Tuesday Talk: Do Not Pass Go...

Remember that annoying square on a Monopoly board? Go To Direct To Jail... Do Not Pass Go... Do Not Collect £200/$200

(Has anyone ever figured out the point of the 'Free Parking' square?) 

For Monopoly players this is all just a bit of fun, but jail in the past was a very different barrel of fish. Especially for pirates.

My pirate, Jesamiah Acorne in the Sea Witch Voyages frequently finds himself 'banged up' in gaol. (OK so readers know he'll not end up hanged, but the fun is in not knowing how he'll get out of the tight spot...) Most people back in the early 18th century, however, were not so fortunate.

The word ‘gaol’ is the old spelling of today’s ‘jail’. Pronunciation and meaning is exactly the same jay-l, but however it is spelt the word means the same: prison.

Men, women, and children, were sent to gaol in the 1700s and 1800s for what seems to us, now, the most trivial of reasons. Stealing a loaf of bread or an apple; for sedition, speaking out against the government or monarch; for differences of religious beliefs; for poaching a rabbit or falling into debt. Higher crimes, murder, treason and piracy usually carried the penalty of hanging. As did acts of homosexuality. If you were gay and discovered, you would be hanged. Gay men and women of the eighteenth century stayed very firmly hidden and did not ‘come out’.

Gaol was not a nice place to be.

Until the 1800s prisons were not regarded as places of punishment - or reform - but as a building where debtors were held until they repaid what they owed, or a trial resulted in sentence. These ranged from a ducking in the river (more unpleasant than it sounds; most rivers or village ponds were open sewers,) to a spell in a pillory, a flogging, transportation to the Colonies as an indentured slave, or execution. Debtors consigned to gaol often took their families with them – where else were they to live? The State would not support them, indeed prisoners even had to pay rent for the privilege of being locked up in filthy, stinking conditions.

London’s two notorious prisons were Newgate and Marshalsea. Few who went into these awful places expected to get out again if they had to endure long sentences or had no money. The rich could buy luxuries (like food!), pay for a private ‘room’ and even employ ‘personal entertainment’ (the use of a whore). Incarcerated within its dour walls of Marshalsea Prison in Southwark to the south side of the River Thames was the dreaded fear. If a prisoner had money he, or she, could afford access to additional luxuries such as a shop and a restaurant, and were even permitted to leave the prison during the day (for a fee of course). Those who did not have any financial means found themselves squashed into small rooms with many other prisoners. The poor were likely to starve as they could not afford food. In 1729, 300 prisoners in three months starved to death within Marshalsea’s walls. Prostitution was rife as it was a way to earn a few meagre pennies in order to survive.

Prisoners were beaten and tortured, the worst punishment was to be locked in the ‘strong room’ which was a shed, originally built to hold pirates, without fresh air or light and situated next to where bodies awaited burial, the gaol’s sewer and the night soil piled for disposal. The place was never cleaned, had no drain and was overrun by rats. Prisons had to lie or sit on the filth of the floor as there were no stool, chair, bed or bench.

The Admiralty, responsible for Royal Navy discipline, which included stamping out piracy and smuggling, sent sailors found guilty through court-marshal for desertion and ‘unnatural crimes’, a euphemism for homosexuality to the Marshalsea.

The prison was closed in 1842, with the buildings and land sold by auction a year later and purchased by a Master Hicks for £5,100. All that remains now is one wall. Notorious as it was, Marshalsea’s fame increased because of a certain novelist whose father was interred there for debt in 1824. His son was forced to leave his education at the age of twelve in order to earn enough money by working in a shoe-blacking factory to pay the debt off and set his father free. He used the experience for many of his subsequent novels. 

His name? Charles Dickens.

Artist Impression of the boy,
Charles Dickens

Newgate – it was once a gate, although by the 1700s not a very new one, for it was originally built as the western gateway for  the Roman wall, and was rebuilt in the 12th century, with various following re-builds, most notably in 1672 after the Great Fire of London had destroyed it in 1666. This feared place of terror, squalor and cruelty was finally demolished in 1904.

