3-052-383 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches of the Queen's Bench Prison, 1880. '1. Entrance Gateway to Governor's House. 2. Courtyard and Governor's House. 3. Entrance from Southwark Bridge-road. 4. Front of Prison and Racquet Court. 5. One of the Rooms. 6. Chapel. 7. Corridor. 8. Room in which Lord George Gordon was imprisoned. 9. Poor Debtors' side of Prison...The demolition of this famous old place of confinement for debtors and defaulters...is an occasion for us to give some Illustrations of its interior...It is one of the most ancient places devoted to such a purpose in London...It was rebuilt after being destroyed by fire in Lord George Gordon's "No Popery" riots of 1780...The prison contained 224 apartments, eight of which,...called state-rooms,...were designed for the second-class of Crown prisoners..A sort of street...contained shops...for those who had money to spend,...the debtors could obtain, by paying a fee,...leave to go out for the day and walk about freely...They were obliged, however, to return and to be locked up at night...Many of their wives and children lived in the prison with them...the whole number of inmates being eight hundred or a thousand. This manner of life is described by Dickens...in the account of Mr. Pickwick's residence in the Fleet Prison'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.