Session 2: The rise of the prison school

Introduction

While the 1823 Gaols Act was significant as the first example of state-funded support for education in England and Wales – limited state aid for elementary schools had to wait another 10 years – there were limits. The Act applied only to local prisons – those run mostly by county and large borough authorities – and specifically only to one-third of these. It contained no mechanism to force the authorities in charge of these prisons to comply with it. In other words, local authorities were not obliged to educate their prisoners.

Despite this, by 1847 over half of all English local prisons had made arrangements to teach prisoners to read and often to write and cipher as well. On any given day, roughly 20 to 30 percent of prisoners in local prisons were receiving scholarly instruction. Convict prisons built after Millbank Penitentiary in 1816 – Parkhurst Juvenile Prison (1838) and Pentonville Prison (1842) – followed its example and developed education programmes. In 1848, all convicts on prison hulks (decommissioned naval vessels used as prisons) were held back from hard labour for half a day to attend ‘school’.

Figure 1 Inside the austere chapel at Lincoln Castle County Gaol.

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This colour photograph depicts a semi-circle of tiered pews, divided by a central aisle, beneath three windows in a rear wall. Seated boys occupy a few of the pews. They appear to be wearing a grey uniform, and are separated from each other by hinged wooden panels.

Figure 1 Inside the austere chapel at Lincoln Castle County Gaol.

In order to accommodate education in the prison changes had to be made – to space and timetables, for example. At the same time, the penal environment and new forms of prison discipline shaped the delivery of education in the prison. Formal prison schools replaced many informal modes of imparting instruction.

In this second session you will learn more about the expansion of prison education in Britain and Ireland after the penal reforms of the early 1820s. This session also outlines ideas about how you might plan your studies.

By the end of this session, you should be able to:

• discuss the expansion of educational provision in prisons
• discuss how the penal environment shaped forms of learning in the prison
• use a timetable to organise your study time.

Let’s begin by returning to Lincoln Castle Gaol. In the next video, Rosalind Crone explains the impact that the rise of two rival forms of prison discipline – silence and separation – in the 1830s had on the architecture and experience of imprisonment at Lincoln Castle Gaol. Watch this video now, and try to write down some brief notes about the ideas being presented in it. You will refer back to these later in this session.

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Transcript

[GENTLE MUSIC]

ROSALIND CRONE

This is the chapel at Lincoln Castle Gaol, which was constructed in 1848 as part of the renovation and enlargement of the prison. You'll see that it's very different from your typical church or chapel. The pulpit is positioned quite high up, overlooking the tiered pews. And can you see that each row of seats has been divided with partitions, so that each prisoner is encapsulated in his own box, unable to see his neighbours, only the chaplain delivering the sermon? This chapel was designed for the separate system of prison discipline.

The 1830s in Britain was a time of social crisis. Poverty was endemic and crime appeared to be increasing at an alarming rate. Imprisonment was failing to deter would-be criminals or to reform the convicted. Association in prisons, meaning the ability of prisoners to mix and talk, contributed to the problem. And many believed that prisons were schools of vice.

Reformers looked to America for a solution, where two experiments in prison discipline were underway. The first, the silent system, was in practise at two prisons in New York State, Auburn and Sing Sing. Here, prisoners were kept in association, but complete silence was imposed, which was enforced by guards and punishments such as whipping and solitary confinement.

At Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, they imposed the separate system, whereby prisoners were confined to their cells for the duration of their sentences, their solitude mitigated by practical work such as weaving or shoe making, and by the visits of approved moral agents.

The aim was reformative. Strict isolation would break the hardened resolve of the prisoner, preparing him to receive Christian messages of salvation through repentance. Both systems were imported into British and Irish prisons.

The silent system, which was quick to implement and required no modifications to prison buildings, was used in a number of local prisons, including Coldbath Fields in London. But the government expressed a preference for the separate system, and in 1842, built Pentonville Prison as a model for prisons across the UK.

[GENTLE MUSIC]

Between 1847 and 1848, Lincoln Castle Gaol was extended and remodelled for the implementation of the separate system. 24 cells, like this one, were built for the male prisoners, and nine for the female prisoners. They all had running water, toilets, heating, and ventilation. And all opened onto a landing within a large, vaulted gallery, designed not just for surveillance, but in mimicking a cathedral, to reinforce the power of the Almighty.

Separation at Lincoln, as at many other local prisons in Britain, was never fully realised. There were, at times, problems here with overcrowding. So cells were shared and prisoners continue to be brought together for work and exercise. However, separation and silence had a profound effect on the delivery of education in prisons.

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