Prison, also formerly known as the Middlesex House of Correction and Clerkenwell Gaol and informally known as the Steel, was a

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

in the Mount Pleasant area of

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell ( ) is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an Civil Parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish from the medieval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The St James's C ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Founded in the reign of James I (1603–1625) it was completely rebuilt in 1794 and extended in 1850. It housed prisoners on short sentences of up to two years. Blocks emerged to segregate felons, misdemeanants and vagrants. The prison closed in 1885.

History

Coldbath Fields Prison (also known as the

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

House of Correction) was originally a prison run by local

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judi ...

s and where most prisoners served short sentences. Coldbath Fields also served as a

debtor's prison A debtors' prison is a prison for Natural person, people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, L ...

. It took its name from Cold Bath Spring, a medicinal spring discovered in 1697. The prison housed men, women and children until 1850, when the women and children moved to Tothill Fields Bridewell in Victoria (Westminster) leaving only male offenders over the age of 17. Despite its aspirations to be more humanitarian (its redesign was by

John Howard John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. His eleven-year tenure as prime min ...

), it became notorious for its strict regime of silence and its use of the

treadmill A treadmill is a device generally used for walking, running, or climbing while staying in the same place. Treadmills were introduced before the development of powered machines to harness the power of animals or humans to do work, often a type of ...

. Since 1793 Britain had been at war with France, and William Pitt’s government became increasingly drawn into attempts to restrain the growth of radical republican societies, such as the London Corresponding Society, especially in the East End of London. The Middlesex magistrates and police offices were a key part of this strategy. In 1798 the magistrates, including Joseph Merceron, the corrupt 'Boss of Bethnal Green', became embroiled in a scandal over the conditions at Coldbath Fields, where several radical (also known as reformist) party sympathisers, including Colonel Edward Despard, were being held without trial. The scandal was exposed in Parliament by the young radical MP Sir Francis Burdett, who used it as the basis of his campaign against the chair of the magistrates William Mainwaring and his son George in the 1802 and 1804 Middlesex parliamentary elections. File:Coldbath-fields-treadmill-mayhew-p306.jpg, Vagrants exercising and on the treadmill File:Coldbath-fields-oakum-room-mayhew-p301.jpg, Prisoners picking

oakum Oakum is a preparation of tarred fibers used to seal gaps. Its traditional application was in shipbuilding for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships. Oakum was also used in p ...

File:Microcosm of London Plate 019 - Water Engine, Cold Bath Field's Prison.jpg, Two prisoners working the water engine in the prison, from Ackermann's ''Microcosm of London'', 1808 File:Coldbath-fields-plan-mayhew-p283.jpg, Detailed internal plan During the early 19th century, the prison temporarily housed members of the Cato Street Conspiracy. In March 1877 a fire, which started in the bakehouse, destroyed the treadmill house; no prisoners were hurt but two firemen were injured. The prison closed in 1885. The site was transferred to the

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

in 1889 and its buildings were gradually replaced. The last sections were demolished in 1929 for an extension of the Letter Office. Today, the site is occupied by the Mount Pleasant sorting office.

Famous inmates

* Edward Dando, thief and glutton in London *

Edward Despard Edward Marcus Despard (175121 February 1803), an Irish officer in the service of the British Crown, gained notoriety as a colonial administrator for refusing to recognise race as a distinction in English law and, following his recall to London, ...

, colonel and Superintendent of British Honduras, imprisoned for revolutionary activity, and later executed for his part in the Despard Plot * John Gravener Henson, workers' leader and historian of framework-knitters * Owen Suffolk, bushranger * Robert Wedderburn, ultra-radical leader and anti-slavery advocate * Arthur Thistlewood English radical activist and conspirator in the Cato Street Conspiracy. In 1820 he together with the other Cato Street conspirators were lodged here, before being sent to the Tower. * George Julian Harney English political activist, journalist, and Chartist leader. *

Johann Most Johann Joseph "Hans" Most (February 5, 1846 – March 17, 1906) was a German-American Social Democratic and then anarchist politician, newspaper editor, and orator. He is credited with popularizing the concept of "propaganda of the deed" in the Un ...

German socialist, editor of Freiheit (Freedom) * Poulett Somerset, captain Coldstream Guards, 10 days' imprisonment for horsewhipping a police constable on duty outside

the Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around ...

during the

Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition that took ...

In literature

''The Devil's Thoughts'' (1799), a poem attributed to

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

and

Robert Southey Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...

(and others),, p.54 contains the

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

In Samuel Butler's semi-autobiographical novel ' The Way of All Flesh' the hero, Ernest Pontifex is sentenced to six months hard labour in Coldbath Fields prison: chapters 64-70.

History

Famous inmates

In literature

Notes and references

Further reading