William in Prison

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There is a lot of correspondence available relating to William which gives some idea of his time in prison. There is no way of knowing how complete a picture this gives, as often only one side of the correspondence is available, and it isn't possible to tell whether some of the statements in the correspondence are true so I will just present what is in the documents.

One of the early documents gives a brief description of William, which is confirmed in another document later - Complexion: Sallow; Hair: Dark Brown; Eyes: Blue; Height: 5ft 6in (168cm); Build: Stout; Other: Scar on back

After the trial he was kept briefly at Oxford Gaol, where he had been held for about 6 months before the trial, and his wife, Anne, sent a petition for clemency addressed to Queen Victoria on the 9^th March. She made a number of requests - the first was for a free pardon or, failing that, for the sentence to be reduced to the shortest possible period of time. The second was for Anne and their child to be given free passage with William, if he was transported overseas. The third was for her to be allowed to live with William in the place he is sent and for William to be granted the privilege of providing for the maintenance of his family by his Industrial Exertions during the time of his Exile. There is no attempt to give reasons why the requests should be granted (like extenuating circumstances) apart, perhaps, from the fact that he had a family to support.

A few days later William was moved to Millbank Prison in London which was, at that time, a holding prison for convicts awaiting transportation. They would usually be there for a few months while any appeals were heard. It would appear that Anne's petition for clemency was partly granted in that William was never transported. Anne wouldn’t have been allowed to visit William, nor write to him, at this initial stage of his imprisonment in London. I’ve found information about philanthropic groups visiting convicts either with gifts or to educate them but it wasn’t always safe and the groups may not be let in and it’s quite likely that even these groups would not be allowed to see a convict during the first six months of his sentence which would be in solitary confinement. After this he may have been allowed to work in the larger ‘Association’ workshops but he still wouldn’t be allowed to talk to other prisoners.

The prison was intended to house up to 1000 transportation prisoners at any one time. Each had a separate cell and they were forbidden to talk to one another. The prisoners were put to labour making clothes, shoes or mail bags etc. For instance they produced 1,000 soldier’s coats in one week; they made prison uniforms for both prisoners and guards at many prisons in the country and the prison earnt about £3,000 a year making clothes for London clothes companies.

The average stay was supposed to be about three months which allowed time to assess where the prisoner should be transported to but prisoners who weren’t being transported seemed to have spent the first 9-12 months of the sentence here. At the middle of the 19^th century it was usual to keep the convict in solitary confinement for the first 12 months even though it had become clear that keeping prisoners in solitary confinement (“the Separate System”) did not bring about reform of the criminals and there was concern about the long-term psychological effects of separate confinement of convicts. Under this system prisoners were kept in separate cells most of the time and when they were with other prisoners, for work or exercise, they weren’t allowed to talk. In Millbank prisoners generally carried out their work in their cells so were likely to be in their cell on their own for 22 hours a day. However an outbreak of large-scale disturbances in the late 1850s was blamed on lax supervision so it seems that these rules were not always rigorously applied though punishments for convicts could be serious including whipping or imprisonment in the “Darks Cells” which were in the basement and had no light.

Food was always limited in prison - at about this time the meals for men at Millbrook were

Breakfast: ¾pint of cocoa, (made with ½oz. of cocoa nibs, ½oz. molasses). 2oz. milk, and 8 oz. bread

Dinner: 5oz. meat (without bone and after boiling), 1 lb. potatoes, and 6oz. bread

Supper: 1 pint of gruel (2oz. of oatmeal or wheaten flour, sweetened with ½oz. molasses), and 8oz. bread ].

After nine months William was moved to Wakefield Prison for six months, where he was again held in solitary confinement. It is possible that this was because of the first cholera outbreak which was from September 1848 to August 1849 (though most prisoners were only moved to other prisons in London during that outbreak so his move may be unrelated). He was then moved to Portland Prison on the 1^st -2^nd June 1849 which is where we found him in the 1851 census. Though there were many solitary confinement cells, the records don’t show William as being held in one so he may have been in one of the very large cells because of his good behaviour. Despite sharing a cell he probably wouldn’t have been allowed to talk while in the cell. [Portland Prison was only a year old. Pressure to reform the prison system and objections by colonists to receiving transported convicts had led to the development of new ‘model’ prisons, one of which was Portland which had opened in 1848 and it adopted a regime of hard work done in order to earn food.]