Old Newgate, London

Prisoners awaiting hanging at Tyburn were held at Newgate, although it was not reliably secure, for among various escapees, the thief, Jack Sheppard, escaped twice before he went to the gallows in 1724. 

'Accommodation' consisted of three wards; the Master’s for those who had the money to afford to pay their way, the Common Side for the poor, and the Press Yard for special prisoners. Entering, prisoners would be chained by leg irons and taken to the dungeons which were unlit and rank with fetid detritus. Those awaiting execution were held in a cellar (which was nothing more than an open sewer) beneath the Keeper’s house,  secured there by chains and shackles affixed to the dank walls.

Newgate  early 1800s

Daniel Defoe was imprisoned at Newgate for debts. The fictional protagonist of one of his novels, Moll Flanders, was born in Newgate. Pirate William Kidd was held there prior to being hanged at Wapping in 1701, and Newgate has a legend of a Black Dog, a ghostly canine which represented the cruel treatment of inmates.

The Cockney slang ‘as black as Nookie’s [Newgate’s] Knocker’ refers to the doorknocker on the prison’s front door. 

COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG’S PUBLIC GAOL.

Colonial Williamsburg Gaol *

When Lt Maynard defeated Edward Teach, Blackbeard, at the Ocracoke in 1718 the remainder of his pirate crew were brought to Williamsburg, the then capital of Virginia, and incarcerated there until their trial and subsequent hanging several months later. The gaol that can be seen there today is an accurate replica.

A two-storey building of red brick it is located towards the east end of Nicholson Street and was built in 1704. Initially, it was assumed that small and simple would be sufficient, for large numbers of criminals were not expected to be a problem, therefore only three rooms were built, one for the gaoler’s use and two for prisoners, but to house runaway slaves, thieves, spies, pirates and other such miscreants a twenty-by-thirty-foot building soon proved inadequate. An exercise yard was added in 1703, a debtor’s prison room in 1711 and a house for the gaoler and his family in 1722. 

Colonial Williamsburg Gaol *

As with many another gaol, the conditions were foul and, at best, awful. In winter the cells were so cold some prisoners froze to death. In summer the humidity and heat was like an oven. At least there was a window and a grill on the door for air and light, unlike Newgate and Marshalsea, and there was a lavatory built as a wooden box with steps up to the ‘seat of ease’. The provision probably stank.

The Seat of Ease
Colonial Williamsburg Gaol *

Women prisoners were housed in an upstairs room, and reputedly two female ghosts still haunt the building, the thud of their shoes can occasionally be heard on the wooden flooring. 

Sea Witch Voyages

Excerpt: Bring It Close - due to be re-published very soon!
Jesamiah is incarcerated in Williamsburg gaol, with a few unpleasant 'companions'...

The food was lousy but it was better than nothing and Jesamiah had eaten worse. On the long Atlantic crossings the stored flour, meat and butter went off and weevils moved in. Rancid food was nothing new. He scooped the tasteless corn mush into his fingers, ate as he stood there by the wall. Finished, he wiped his hands on the seat of his breeches and took the plate to the hatch, left it there for Gaoler Redwood to collect later. Wandered back to the corner.
“That’s my place, mate,” he growled.
“No, it ain’t. You decided you wanted to make friends with the sodomite boy over there, go cuddle up with ’im.”
Patient, Jesamiah repeated; “You are in my place. I sit there. Move.”
The man grinned, showing rotten teeth. “Make me.”
He then made a mistake. He licked the plate, took his attention off Jesamiah—who moved fast
Kicking out, Jesamiah caught the bottom of the plate with his foot and rammed it, hard, onto the man’s nose. Spluttering blood, the antagonist tried to get to his feet, but ignoring the twinge of protest from his healing shoulder, Jesamiah was already following up with three punches, one to the belly, one to the face and the third to the groin. He grabbed the man’s hair and jerked him forward, sending him sprawling; kicked his backside for good measure.
“I said, this is my place. I suggest you learn to listen.”

Part Two - Hanging - next week!

Text taken from Pirates Truth and Tales by Helen Hollick

* images © Cathy Helms