RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => London and Middlesex => Topic started by: queencorgi1 on Thursday 17 February 22 13:48 GMT (UK)
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I should be very pleased if anyone can offer me any help on this topic. I have a man in prison in Wormwood Scrubs 1916-1918. Unfortunately the London Metropolitan Archives don't have records of prisoners before 1917, and although he would obviously have been there then, the information is lost because all details would have been added to his 1916 arrival listing. The LMA could also offer me no thoughts on what conditions would have been like, except that he was doing two years with hard labour, and the LMA suggested that by that date he would have been sewing mailbags in the cell rather than breaking stones or a treadmill, but this is only guesswork.
Does anyone know of any published or unpublished sources which might shed light on this situation?
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I had a look online but it only brought up links for conditions for Conscientious Objectors :-\
Carol
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Hi Carol, that was my experience too. The problem there is of course that one has no idea how typical the COs experiences were, and there is very little about day to day life in the prison. I live in hope that some RC contributor is an authority on prisons during WW1, if not on Wormwood Scrubs in particular!
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The problem there is of course that one has no idea how typical the COs experiences were, and there is very little about day to day life in the prison.
I'm slightly confused: was your chap a CO? Also, what prison records do you have for him (if any)?
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No, he wasn't a CO although their descriptions of prison life are helpful. As I said in my original post, unfortunately there are no surviving records for him because he went to prison in 1916 and the earliest surviving record book dates from 1917.