In this seminar we will compare experiences and ideas from both within and outside prison walls. Please choose one source from this list, and one source from our workshop at the MRC to introduce in class.

Questions for discussion

• What do these sources tell us about the design of prisons in the 19th century?
• Was the prison experience uniform for all? If not, how not?
• How do these sources support or challenge the historiography we have looked at so far?

Primary Sources

• Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon; or the Inspection House (1791), especially letters 1, 2 and 5
• Thomas Fowell Buxton, An Inquiry, whether Crime and Misery are Produced or Prevented, by our Present System of Prison Discipline (1818)
• Richard Oastler, The Fleet Papers vol. 1, issue 2 (9th January 1841) (pp. 9-16)
• Henry Mayhew, The Criminal Prisons of London (1862)
• Parliamentary Papers, 1850: Report from the Select Committee on Prison Discipline, especially pp. 1-29, evidence of Lieutenant-Colonel Joshua Jebb
• 'Birmingham Borough Gaol', The Times, 12 Sept. 1853 and 'Prison Industries', Daily News, November 6, 1882
• Parliamentary Papers, 1897, Report from the Departmental Committee on Prisons (Gladstone Committee), especially pp. 382-94, evidence of Michael Davitt
• Ground Plan of the Pentonville Prison for 520 Prisoners on the Separate System (1844) and Inside Newgate Prison from Queen's London (1897)
• Oscar Wilde, Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
• Constance Lytton and Jane Warton, Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences (1914), especially chapter 13