Whitecross Street Prison was a debtors' prison in London, England. It was built between 1813–15 to ease overcrowding at Newgate Prison and closed in 1870, when all of the prisoners were transferred to the newly built

Holloway Prison HM Prison Holloway was a closed category prison for adult women and young offenders in Holloway, London, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It was the largest women's prison in western Europe, until its closure in 2016. Hist ...

. Situated on

Whitecross Street Whitecross Street is a short street in Islington, in Inner London. It features an eponymous street market and a large housing estate. Since 2010, there has been an annual Whitecross Street Party one weekend in the summer, together with an exhi ...

in Islington the prison was capable of holding up to 500 prisoners, although in normal circumstances less than half that number would be held there. The prisoners were held in six separate 'wards,' and included a 'Female ward.' Known both as 'Burdon's Hotel' (after one of Governors) and the 'Cripplegate Coffeehouse,' the prison seems to have had a worse reputation than the other London

Debtors' prison A debtors' prison is a prison for 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, Lucinda"A Historic ...

of the time due to the fact that it had common wards rather than individual rooms: " heprison inspectors thought that 'the crying evil of Whitecross-Street Prison is that the well-disposed debtor when so inclined, had no means of protecting himself from association with the depraved.'" This was one of the prisons visited by

Lydia Irving Lydia Irving (15 May 1797 – 22 February 1893) was a British philanthropist & prison visitor. She was a leading Quaker and she worked closely with Elizabeth Fry seeking to improve conditions for women in prisons and on convict ships filled with ...

as part of

Elizabeth Fry Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney; 21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845), sometimes referred to as Betsy Fry, was an English prison reformer, social reformer, philanthropist and Quaker. Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to improve the tr ...

's ''

British Ladies Society for promoting the reformation of female prisoners British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

'' in the 1820s. A £20 payment known as 'Nell Gwynne's bounty' was given to inmates of Whitecross Street Prison each Christmas, a payment that could apparently be traced back to the long time mistress of King Charles II.

In Fiction

In his book "

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club ''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (also known as ''The Pickwick Papers'') was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with ''Sketches by Boz'' published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to s ...

" Chapter 39 page 429 of the first edition, or Volume 2 Chapter 12 of the two-volume edition, published in 1836–37,

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 ...

mentions the Whitecross Street Prison, to which one of his minor characters is to be sent, before Mr. Pickwick is persuaded not to go there, but instead chooses to be sent to Fleet Prison. In TV show Bad Girls. Denny Blood was transfered to Whitecross from Larkhall during series 5 to finish her sentence.

References

Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Islington Defunct prisons in London Debtors' prisons {{prison-stub