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Ancestry UK

Public Works Prison, Portsmouth, Hampshire

With the winding down of the transportation of convicts in the 1840s, a new type of sentence came into use, part of which was spent doing hard labour in a public works prison. The first of these was at Portland, opened in 1848. The second, at Portsmouth, commenced construction in 1850 and was opened on 1 April 1852, when a large proportion of the convicts then on the York and Stirling Castle hulks were removed to it.

The prison was designed by Joshua Jebb to house 1,020 convicts. Situated between Frederick Street and Anchor Gate Road, its layout was broadly similar to that of Portland. The entrance was at the north-east corner of the site, and south of the gatehouse was row of officers' houses known as Anchor Gate Terrace. The parallel east and west wings were separated by the chapel and by a service building which contained the kitchen, wash-house and bakery, and was linked by a row of privies to a bath-house. A building to the east of the east wing housed offices and an infirmary. The two cell blocks contained three storeys of galleried sleeping cells: 556 in the west wing and 442 in the east. The cells had corrugated iron walls, shared one window between two and each was provided with a desk, seat, shelves and hammock.

With the closure of Pentonville in 1885, Portsmouth was selected to receive some convicts for the probationary (separate confinement) stage of their sentence.

The prison was closed in November 1894 and the site was then handed over to the Admiralty.

Records

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Census

Bibliography

  • Prison Oracle - resources those involved in present-day UK prisons.
  • GOV.UK - UK Government's information on sentencing, probation and support for families.

Except where indicated, this page () © Peter Higginbotham. Contents may not be reproduced without permission.