Bridewells

Rape and Infanticide at the Halstead House of Correction

~ Rachel Weil ~ 3 Comments

George Dewing, the keeper of the Halstead House of Correction, was a monster who raped an inmate and murdered her child. Or he was framed.            The version of the story in which he was a monster is found in A Short and Impartial Account of the Proceedings against George Dewing (1728),  probably written by … Continue reading Rape and Infanticide at the Halstead House of Correction

Prisoners and Prison Staff at the Cold Bath Fields House of Correction

~ Rachel Weil ~ 1 Comment

by Kiran Mehta In The Promise of Punishment: Prisons in Nineteenth-Century France, published in 1982, Patricia O’Brien argued that the prison guard was ‘the most important person in the operation of the prison’ and that ‘the whole disciplinary regime of the nineteenth century [could] be reduced to the dealings of the guard with the prisoner’. … Continue reading Prisoners and Prison Staff at the Cold Bath Fields House of Correction