(Description) Figure 7 Girls’ schoolroom at Tothill Fields Prison in the late 1850s. By this time, Tothill Fields had become a prison for women and juvenile males. This concentration of female prisoners meant that there were enough to justify the appointment of a schoolmistress. In many other local prisons, the matron took on the duties of the schoolmistress.

Session 2: The rise of the prison school

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This drawing features three rows of young women seated at long desks, with slates in front of them. They face towards the left, where a schoolmistress sits on a raised stool. Two women cross the room with slates in their hands, presumably for inspection by the teacher.