(Description) Figure 3 A view inside Oscar Wilde’s cell, C2.2, at Reading Gaol. In 1895, Wilde, a famous poet and playwright, was convicted of homosexual offences and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour. He served his sentence at Pentonville, Wandsworth and, finally, Reading, and suffered greatly as a result of the regime of ‘hard labour, hard board and hard fare’. On release, Wilde wrote of his experiences, including his famous poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. His writing helped to sustain the penal reform movement in the closing years of the 1800s. Wilde’s cell had a bed and glass in the window. It was light but it may not have been warm or comfortable. It is difficult to get a sense of the noise or the smell. Even when the silent system was in operation, many accounts of prison life refer to the screams and shouting of those people confined to their cells and alone, who had mental breakdowns. Contrast this image with that you saw in Session 1 of Francis Wheatley’s 1787 John Howard Visiting and Relieving the Miseries of Prison. It shows a holding bay for those confined before sentencing, being hanged or being transported to a colony. People, including family, could visit to make sales or offer to represent a prisoner at court. But the staged scenery in the background bears little relation to the architecture of any specific old prison.

Session 8: A new era for prison education?

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This is a colour photograph of a prison cell, preserved as it was in the past. A metal bunk with a strapped bed-base stands against the right-hand wall, with a red-painted writing desk opposite. The floor of the cell is tiled, and the brick walls painted cream. Light enters the cell through a window at the far end.