Fleet prison

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Stitch of the old fleet prison with begging inmates. From the "Book of Days" (1869) by Robert Chambers (1802–1871)
Caricature of the "Fleet Marriages" . From the "Book of Days" by Robert Chambers
"Racket" game in Fleet Prison (a forerunner of squash ). Drawing by Augustus Charles Pugin (1768–1832) and Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) for the Microcosm of London (1808–1811) by Rudolph Ackermann (1764–1834)

The Fleet Prison ( English : Fleet Prison ) was a notorious prison in London (1197-1844).

history

The detention center was built in 1197 and was located on Farringdon Street on the east bank of the River Fleet after which it was named. The prison was first known from the fact that there were defendants from the Star Chamber . This was a royal council with judicial functions that Edward II had set up. In addition, were debtors imprisoned and people who are in contempt of "Court of Chancery" (about German "Court of equitable jurisdiction" ) were guilty. The Fleet Prison had to be rebuilt several times: it was destroyed both during the English peasant uprising of 1381 and during the Great Fire of London in 1666.

In the 18th century the prison was mainly used to hold debtors and bankrupts . Usually about 300 prisoners and their families were detained. There was a separate lattice window facing Farringdon Street through which inmates could beg passers-by to “finance” their stay, because prisons were profitable businesses at the time. The prisoners had to pay for food and housing. There were special "fees" for the jailer and for removing the handcuffs - the shackles - or the neck irons . The Fleet Prison was known for having the highest fees in England. Wealthy inmates did not necessarily have to live within the prison walls. As long as they could pay the guards for their "loss of earnings", they were also allowed to move into quarters outside the home. The area in which this was permitted was referred to as the "Liberty of the Fleet" or "Rules of the Fleet" .

From 1613 in the somewhat unusual environment of the Fleet Prison found increasingly the so-called "Marriages Fleet secret" ( English "clandestine fleet marriages") instead. The English marriage law was only precisely fixed by a law of 1753 ( "Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act" ). In the previously prevailing legal uncertainty as to the coming about of legally valid marriages ( " common-law marriages " , that is, " customary marriages" were until then legal), developed in the 17th and early 18th centuries in the Fleet Prison and the surrounding area a buoyant marriage business. Prisons could claim to be outside the church's jurisdiction. During the 1740s , about 6,000 of the 47,000 English marriages were concluded annually in the Fleet area alone.

The head of the fleet prison was called "the warden" (German "the overseer"). He was appointed by a patent certificate (English "letters patent" ). It became a common practice for patent holders to sublet the prison to the highest bidder. This practice ensured that the institution was for a long time notorious for all kinds of atrocities that the prisoners had to endure. One patent buyer, Thomas Bambridge, who became an overseer in 1728, had a particularly bad reputation. On February 27, 1729, a committee of inquiry of the House of Commons , which dealt with the state of English prisons, carried out a site inspection of the Fleet Prison.

The committee chairman James Oglethorpe (* 1696; † 1785), a later co-founder of the US state of Georgia , stated in his final report on March 24, 1729:

"Resolved - nemine contradicente - that Thomas Bambridge, the acting Warden of the prison at the Fleet, hath willfully permitted several debtors to the crown in great sums of money, as well as debtors to divers of his Majesty's subjects to escape; hath been guilty of the most notorious breaches of his trust; great extortions, and the highest crimes and misdemeanors in the execution of his said office; and hath arbitrarily and unlawfully loaded with irons, put into dungeons, and destroyed prisoners for debt under his charge, treating them in the most barbarous and cruel manner, in high violation and contempt of the laws of this kingdom ... "
Translation: “It is decided unanimously that Thomas Bambridge, the deputy overseer of the Fleet Prison, has deliberately allowed both several debtors to the Crown of large sums of money and debtors of various subjects of Her Majesty to escape; is guilty of the most disreputable breaches of trust; great extortion, and the highest crimes and misdemeanors in the exercise of his said office; and has arbitrarily and illegally put convicts under his custody, imprisoned and exterminated by treating them in the most barbaric and cruel manner, in high violation and disregard of the laws of this kingdom ... "

Thomas Bambridge was then incarcerated in Newgate Prison and legislation was passed to prevent such abuse in the future.

During the " Gordon Riots ", the fleet prison was destroyed again in 1780 and immediately rebuilt in 1781/1782. In 1842 it was merged by law with the "Marshalsea" detention center and the "Queens Bench Prisons" under the name "Queens Prison" . It was eventually closed and sold to the City of London in 1844 . This demolished the building in 1846.

