4.1 Irish and Scottish prisons

The diagram in the previous section only maps the prison system for England and Wales in the 1800s. Scotland and Ireland developed their own prison systems but these had many common features and, in the case of Scotland, connected with the English and Welsh prison system too.

Both Ireland and Scotland had local prisons which served as a point of entry into the prison system for those accused of crime, and which were used to accommodate those sentenced to short periods of imprisonment.

In 1840, a General Prison was established at Perth in Scotland for prisoners with sentences of imprisonment which exceeded nine months. In time it was also used for those serving the probationary stage of their transportation or penal servitude sentence. Otherwise, Scottish convicts were sent to convict prisons (and hulks) in England until the erection of Barlinnie Prison in 1882.

Ireland had its own convict prison system but there were similarities. The Richmond General Penitentiary in Grangegorman, opened in 1820, was Ireland’s Millbank, and Mountjoy Prison (which opened in 1850) was Ireland’s Pentonville. In 1853, Ireland diverged somewhat when it adopted a three-stage punishment for penal servitude sentences. Convicts served a first stage in separate confinement, a second stage on public works, and a third stage in open prisons.