The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and MarriagesAshton, John
History
The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages
Ashton, John
Fleet Prison (London, England); Fleet, River (England)
Besides the Coffee-room and Tap-room, two of those eighteen
rooms, and all the cellar-floor, except a lock up room to
confine the disorderly, and another room for the Turnkey, are
held by the Tapster, John Cartwright, who bought the remainder
of the lease at public auction in 1775. The cellar floor is
sixteen steps below the hall Gallery. It consists of the two
rooms just now mentioned, the Tapster's kitchen, his four large
beer and wine Cellars, and fifteen rooms for Prisoners. These
fifteen, and the two before mentioned, in the hall gallery, the
Tapster lets to Prisoners for four to eight shillings a week.
"On the _first Gallery_ (that next above the hall-gallery) are
twenty-five rooms for Prisoners. On the _second Gallery_, twenty
seven rooms. One of them, fronting the staircase, is their
Committee room. A room at one end is an Infirmary. At the other
end, in a large room over the Chapel, is a dirty Billiard-table,
kept by the Prisoner who sleeps in that room. On the highest
story there are twenty seven rooms. Some of these upper rooms,
_viz._, those in the wings, are larger than the rest, being over
the Chapel, the Tap-room, &c.
"All the rooms I have mentioned are for the Master's side
Debtors. The weekly rent of those not held by the Tapster, is
one shilling and three pence unfurnished. They fall to the
Prisoners in succession, thus: when a room becomes vacant,
the first Prisoner upon the list of such as have paid their
entrance-fees, takes possession of it. When the Prison was
built, the Warden gave each Prisoner his choice of a room,
according to his seniority as Prisoner.... Such of the Prisoners
(on the Common Side) as swear in Court, or before a Commissioner
that they are not worth five pounds, and cannot subsist without
charity, have the donations which are sent to the Prison, and
the begging box, and grate. Of them there were, at my last
visit, sixteen....
"I mentioned the billiard table. They also play in the yard
at skittles, missisipi, fives, tennis, &c. And not only the
Prisoners; I saw among them several butchers and others from the
Market; who are admitted here, as at another public house. The
same may be seen in many other Prisons where the Gaoler keeps or
lets the tap. Besides the inconvenience of this to Prisoners;
the frequenting a Prison lessens the dread of being confined in
one.
"On Monday night there is a Wine Club: on Thursday night a Beer
Club; each lasting usually till one or two in the morning. I
need not say how much riot these occasion; and how the sober
Prisoners are annoyed by them.
"Seeing the Prison crowded with women and Children, I procured
an accurate list of them; and found that on (or about), the
6th of April, 1776, when there were, on the Master's side
213 Prisoners; on the Common side 30. Total 243; their wives
(including women of an appellation not so honorable) and
children, were 475."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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