The Fleet. Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages 28

The Fleet. Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages 28

But in the interval between Bambridge and Howard, the prison was not a

pleasant place of residence, if we may judge from "The Prisoner's Song"

published in 1738, of which I give an illustration and the Words.

 

[Illustration: THE FLEET PRISON.]

 

"A Starving life all day we lead,

No Comfort here is found,

At Night we make one Common bed,

Upon the Boarded Ground;

Where fleas in troops and Bugs in shoals

Into our Bosoms Creep,

And Death watch, Spiders, round y^e Walls,

Disturb us in our Sleep.

 

Were Socrates alive, and Bound

With us to lead his life,

'Twould move his Patience far beyond

His crabbed Scolding Wife;

Hard Lodging and much harder fare,

Would try the wisest Sage,

Nay! even make a Parson Swear,

And curse the Sinful Age.

 

Thus, we Insolvent debtors live,

Yet we may Boldly say,

Worse Villains often Credit give,

Than those that never pay;

For wealthy Knaves can with applause

Cheat on, and ne'er be try'd,

But in contempt of human Laws,

In Coaches Safely ride."

 

When Howard visited this prison in 1774 and 1776, he found on the

former occasion 171 prisoners in the House, and 71 in the Rules. On the

latter there were 241 in the House and 78 in the Rules. And he says:

 

"The Prison was rebuilt a few years since. At the front is

a narrow courtyard. At each end of the building there is

a small projection, or wing. There are four floors, they

call them _Galleries_, besides the Cellar floor, called

_Bartholomew-Fair_. Each gallery consists of a passage in the

middle, the whole length of the Prison, _i.e._, sixty six yards;

and rooms on each side of it about fourteen feet and a half

by twelve and a half, and nine and a half high. A chimney and

window in every room. The passages are narrow (not seven feet

wide) and darkish, having only a window at each end.

 

"On the first floor, the _Hall Gallery_, to which you ascend

eight steps, are a Chapel, a Tap room, a Coffee room (lately

made out of two rooms for Debtors), a room for the Turnkey,

another for the Watchman, and eighteen rooms for Prisoners.

 

Besides the Coffee-room and Tap-room, two of those eighteen

rooms, and all the cellar-floor, except a lock up room to

confine the disorderly, and another room for the Turnkey, are

held by the Tapster, John Cartwright, who bought the remainder

of the lease at public auction in 1775. The cellar floor is

sixteen steps below the hall Gallery. It consists of the two

rooms just now mentioned, the Tapster's kitchen, his four large

beer and wine Cellars, and fifteen rooms for Prisoners. These

fifteen, and the two before mentioned, in the hall gallery, the

Tapster lets to Prisoners for four to eight shillings a week.

 

"On the _first Gallery_ (that next above the hall-gallery) are

twenty-five rooms for Prisoners. On the _second Gallery_, twenty

seven rooms. One of them, fronting the staircase, is their

Committee room. A room at one end is an Infirmary. At the other

end, in a large room over the Chapel, is a dirty Billiard-table,

kept by the Prisoner who sleeps in that room. On the highest

story there are twenty seven rooms. Some of these upper rooms,

_viz._, those in the wings, are larger than the rest, being over

the Chapel, the Tap-room, &c.

 

"All the rooms I have mentioned are for the Master's side

Debtors. The weekly rent of those not held by the Tapster, is

one shilling and three pence unfurnished. They fall to the

Prisoners in succession, thus: when a room becomes vacant,

the first Prisoner upon the list of such as have paid their

entrance-fees, takes possession of it. When the Prison was

built, the Warden gave each Prisoner his choice of a room,

according to his seniority as Prisoner.... Such of the Prisoners

(on the Common Side) as swear in Court, or before a Commissioner

that they are not worth five pounds, and cannot subsist without

charity, have the donations which are sent to the Prison, and

the begging box, and grate. Of them there were, at my last

visit, sixteen....

 

"I mentioned the billiard table. They also play in the yard

at skittles, missisipi, fives, tennis, &c. And not only the

Prisoners; I saw among them several butchers and others from the

Market; who are admitted here, as at another public house. The

same may be seen in many other Prisons where the Gaoler keeps or

lets the tap. Besides the inconvenience of this to Prisoners;

the frequenting a Prison lessens the dread of being confined in

one.

 

"On Monday night there is a Wine Club: on Thursday night a Beer

Club; each lasting usually till one or two in the morning. I

need not say how much riot these occasion; and how the sober

Prisoners are annoyed by them.

 

"Seeing the Prison crowded with women and Children, I procured

an accurate list of them; and found that on (or about), the

6th of April, 1776, when there were, on the Master's side

213 Prisoners; on the Common side 30. Total 243; their wives

(including women of an appellation not so honorable) and

children, were 475."

