Session 4: Education outside the prison school

Introduction

Education in prison did not begin and end with the prison school. In this session, you will look at other forms of learning available to prisoners in the 1800s, specifically the provision of books which prisoners were able to use for self-improvement.

Figure 1 Prison library at Strangeways, Manchester, 1910.

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This is a black and white photograph of a range of tall bookshelves, with a reading lamp in the foreground. The books are neatly arranged, with the larger ones on the lower shelves. All of them have white labels at the base of their spines.

Figure 1 Prison library at Strangeways, Manchester, 1910.

Throughout the 1700s, the openness of the prison to the outside world meant that reading matter could be taken to prisoners. Efforts were made to provide Bibles and Christian tracts. Some politically radical pamphlets and sheets containing pictures and songs about executions also found their way to prisoners. Legislation in the early 1800s gave control over books in the prison to the chaplain and the prison authorities.

At the same time, the penal reform movement gave new importance to books in the prison, and acts of reading by prisoners. While chaplains almost universally acknowledged the great potential that books offered for self-improvement, their attempts to control the effects of reading were constantly challenged.

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

• identify other forms of learning and self-improvement outside the prison school
• discuss debates about the suitability of reading matter for prisoners
• describe how prisoners accessed and used the books available to them.

To begin with, watch this video in which Rosalind Crone describes the prison library at Lincoln Castle Gaol in the 1800s. Consider what books prisoners had access to, and the evidence that survives on how they used them. It will be useful to reflect on this case study during this session. Please note that in the video, where Rosalind says ‘Captain Cook, who circumnavigated Australia’, this should say ‘Captain Cook, who circumnavigated the east coast of Australia’.

Download this video clip.Video player: boc_pre_1_week4_thelibrary.mp4

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Transcript

[GENTLE MUSIC]

ROSALIND CRONE

As well as a school at Lincoln Castle Gaol, there was also a library where prisoners were able to borrow books. It was established in 1833, when the county authorities purchased a collection of books and tracks from the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.

The aim was to combat idleness, a particular problem in a prison which held criminal prisoners who were awaiting trial or punishment. By the time of the first home office inspection in 1837, there were 56 titles in the catalogue. Prisoners could select from a list which they were provided. And each time they borrowed a book, a note was made in a special ledger of the date it was sent out, and eventually, the date it was returned.

Prisoners who had been sentenced to transportation and were awaiting their dispatch to Australia generally read Robinson Crusoe, the tale of an explorer who was shipwrecked on an island and made a new life there, while living in solitude, drawing strength from reading the Bible. A deliberate choice? Perhaps, but it was the only novel in the library.

Also popular were John Gay's fables, Defoe's History of the Plague, a book of trades, and several lives of famous men, including Captain Cook, who circumnavigated Australia, and the Duke of Wellington, who defeated the French at Waterloo. Exclusively religious books were rarely requested.

The borrowing record for this prison library sadly doesn't survive. Official journals from the chaplain, the matron, and the governor offer occasional insights into prisoners' interactions with books. On the 15th of April 1854, the Governor John Nicholson wrote that William Messenger had been placed in a dark cell, and on a diet of bread and water for three days for destroying his books.

The surviving evidence fails to communicate the great importance of the library in the 19th century prison. Books provided relief from isolation and boredom. They helped to sustain prisoners' mental health. They were a core component of prison education. Here was a practical application for the skill of reading, which could provide pleasure and expand horizons. Libraries, books, and reading offered one of the best chances for rehabilitation.

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