Horsemonger Lane Gaol (also known as the Surrey County Gaol or the New Gaol) was a prison close to present-day

Newington Causeway __NOTOC__ Newington Causeway is a road in Southwark, London, between the Elephant and Castle and Borough High Street. Elephant & Castle Underground station is at the southern end. It follows the route of the old Roman road Stane Street. In 19 ...

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

, south London. Built at the end of the 18th century, it was in use until 1878.

History

The gaol was built to replace the old county gaol housed at what had been the nearby 'White Lion Inn' on Borough High Street, Southwark (informally called the 'Borough Gaol'). The new building was designed by George Gwilt the Elder,

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

to the county of

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, and completed in 1799. It was adjacent to

Sessions House A sessions house in the United Kingdom was historically a courthouse that served as a dedicated court of quarter sessions, where criminal trials were held four times a year on quarter days. Sessions houses were also used for other purposes to do w ...

, a court building also designed by Gwilt. Horsemonger Lane remained Surrey’s principal prison and place of

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the State (polity), state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to ...

up to its closure in 1878. It was a common gaol, housing both

debtor A debtor or debitor is a legal entity (legal person) that owes a debt to another entity. The entity may be an individual, a firm, a government, a company or other legal person. The counterparty is called a creditor. When the counterpart of this ...

s and

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

s, with a capacity of around 300 inmates. In total, 131 men and four women were executed there between 1800 and 1877, the

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

being erected on the flat roof of the prison's gatehouse. By 1859, the gaol was no longer known as 'Horsemonger Lane' following the road's change of name to Union Road (today: Harper Road), being renamed Surrey County Gaol (although its alternative name, the New Gaol, the gaol should not be confused with the

New Prison The New Prison was a prison located in the Clerkenwell area of central London between c.1617 and 1877. The New Prison was used to house prisoners committed for examination before the police magistrates, for trial at the sessions, for want of bail ...

, located north of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell () is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an ancient parish from the mediaeval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The well after which it was named was redisco ...

). The gaol was demolished in 1881 and replaced by a public park,

Newington Gardens Newington Gardens is located on Harper Road in Southwark, London, England. To the north-west is the Inner London Sessions House, a Crown Court. Its area is . The park occupies part of the site of an old prison that was closed in 1878. The par ...

, which opened in 1884.

Literary connections

In 1849,

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 e ...

attended the public hangings outside the gaol of husband and wife Frederick and Maria Manning, who had killed a friend for his money and buried him under the kitchen floor. Dickens wrote to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' condemning such public spectacles. Dickens later based the character of Hortense in ''

Bleak House ''Bleak House'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and ...

'' on Maria Manning, while Mrs Chivery's tobacco shop in ''

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 Cl ...

'' is located on Horsemonger Lane. Executions at Horsemonger Lane are also mentioned in

Sarah Waters Sarah Ann Waters (born 21 July 1966) is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as ''Tipping the Velvet'' and '' Fingersmith''. Life and education Early life Sara ...

' novel '' Fingersmith''.

Inmates

Inmates included: *

William Chester Minor William Chester Minor (also known as W. C. Minor; 22 June 1834 – 26 March 1920), was an American army surgeon, psychiatric-hospital patient, and lexicographical researcher. After serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War, Minor m ...

, convicted of murder *

Edward Despard Edward Marcus Despard (175121 February 1803), an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish officer in the service of the The Crown, British Crown, gained notoriety as a colonial administrator for refusing to recognise racial distinctions in law and, following his ...

, convicted of high treason (executed at the gaol on 21 February 1803) *

Leigh Hunt James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet. Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centr ...

, convicted of criticism of the

Prince Regent A prince regent or princess regent is a prince or princess who, due to their position in the line of succession, rules a monarchy as regent in the stead of a monarch regnant, e.g., as a result of the sovereign's incapacity (minority or illness ...

* Marie and Frederick Manning, convicted of murder (executed at the gaol on 13 November 1849) * Robert Taylor, convicted of blasphemy *

Arthur Tooth Arthur Tooth (17 June 1839 – 5 March 1931) was a ritualist priest in the Church of England and a member of the Society of the Holy Cross. Tooth is best known for being prosecuted in 1876 under the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 for u ...

, convicted of contempt of court *

Margaret Waters Margaret Waters, otherwise known as Willis, was an English murderer hanged by executioner William Calcraft on 11 October 1870 at Horsemonger Lane Gaol (also known as Surrey County Gaol) in London. Waters was born in 1835 and lived in Brixton. ...

, convicted of murder (executed at the gaol on 11 October 1870)

References

External links

London footprints: Crime & Punishment
*'The Old Kent Road', Old and New London: Volume 6 (1878), pp. 248–55. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=45279. Date accessed: 19 December 2006.
Index to deaths, 1798-1878, in Surrey County Gaol
{{Authority control Defunct prisons in London Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Southwark 1790s establishments in England Buildings and structures demolished in 1881 1881 disestablishments in England Demolished prisons

History

Literary connections

Inmates

See also

References

External links