Charles Dickens processed the Fleet prison literarily in his novel " Die Pickwickier " (English "The posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club" ) in 1837 and William Hogarth in 1735 in his series of copperplate engravings " A Rake's Progress " (German "The life of a Wüstlings" ) .

Prominent inmates

  • Elizabeth Vernon (* approx. 1572; † approx. 1655), a beautiful and adored court lady of Elizabeth I , who was courting the noble theater patron Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton , much to the displeasure of the Queen. After the attractive "Maid of Honor" became pregnant and had secretly married the Count in August 1598, the angry monarch had the now Countess Southampton temporarily thrown in Fleet Prison, as did her husband, who had been recalled from Paris. Elizabeth Vernon gained as poetic inspiration for Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" - sonnets lasting fame.
  • John Donne (* 1572; † 1631), from 1597 private secretary of Sir Thomas Egerton, a Lord Keeper of the Great Seal , secretly married his seventeen-year-old niece Anne More in 1601, which his employer and the bride's father, Sir George More of Losely, very displeased. His involuntary father-in-law had him detained in Fleet Prison for a few weeks in February and March 1602. The family reconciliation did not take place until 1609. The marriage of the steadfast couple lasted until Anne's death in 1617. John Donne was an important writer in the era of James I .
  • The composer Francis Tregian d. J. (* approx. 1574; † approx. 1619), who in the last decade of his life compiled the “ Fitzwilliam Virginal Book ” with 297 pieces by the great composers of the Elizabethan period and the epoch of Jacob I , also spent some time in Fleet prison and borrowed £ 200 there. The idea of ​​the poor musician who was imprisoned in the Fleet prison for religious deviations and who passed the time there copying compositions is, however, unhistorical and derives from later Catholic legend formation that wanted to turn him into a martyr . The Tregians came from a family with extensive aristocratic connections, but shared the stubborn character of the conservative Cornish Catholics , who preferred incarceration to compromise.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thaddeus Mason Harris : Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe . - Boston : TMHarris, 1841; Appendix V: Prison-visiting Committee

literature

  • Ashton, John: "The Fleet": its river, prison, and marriages. - XVI, 391 pp. - London: Fisher Unwin, 1888
  • Brown, Roger Lee: A history of the Fleet Prison, London: the anatomy of the Fleet. - Lewiston, NY; Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. - Hardcover, XVII, 353 pp. - (Studies in British history; vol 42). - ISBN 0-7734-8762-X
  • Dickens, Charles: The Pickwickier: Roman / Dt. by Gustav Meyrink. With e. Nachw. By Walter Kluge. - Zurich: Diogenes, 1986. - paperback, 650 pages - (Diogenes paperback; 21405: detebe classic). - ISBN 3-257-21405-7 . - EUR 12.90 ( D )
  • Dickens, Charles: The Pickwickier / With Ill. By Robert Seymour ... - 4th unchanged. Edition - Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verl., 1998. - paperback, 1006 pp. - (Insel Taschenbücher; 896) - ISBN 3-458-32596-4 . - EUR 16.50 ( D )
  • Dickens, Charles: The posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club / Ed. with an introd. and notes by Mark Wormald. - paperback, XXXIV, 800 pp. - London [u. a.]: Penguin Books, 1999. - (Penguin classics). - ISBN 0-14-043611-1 . - EUR 10.90
  • Dickens, Charles: The Pickwicker: radio play / comp. by Johannes Pütz; edit by Gisela Prugel u. Alfred Prugel; Directed by Ulrich Lauterbach; Speaker: Martin Held, Werner Eichborn, Karl M. Schley, Uwe Friedrichsen. - (6 CDs, total running time approx. 430 min.). - Munich: DHV - Der Hörverlag, 2005. - ISBN 3-89940-062-3 . - EUR 39.95
  • Herber, Mark D .: Clandestine marriages in the Chapel and Rules of the Fleet Prison 1680–1754: transcripts of registers at the Public Record Office : piece RG7 / 162, November 1736 to January 1754: piece RG7 / 118, November 1736 to July 1748: with an introduction - with a foreword by John Titford. - London: Francis Boutle Publishers, 1998. - paperback, 128 pages - ISBN 0-9532388-1-4 . - £ 10.00
  • A report from the Committee appointed to inquire into the state of the Goals of this Kingdom: relating to the Fleet Prison. With the resolutions of the House thereupon. [March 20, 1729]. - 20 pp. - London: R. Knaplock, 1729.

Web links

Commons : Fleet Prison  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 58 ″  N , 0 ° 6 ′ 18 ″  W.