Behind bars – looking back at life in city prison
THE photograph of the horse drawn Black Maria arriving at Gloucester County Gaol captures a scene that was once familiar to city citizens. Inmates were ushered in, given a bath and a medical, then their clothes were fumigated so as to prevent the spread of disease.
When it opened in July 1791, Gloucester gaol was considered a breakthrough in prison reform. In 1777 John Howard published a report called “The state of the prisons”, which painted a grim picture of life inside. Overcrowding, squalor and filth abounded.
At that time Gloucester County Gaol was housed in the keep of the old Norman castle and facilities were non existent. There was no bath, no medical provision, a rudimentary sewer deposited human waste in an open mound near the entrance and the building was so dilapidated that prisoners had to be chained up at night to prevent them escaping through holes in the walls. Typhus and smallpox were so rife that for every prisoner who was executed officially, three died of disease.
Thanks to the efforts of a social reformer, the splendidly named George Onisipherous Paul, a new county gaol was built. The architect was William Blackburn and his design set new standards in hygiene and cleanliness.
Built to accommodate 207 inmates, male and female, strictly segregated, the new prison was well ventilated and had a proper fresh water system. This incorporated a treadmill, worked by prisoners, which pumped water into the storage tank.
Prisoners were moved into the new gaol before building work had been completed. Shortly after it opened William Nichols, who had been found guilty of stealing a shirt, became the first inmate to escape, which he managed to do quite simply by using a builder’s ladder to climb over the wall.
Shortly afterwards another prisoner, John Cull, escaped by the same means, although his freedom was short lived, as his wife marched him back the following day to complete his two year sentence.
Most prisoners were either in debt, or petty thieves. But occasionally a more exotic criminal was admitted. One such was Kid Wake, who sounds like a character from the wild west, but in fact came from Gosport.
The Kid was sentenced to five years’ hard labour in Gloucester gaol for shouting rude slogans at George 111 during the monarch’s visit to the city in 1788.
For centuries executions in Gloucester were carried out on waste ground near Over bridge. But when the new county gaol opened, the flat roof of its entrance lodge became the venue for hangings. The first execution took place on April 4, 1792, when Charles Rackford was despatched for highway robbery.
In 1811 William Townley was hanged in Gloucester, even though he’d been granted a reprieve. The stay of execution was sent to the Sheriff of Gloucester from Hereford the evening before Townley was scheduled to meet his maker.
Unfortunately, the reprieve was wrongly addressed and so arrived 20 minutes too late.
Statistics about executions in Gloucester gaol make grim, but revealing reading.
Between 1786 and 1939, 140 prisoners were executed, 132 men and eight women.
The largest number (42) were hanged
for murder and from 1879 this was the only crime for which executions took place locally. The second next largest group (22) were hanged for burglary.
Third on the list came horse and sheep stealing, both crimes for which 17 convicts were executed. Two were hanged for stealing wheat, two for arson, two for unspecified theft and two for rape.
Eight men were despatched for robbery, another eight for housebreaking and seven for shooting people. In 1814 a man was hanged for forgery and in 1800 Joseph Stevens of Minchinhampton was sentenced to death for “cutting cloth from racks”.
The youngest man hanged was 16, the oldest 70. The youngest woman hanged was 21 and the oldest 69. The majority (94) were aged between 20 and 30.
April was the month when most hangings took place (67), followed by August (30) and March (13). The only month in which nobody was ever executed was October.
Patrick Dalton, hanged in 1817, came from Sligo in Ireland, giving him the dubious privilege of having come further than anyone else to be executed in the city.
Three Cheltenham men were hanged in 1872, 1886 and 1904, all for murder, as was a single Tewkesburian in 1791. Two Gloucestrians were hanged, Joss Richards in 1818 for robbery and John Sparrow in 1826 for sheep stealing.
At 9am on June 7, 1939 Ralph Smith, aged 41, was hanged in Gloucester prison. It was the last execution to take place in the city.
Like most murderers Smith was a pitiable case. He’d been sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, convicted of murdering Mrs Beatrice Baxter in Swindon.
While a lodger in her house, Smith became obsessed by his landlady and jealousy overcame him when she said she was going to meet another man. Angry words gave way to violence and Smith stabbed Beatrice Baxter in the neck with a razor.
A crowd of 100 gathered in silence outside the prison on the morning of the execution. Thomas Pierrepoint, assisted by Albert Pierrepoint, conducted the hanging and received £10 plus expenses for their services.
Dr Graham, medical officer for the prison on that day, reported that Smith gave no trouble.
On a lighter note, music loving inmates of Gloucester gaol received a treat in January 1970 when a new organ was installed in the chapel. The electric instrument replaced one that had been bought second hand in 1938.
Made in Middlesex by the firm of J W Walker & Sons, the new organ boasted 350 pipes and had to be specially constructed to withstand heat rising from the boiler room over which it was positioned. The price tag of £3,500 was paid by the Ministry of Public Buildings.
Gloucester gaol closed on March 31, 2013.