 

In Howard's time the fees payable by the Prisoners were the same as

were settled in 1729 after the trials of Huggins and Bambridge; but the

prisoners exercised a kind of local self-government, for he writes:--

 

"There is, moreover, a little Code of Laws, eighteen in number,

enacted by the Master's-side Debtors, and printed by D. Jones,

1774. It establishes a President, a Secretary, and a Committee,

which is to be chosen every month, and to consist of three

members from each Gallery. These are to meet in the Committee

room every Thursday; and at other times when summoned by the

Cryer, at command of the President, or of a majority of their

own number. They are to raise contributions by assessment; to

hear complaints; determine disputes; levy fines; and seize

goods for payment. Their Sense to be deemed the sense of the

whole House. The President or Secretary to hold the cash;

the Committee to dispose of it. Their Scavenger to wash the

Galleries once a week; to water, and sweep them every morning

before eight; to sweep the yard twice every week; and to light

the lamps all over the House. No person to throw out water,

&c., anywhere but at the sinks in the yard. The Cryer may take

of a Stranger a penny for calling a Prisoner to him; and of a

Complainant two pence for summoning a Special Committee. For

blasphemy, swearing, riot, drunkenness, &c., the Committee to

fine at discretion; for damaging a lamp, fine a shilling. They

are to take from a New Comer, on the first Sunday, besides the

two shillings Garnish, to be spent in wine, one shilling and

sixpence to be appropriated to the use of the House.

 

"Common-side Prisoners _to be confined to their own apartments_,

and not to associate with these LAW MAKERS, nor to use the same

conveniences."

 

In 1780 the famous Lord George Gordon, or "No Popery" Riots took

place--those Riots which were so intensely Protestant, that (according

to the Contemporary _Gentleman's Magazine_) "The very Jews in

Houndsditch and Duke's Place were so intimidated, that they followed

the general example, and unintentionally gave an air of ridicule to

what they understood in a very serious light, by writing on their

Shutters, "This House is a true Protestant."

 

These Riots are very realistically brought before us in Charles

Dickens' "Barnaby Rudge," but then, although the account is fairly

historically faithful, yet the weaving of his tale necessarily

interfered with strict historical details; which, by the way, are

extremely meagre as to the burning of the Fleet prison. The fact was,

that, for the few days the riot existed, the outrages were so numerous,

and the Newspapers of such small dimensions, that they could only be

summarized, and the burning of Newgate eclipsed that of the Fleet. But,

on the Wednesday, June 7, 1780, the _Annual Register_, p. 261 (which

certainly has the best description I have been able to see) absolutely

breaks down, saying:--

 

"It is impossible to give any adequate description of the events

of Wednesday. Notice was sent round to the public prisons of the

King's Bench, Fleet, &c., by the mob, at what time they would

come and burn them down. The same kind of infernal humanity was

exercised towards Mr. Langdale, a distiller in Holborn, whose

loss is said to amount to £100,000, and several other Romish

individuals. In the afternoon all the shops were shut, and bits

of blue silk, by way of flags, hung out at most houses, with

the words "No Popery" chalked on the doors and window shutters,

by way of deprecating the fury of the insurgents, from which no

person thought himself secure.

 

"As soon as the day was drawing towards a Close, one of the most

dreadful spectacles this country ever beheld was exhibited. Let

those, who were not spectators of it, judge what the inhabitants

felt when they beheld at the same instant the flames ascending

and rolling in clouds from the King's Bench and Fleet Prisons,

from New Bridewell, from the toll gates on Blackfriars Bridge,

from houses in every quarter of the town, and particularly from

the bottom and middle of Holborn, where the Conflagration was

horrible beyond description."

 

The burning of the Fleet was done calmly and deliberately, as is well

told in "A Narrative of the Proceedings of Lord Geo. Gordon," &c.,

1780. "About one o'clock this morning (Tuesday, June 6), the Mob

went to the Fleet Prison, and demanded the gates to be opened, which

the Keepers were obliged to do, or they would have set fire to it.

They were then proceeding to demolish the prison, but the prisoners

expostulating with them, and begging that they would give them time to

remove their goods, they readily condescended, and gave them a day for

that purpose, in consequence of which, the prisoners were removing all

this day out of that place. Some of the prisoners were in for life."

And in the evening of the next day, they fulfilled their threat, and

burnt it. This was the second time it had been burnt down, for the

great fire of 1666 had previously demolished it.

 

[Illustration: RACKETS IN THE FLEET PRISON, 1760.

(_Published by Bowles and Carver, 69, St. Paul's Churchyard._)]

 

It was rebuilt, and remained the same, with some few alterations and

additions until its final destruction. We get a good view of "the

Bare" or racket ground in 1808, an outline of which I have taken from

Pugin and Rowlandson's beautiful "Microcosm of London," 1808,[150]

according to which book, "The Fleet Prison, it is believed, after the

fire of London in 1666, was removed to that site of ground upon which

the almshouses through Vauxhall turnpike, on the Wandsworth road, now

stand, until the old prison was rebuilt, Sir Jeremy Whichcott, then

Warden, having his family seat there, which he converted into a prison;

for which patriotic act, and rebuilding the old one at his own expence,

he and his heirs were wardens as long as they lived. The Office of

Warden of the Fleet was formerly of such consequence, that a brother

of one of the Edwards is said to have been in the list of Wardens."