Penwith Debtors' Prison, Penzance, Cornwall

The property of Lord Arundel. Two rooms in the keeper's stable-yard; but distant from his house, and quite out of sight and hearing. The room for men is full eleven feet square, and six high: window eighteen inches square: no chimney. Earth floor; very damp. The door had not been opened for four weeks when I went in; and then the keeper began to clear away the dirt. There was only one debtor, who seemed to have been robust, but was grown pale by ten weeks sole confinement, with little food, which he had from, a brother, who was poor and had a family. He said, the dampness of the prison, with but little straw, had obliged him (he spoke with sorrow) to send for the bed on which some of his children lay. He had a wife and ten children, two of whom, died since he came thither, and the rest were almost starving.—He has written me a letter since, by which I learn that his distress was not mitigated, and that he had a companion, miserable as himself.—No allowance. Keeper no Salary: Fees, 8s. 4d. every action: no Table.

A few years ago five prisoners, I was informed, grew desperate by what they suffered in this wretched prison, and broke out.

1775, Dec. 21, Prisoner 1.

This wretched prison, which is in the back yard of a public house, is about 12 feet square and 6 feet high, with a necessary in one corner, the floor extremely damp, and paved with stones like the middle of the street, without a fire-place, and lighted and ventilated by one small iron-grated window, without casement or glass to keep out the cold. No court-yard. No water. In December 1801, two debtors, viz. Nicholas Basset and Thomas Nicholas were released from this miserable gaol by our Society [for the relief of prisoners confined for small debts], after suffering twelve months imprisonment. The average number of debtors committed to this prison is about 10 or 12 in the year. The last wretched inhabitant was Thomas Hoskin, farmer, of Madron parish, aged 64; he was committed the 25th of March 1803, for a debt of 20l. or thereabouts, and released the 6th of May following. There is no allowance even of bread, so that, if his friends and some neigh hours had not been charitable, he must have perished with hunger. He never but once was let out for fresh air, and then only for half an hour, to speak with his children. The gaoler lives half a mile off, so that, in case of sudden illness or fire, he might have perished before relief could come; his provisions were given to him through the centre bars of the small iron-grated window (which are five inches asunder) so the keeper had no occasion to come near. He had a bed supplied him by his friends, but must other wise have slept on the scanty pittance of straw on the floor, and, not withstanding his bed, the prison was terribly cold even in April and May. The place in which it is situated is a yard for horses, and where twenty horses are crammed on market days: and T. Hoskin declares, that the damp of the floor, and the stench of the privies and horse-yard, so affected his health at the time, that he feels the fatal effects to this day. He complains of a cold, and oppression at the breast in breathing, so that he cannot walk half a mile in an hour upon rising ground without frequent stopping to take breath. Be fore he was put in prison he was as strong as most men of his age: but he verily believes that his confinement there will shorten his days. A respectable clergyman of the neighbourhood thus expresses himself to me on this subject: "This man, for a debt unavoidably contracted, an honest, working, good man, but unfortunate, was put in a worse place than he would have been if by any crime he had deserved imprisonment in the county gaol. He is a man, to my knowledge of good character; and he is now pale and haggard, and strangely altered for the worse." Struck with compassion for the sufferings of this unfortunate man, a benevolent lady frequently sent him broth; but the space betwixt the bars (5 inches) was too small to admit of a middle-sized basin.

has been discontinued as a place of confinement since the year 1806; when I found it turned into a milk-cellar. The Gaoler, Humphrey Bridgeman, informed me that he was not likely to have any more Prisoners, because execution is now issued against the Goods, instead of the Person of the Debtor.