Editing Newgate Prison (section)

== Prison life ==
[[File:Newgate-prison-exercise-yard.jpg|thumb|upright=1.02|Newgate exercise yard, 1872, by [[Gustave Doré]]]]
All manner of criminals stayed at Newgate. Some committed acts of petty crime and theft, breaking and entering homes or committing highway robberies, while others performed serious crimes such as rapes and murders.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Browse - Central Criminal Court|url = http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?path=sessionsPapers%252F16740429.xml|website = www.oldbaileyonline.org|access-date = 2015-12-11|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151222151403/http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?path=sessionsPapers%2F16740429.xml|archive-date = 22 December 2015}}</ref> The number of prisoners in Newgate for specific types of crime often grew and fell, reflecting public anxieties of the time. For example, towards the tail end of [[Edward I of England|Edward I]]'s reign, there was a rise in street robberies. As such, the punishment for drawing out a dagger was 15 days in Newgate; injuring someone meant 40 days in the prison.<ref name=":0" />

Upon their arrival in Newgate, prisoners were chained and led to the appropriate dungeon for their crime. Those who had been sentenced to death stayed in a cellar beneath the keeper's house, essentially an open sewer lined with chains and shackles to encourage submission. Otherwise, common debtors were sent to the "stone hall" whereas common felons were taken to the "stone hold". The dungeons were dirty and unlit, so depraved that physicians would not enter.<ref name=":3" />

The conditions did not improve with time. Prisoners who could afford to purchase alcohol from the prisoner-run drinking cellar by the main entrance to Newgate remained perpetually drunk.<ref name=":3" /> There were lice everywhere, and jailers left the prisoners chained to the wall to languish and starve. From 1315 to 1316, 62 deaths in Newgate were under investigation by the coroner, and prisoners were always desperate to leave the prison.<ref name=":3" />

The cruel treatment from guards did nothing to help the unfortunate prisoners. According to medieval statute, the prison was to be managed by two annually elected [[sheriff]]s, who in turn would sublet the administration of the prison to private "gaolers", or "keepers", for a price.  These keepers in turn were permitted to exact payment directly from the inmates, making the position one of the most profitable in London. Inevitably, often the system offered incentives for the keepers to exhibit cruelty to the prisoners, charging them for everything from entering the gaol to having their chains both put on and taken off. They often began inflicting punishment on prisoners before their sentences even began. Guards, whose incomes partially depended on extorting their wards, charged the prisoners for food, bedding, and to be released from their shackles. To earn additional money, guards blackmailed and tortured prisoners.<ref name=":0" /> Among the most notorious Keepers in the Middle Ages were the 14th-century gaolers Edmund Lorimer, who was infamous for charging inmates four times the legal limit for the removal of irons, and Hugh De Croydon, who was eventually convicted of blackmailing prisoners in his care.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2850646|title=Newgate Prison in the Middle Ages|first=Margery|last= Bassett|journal=Speculum |publisher=The University of Chicago Press|date=1 April 1943|pages=233–246|volume=18|issue=2 |doi=10.2307/2850646 |jstor=2850646 |s2cid=162217628 |access-date=10 October 2022|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Indeed, the list of things that prison guards were not allowed to do serve as a better indication of the conditions in Newgate than the list of things that they were allowed to do. Gaolers were not allowed to take alms intended for prisoners. They could not monopolize the sale of food, charge excessive fees for beds, or demand fees for bringing prisoners to the [[Old Bailey]]. In 1393, new regulation was added to prevent gaolers from charging for lamps or beds.<ref name=":2" />

[[File:Newgate Prison chapel.jpg|thumb|left|Newgate prison chapel]]
Not a half century later, in 1431, city administrators met to discuss other potential areas of reform. Proposed regulations included separating freemen and freewomen into the north and south chambers, respectively, and keeping the rest of the prisoners in underground holding cells. Good prisoners who had not been accused of serious crimes would be allowed to use the chapel and recreation rooms at no additional fees. Meanwhile, debtors whose burden did not meet a minimum threshold would not be required to wear shackles. Prison officials were barred from selling food, charcoal, and candles. The prison was supposed to have yearly inspections, but whether they actually occurred is unknown. Other reforms attempted to reduce the waiting time between jail deliveries to the [[Old Bailey]], with the aim of reducing suffering, but these efforts had little effect.<ref name=":1" />

Over the centuries, Newgate was used for a number of purposes including imprisoning people awaiting execution, although it was not always secure: [[burglar]] [[Jack Sheppard]] twice escaped from the prison before he went to the [[gallows]] at Tyburn in 1724. Prison [[chaplain]] [[Paul Lorrain]] achieved some fame in the early 18th century for his sometimes dubious publication of ''[[Ordinary of Newgate's Account|Confessions]]'' of the condemned.<ref>Tim Wales, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14492 'Lorrain, Paul (d. 1719), Church of England clergyman and criminal biographer'], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, June 2008</ref>