In August 1849, 17 months after his conviction, both his wife, Anne, and her father, William Fellows, wrote to the Home Office giving details of an alibi that William Wilmshurst had for the Dorchester forgery. At that time he had been resolving a dispute where a trader in London Docks owed him £150 and each day during that week he was at his solicitors handling this issue. The solicitor involved, his clerk, an accountant as well as William Fellows were involved and could swear to this. This hadn't been brought up earlier because though William Fellows had been involved he didn't have any proof of the dates and it had taken the solicitor some time to confirm the dates, partly because Mr Fellows had been out of London. A letter was sent refusing his application for a reconsideration of the verdict. This alibi was repeated by William Wilmshurst, his wife and father-in-law a number of times in following years in applications for his conviction to be reconsidered.

At Portland Prison, William would have been put onto “Public Works”. This might have been within his cell, as at Millbank, or outdoors working in the Quarry or perhaps helping to build the Portland breakwater to protect nearby Weymouth. (This work was done for the Navy which paid 1s. per week for the work of each convict employed on the breakwater). I wonder if, because of his background, William would have been given an indoor trade but I don’t know how they would have allocated work. At this time Portland Prison allowed convicts to talk while they were working provided it didn’t interrupt their progress but strict silence was still enforced when they were back in their cells. (The following picture must come from much later but perhaps was similar to what happened in William’s time - note the prison clothes with arrows on).

[At a slightly later date when the rules were more strictly applied, the rules in a works prison were - during the initial months of separation and 3 months of probation on the works program, convicts weren’t allowed any visits or correspondence. After that they were awarded a class based on behaviour. In third class they were allowed a gratuity of 12s per year (to be compared with William’s salary that was 30s per week), one visit lasting 20 minutes and to send and receive one letter every six months. In the second class they were allowed a second exercise period on Sundays, the choice of tea and two ounces of bread instead of gruel. In the first class, one visit lasting 30 minutes, to send and receive one letter every three months, three exercise periods on Sundays, and to get baked instead of boiled meat. The main benefit to gain was the possibility of earning a remission of up to a quarter of your sentence though this presumably didn’t apply to William’s life sentence. Punishment for disobedience could include a bread and water diet for a set number of days, solitary confinement or flogging. The prison rules did not allow the convict to “speak, sing, whistle, or walk; to attempt to ornament the cell; to offer to, or take from, a neighbour an ounce of bread; to possess a needle or pin; to stitch a button upon a garment without permission; to look out of the cell window into the prison yard; to protest against the bad or light-weight food; to refuse to strip naked whenever the warder requires this to be done for the purpose of searching the prisoner” etc. Many of these would have constituted offences during William’s time but the enforcement was not necessarily rigid

A record was kept of the prisoner’s behaviour and he always wore a badge indicating good or bad behaviour.

There were complaints that a “felon is better treated than a pauper” and there was some truth in this because the convicts could earn some money but it was argued that a prisoner could always be reduced to punishment rations or sent back to long term separate confinement which made their position worse.

There are regular summaries of the convicts held at Portland Prison which report William as being of good health and excellent behaviour. However, the June 1852 entry under the Surgeon’s Report on health has “Indifferent - Religious Melancholy” and in July he was moved to the famous Bethlem Hospital. [Originally called Bethlehem Hospital when founded in the 14^th Century, the name had been shortened and it was now popularly known as Bedlam, from which we get that word]. His admission papers indicate that the current attack, his first, had commenced 18 months previously, which hadn’t been reported in the Portland Prison reports. There is a remark that “His guilt is doubted, he is apparently the scape goat of the real offender” - I don’t know how this is to be taken - is this a statement by Wilmshurst or a description of the reason why he had been admitted? (It doesn’t mention the “Religious Melancholy”). There is no other description of his symptoms apart from saying that he is not dangerous, not a suicide risk and his bodily health is currently “Infirm” and “Before the Insanity Commenced” was “Not Good” (again differing from the Portland Prison reports which possibly implies that he wasn’t carefully monitored in the Prison).

He was at Bethlem for nine months and then was moved to Fisherton House near Salisbury, a private “Lunatic Asylum” run by a Dr. Corbin Finch which had sections for convicts to be held. Soon after his arrival another petition was received from William Fellows pleading his innocence and indicating that his insanity was caused by the severe discipline in prison, which presumably would have included hard labour. This application was declined and his letter has “Inform him of the rules” noted on the cover. I think this would have included that he could not be released from an asylum without two doctors certifying him to be fit.

Another plea for his release was sent to the Home Office by his wife the following year, in September 1854, again stating his innocence, highlighting that he had been confined for 7 years and had always been of good behaviour and that, though he had previously been insane, was now healthy.

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