Wandsworth (prison)
The prison Wandsworth in south London district London Borough of Wandsworth , with a capacity of 1,416 prisoners after the Liverpool prison the second largest prison in Britain.
Initially known as the Surrey House of Correction, the prison opened in November 1851. The building was designed according to the principle of the panopticon , in which all corridors lead to a central control point. The prison consists of two building complexes. In the Heathfield Center, the main prison, prisoners are housed in five four-story wings. The smaller complex called Onslow Center has three wings and has a capacity of 330 prisoners. Sex offenders mostly sit there in what is known as the Vulnerable Prisoners Unit .
Between 1878 and 1961, 135 people sentenced to death were executed there. Among others, the following people were hanged in Wandsworth :
- John Amery - British fascist, executed in 1945
- Derek Bentley - mistakenly executed for the murder of a police officer in 1953, pardoned posthumously in 1993. In 1998 the judgment was overturned
- George Chapman - multiple poisoner and ripper suspect , executed in 1903
- John George Haigh - serial killer known as the "acid bath killer", executed in 1949
- William Joyce - aka "Lord Haw-Haw", British fascist, executed in 1946
The last execution at Wandsworth was on September 8, 1961, when the convicted double murderer Hendrick Neimasz was hanged by the executioner Harry Allen.
The well-known British mail robber Ronald Biggs managed to escape from Wandsworth in 1965 together with three other prisoners.
Wandsworth was the only prison in Britain to keep a functioning gallows after the death penalty for criminal offenses was abolished . It was only dismantled after Great Britain and Northern Ireland abolished the death penalty in the military sector in October 1998. The former execution room has since served as a dining room for the employees.
Web links
- Wandsworth. In: HM Prison Service. March 2, 2004, archived from the original on April 15, 2009 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 26 '59.4 " N , 0 ° 10' 39.8" W.