The King's Bench Prison was a prison in Southwark, south London, from medieval times until it closed in 1880. It took its name from the King's Bench court of law in which cases of defamation, bankruptcy and other misdemeanours were heard; as such, the prison was often used as a debtor's prison until the practice was abolished in the 1860s. In 1842, it was renamed the Queen's Prison, and later became the Southwark Convict Prison.

Origins

The first prison was originally constructed from two houses and was situated in Angel Place, off Borough High Street, Southwark - as with other judicial buildings it was often targeted during uprisings, being burned in 1381 and 1450. During the reign of King Henry VIII, new prison buildings were constructed within an enclosing brick wall. This was eventually demolished in 1761.

New building

Its 1758 replacement was built at a cost of £7800 on a site close to St George's Fields (south of Borough Road, close to its junction with Blackman Street/Newington Causeway, and a short distance from Horsemonger Lane Gaol; today the site is occupied by the Scovell housing estate). Although much larger and better appointed than some other London prisons, the new King's Bench still gained a reputation for being dirty, overcrowded and prone to outbreaks of typhus. Debtors had to provide their own bedding, food and drink. Those who could afford it purchased 'Liberty of the Rules' allowing them to live within three square miles of the prison.

On 10 May 1768, the imprisonment in King's Bench of radical John Wilkes (for writing an article for the The North Briton, that severely criticized King George III) prompted a riot - the Massacre of St George's Fields - in which five people were killed. Like the earlier buildings, this prison was also badly damaged in a fire started in the 1780 Gordon Riots.

In 1842 it became the Queen's Prison taking debtors from the Marshalsea and Fleet Prisons and sending lunatics to Bedlam. Fees and the benefits they could buy were abolished, and soon after it passed into the hands of the Home Office during the 1870s, it was closed and demolished.

Literary connections

English dramatist Thomas Dekker was imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison because of a debt of ₤40 to the father of John Webster, from 1612 to 1619. In prison he continued to write.

In Charles Dickens' David Copperfield Mr Micawber is imprisoned for debt in the King's Bench Prison. Madeline Bray and her father lived within the Rules of the King's Bench in Nicholas Nickleby, while the prison is also discussed by Mr. Rugg and Arthur Clennam in Little Dorrit.

In Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, King's Bench is referenced when Melville describes John Claggart as being possibly arraigned at King's Bench.

Notable inmates

• Richard Baxter
• Thomas Brown
• Marc Isambard Brunel (engineer, imprisoned 1821, for debt)
• William Combe
• Edmund Curll
• Alexander Davison (imprisoned for fraud, 1804)
• John Galt (imprisoned c. 1829)
• Robert Gouger
• Emma, Lady Hamilton
• Thomas Curson Hansard
• Henry Hetherington
• Alexander Holborne
• William Hone
• Jeremiah Lear (stockbroker father of Edward Lear) (bankrupt, c. 1816)
• John Mytton
• John Pell
• John Penry (martyr, briefly incarcerated before his execution in 1593)
• Moses Pitt - publisher who, in 1691, published The Cry of the Oppressed, a moving appeal on behalf of himself and all prisoners for debt across the nation.
• Edward Henry Purcell, grandson of Henry Purcell, organist, printer, and music publisher, imprisoned for debt, 1761)
• Mary Robinson (poet, imprisoned with husband for his debts, 1775)
• Robert Recorde (imprisoned for debt, he died in the prison in 1558)
• John Rushworth
• Christopher Smart
• Charlotte Turner Smith (poet, imprisoned 1784 with her husband Benjamim, for his debts)
• William Smith (geologist, imprisoned for debt, released 1819)
• John Horne Tooke
• John Wilkes

References

See also

• Marshalsea