Coldbath Fields Prison

History

Coldbath Fields Prison (also known as the Middlesex House of Correction) was originally a prison run by local magistrates and where most prisoners served short sentences. Coldbath Fields also served as a debtor's prison. 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), it became notorious for its strict regime of silence and its use of the treadmill.

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 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 | image-width = 2500 | image-left = -440 | image-top = -1100 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 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, 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 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 during the Great Exhibition.

In literature

The Devil's Thoughts (1799), a poem attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (and others), contains the stanza A solitary cell; And the devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint For improving his prisons in hell.}}

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.

References

References

1. A corruption of the French alike-sized [[Bastille]] in [[Cockney rhyming slang. Cockney Slang]]. ''Oxford English Dictionary'', "Steel, n. 2". Accessed 26 November 2013.
2. Dickens, Charles. (1972). "A London dictionary and guide book for 1879". Howard Baker Press.
3. Philip Collins ''Dickens and crime'' Ch.III "The Silent System Coldbath Fields Prison"
4. (2007). "Early history: Cold Bath Fields Prison". The British Postal Museum & Archive.
5. "Coldbath Fields".
6. (31 March 1877). "CLERKENWELL HOUSE OF CORRECTION". [[The Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times]].
7. (1983). "The London Encyclopaedia". Macmillan.
8. "London for free – Historic Prisons – Details".
9. (15 May 1851). ""An Officer of the Coldstream Guards sent to the House of Correction"". The Patriot.
10. Parolin, Christina. (2010). "Radical Spaces". ANU Press.