Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-15T17:00:54.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2023

Edited by
Get access

Summary

There are a number of excellent general histories of imprisonment in England. Ralph B. Pugh dealt with the early years in his Imprisonment in Medieval England—in which he mentioned that Bedford has had a jail continuously since 1165—whilst Sidney and Beatrice Webb in their classic English Prisons under Local Government concentrated on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. R. S. E. Hinde discussed much the same period as the Webbs in his useful book The British Penal System, 1773-1950, whilst Giles Playfair based his work, The Punitive Obsession, largely on the rich source of nineteenth-century Parliamentary Papers. What all these admirable works lack is a detailed picture of the prison at work. Whilst it is possible to obtain an idea of the desperate plight of the prisoner from the general accounts, it is much more difficult to see the problems of the jailer and his family. So too, very little emerges of the struggles of the reforming justices trying to persuade their colleagues at quarter sessions to agree to new measures. The Webbs were highly critical of the justices generally, and perhaps did less than justice to those magistrates who did their utmost to effect improvements. The general works also inevitably fail to show how the surveyors and architects struggled in the new field of prison architecture to implement new ideas without exceeding their budgets; how the Inspectors constantly pressed for changes; and how the Home Secretaries exerted pressure on quarter sessions.

What the writer sought to do in the course of the research for the present work was to study the documents relating to Bedford prison to see whether a more detailed picture could be obtained of a prison at work, and also whether one could trace the development of the penal system as a whole. The period selected was one of a little over two centuries from the date of the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, that is, roughly the years considered by the Webbs. The year 1660 has been used as a point of departure for two reasons.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
First published in: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by Eric Stockdale
  • Book: Bedford Prison 1660-1877
  • Online publication: 03 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800107441.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by Eric Stockdale
  • Book: Bedford Prison 1660-1877
  • Online publication: 03 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800107441.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by Eric Stockdale
  • Book: Bedford Prison 1660-1877
  • Online publication: 03 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800107441.002
Available formats
×