Newgate

When Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders is caught stealing silk, she is committed to Newgate Prison, or “Gaol.” Describing the “horrors of that dismal Place,” she is overwhelmed by “the hellish Noises, the Roaring, Swearing and Clamour, the Stench and Nastiness, and all the dreadful croud of Afflicting things that I saw there; joy’d together to make the Place seem an Emblem of Hell itself.”[1] Although Moll is a fictional character, her fears are rooted in reality: Defoe himself was imprisoned in Newgate for his satiric religious pamphleteering. Moll’s emphasis on filth, noise, affliction, and overcrowding not only accurately describes Newgate, but captures the power the prison had over the imagination of early modern Londoners.

In 1700, London had over 140 prisons and Newgate Gaol was by far the most infamous.[2] Prisoners awaiting criminal trial in the Old Bailey Sessions House were held next door in Newgate; those condemned to death at trial were returned to Newgate to await execution. Hundreds of prisoners were held together, with the rebellious kept fettered in chains or stripped naked. Contemporary accounts describe the extreme filth of unwashed bodies, unwashed floors and walls, cockroaches, lice, human waste, and dead bodies allowed to remain and decay.One in four prisoners died of typhus. The Old Bailey trials were held in an outdoor enclosure in an attempt to avoid the illnesses brought by the Newgate prisoners into the courtroom.

The institutional practices of Newgate Gaol run counter to today’s understanding of prison structure.Prisoners awaiting trial were often held together in common rooms. Men and women were allowed to mix, as were different types of criminals and criminals of different ages. Newgate was a profit-making enterprise, with prisoners expected to pay for water and food, for different levels of accommodation, and for entrance into and exit from the prison. Newgate's main administrator, or Keeper, paid for his position, with the expectation that he would create ways to profit from his prisoners. As a result, Newgate sold alcohol and encouraged drinking.Similarly, prostitution was rampant, with the Keeper charging male prisoners for higher-quality cells and the right for women to enter them. Newgate's chaplain, or Ordinary, could also profit from his position; he often took criminals' last confessions and printed them for sale. These confessions, or criminal autobiographies are often credited with solidifying a prose form that gave rise to the novel.

[1] Daniel Defoe, The History and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722), ed. Albert J. Rivero, New York: Norton Critical Edition, 2004, p. 215.

[2] This site’s information on Newgate Prison is indebted to: Maureen Waller, 1700: Scenes from London Life. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000, pp. 307-314.

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