Prisons

[jmg1414]

Hello there an ancestor of mine is listed 1841 census  as wife of convict...any ideas wher he would have been detained and if there are any records i e 1841 census ...they were resident in Ringmer....

[sillgen]

Lewes is the major prison in Sussex in that area.  If you contact the record office there I am sure they will be able to point you in the right direction.  Ringmer is just outside Lewes.
Andrea

[Fairmeadow2]

I think a person in prison would have been described as a prisoner. A convict is more likely to be a person transported to the Antipodes, or under sentence of tranxsportation.

[petmas]

Lewes wasn't built until 1853 and then as a military Prison. I believe Horsham was the usual for Sussex

[Fairmeadow2]

The present Lewes prison was opened in 1853, but there were earlier prisons in the town.

A prison on North Street was opened in 1793. After the new prison was opened in 1853, this North Street prison became a military prison, used to keep Finnish (Russian) prisoners of war during the Crimean War, and later as a naval prison. The building survived into the second half of the 20th century.

Before that there was a house of correction in the Cliffe built in 1610. Before that the Town Hall cellars are supposed to have been a prison used to incarcerate the Lewes Martyrs, prior ro their burning; the West Gate was used as a prison, and earlier still the Castle dungeons.

Source: Lewes History Bulletin no.5, available via leweshistory.org.uk.. Bulletin no.6 includes an account of daily life in the 1793 prison, written in 1824.

Debtors from the Lewes area were sent to Horsham jail.