Place    From 1329  To 1849

Marshalsea Prison

Categories: Law

Originally built to hold prisoners being tried by the Marshalsea Court and the Court of the King's Bench. Its first site, from at least 1329 was on Borough High Street on the block now bordered by Newcomen Street and Mermaid Court. The Marshalsea only became exclusively a debtors' prison in the mid 17th century. Never a model of cleanliness and godliness it was condemned in about 1800 and a new building was constructed on the site of the White Lion Prison (also called the Borough Jail or County Prison), at Angel Place where it was, for a time at least, alongside the King's Bench Prison. British History has the best map we have found showing the locations. The amount of land used by the second Marshalsea varied but at one time it was on either side of the alley. The two sides were very different, known as master-side and common-side, one was relatively clean and agreeable, the other was filthy and inhumane.

On this second site it served its function from 1811 until 1842 when the prisoners were transferred to the new Queen's Prison (a few streets away to the south-west) or, if considered mad, to Bedlam. Most of the buildings were demolished in 1849. In 1824 Charles Dickens' father was, for 12 weeks, one of the debtors imprisoned here. Consequently Marshalsea figures prominently in the Dickens novel Little Dorrit. Dickens remembered "In every respect indeed but elbow room the whole family lived more comfortably in prison than they had done for a long time out of it." Ian Visits has a good post about the Marshalsea.

This area of London certainly attracted prisons, presumably for the same reason that it, at one time, attracted theatres, bearpits and whorehouses - its "Goldilocks" proximity to the City, and it being outside the jurisdiction of both the Cities of London and Westminster.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Marshalsea Prison

Commemorated ati

Marshalsea 1 - stone - round

Quoted from Chapter 3 of Little Dorrit.

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Marshalsea 2 - steel

The plaque refers to 'wall mounted artworks' but we did not see any on our vi...

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Marshalsea 3 - stone - Little Dorrit

The heroine of Dickens' novel Little Dorrit was one resident who was not a pr...

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Marshalsea 4 - stone - spiral

Quoted from Charles Dickens' preface to Little Dorrit.

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Marshalsea 5 - stone - at gates

This is our first push-me-pull-you plaque. It is in Angel Alley at the gates...

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Other Subjects

Sir William Francis Kyffin Taylor

Sir William Francis Kyffin Taylor

G.B.E., K.C., Master of the Bench, 1905 - 1951, Treasurer of Inner Temple 1926. 1st and last Baron Maenan.

Person, Law

1 memorial
Lieutenant Arthur James Austen-Cartmell

Lieutenant Arthur James Austen-Cartmell

Arthur James Austen-Cartmell was born on 24 April 1893, the eldest of the three children of James Austen Cartmell (1862-1921) and Mary Affleck Cartmell née Peacock (1860-1906). Civil Registration B...

Person, Armed Forces, Law, France

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
S. Lewis

S. Lewis

A commissioner of Limehouse Library and JP in 1900.

Person, Law, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
Sir William Addison

Sir William Addison

Historian and author. Born William Wilkinson Addison at Mitton, Lancashire. He moved to Buckhurst Hill on the edge of Epping Forest, Essex, and began a lifelong association with the area, which res...

Person, Law, Literature

1 memorial
Albert Woodfox

Albert Woodfox

Albert Woodfox was an American known as one of the Angola Three (Robert King, Herman Wallace and Woodfox) former prisoners who were held at Louisiana State Penitentiary in solitary confinement for ...

Person, Law, Race Issues, Tragedy, USA

1 memorial

Previously viewed

R. H. Brotherhood

R. H. Brotherhood

Resident of the West Ward, Hendon who served and died in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
Stoke Newington Manor House

Stoke Newington Manor House

N16, Stoke Newington Church Street, Stoke Newington Town Hall

The dates suggest that the terrace was built on the site of the Manor House and that in 1936 the terrace was replaced by the Town Hall.  ...

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
H. G. Alloway

H. G. Alloway

One of the employees of Watney Combe Reid brewers who lost their lives in WW1.

Person

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
The Beatles - John & Ringo

The Beatles - John & Ringo

WC1, Argyle Square, 38, The Melville Hotel

This mural depicts the 4 mop tops around two walls of the front area. We spent some entertaining time on Trip Adviser for this tourist ho...

3 subjects commemorated
Hunting Gate Group

Hunting Gate Group

Property company based in Hitchin. 

Group, Property

1 memorial