Debtor's prison 1881 Shrewsbury

[chafox]

 Hello,
does anyone know where the debtor's prison would have been for a bankrupt in Shrewsbury in 1881, so I could see if a missing ancestor, John Rawle Robins was actually in this institution in 1881, as he is absent from the census.

I know that he was pronounced bankrupt in June 1880, and from this and a notice also in December 1880, in the London Gazette, was being proceeded against in Shrewsbury.

If I had an idea where it was e.g. piece number, I could find it more easily say on Ancestry.

Terry

[avm228]

Imprisonment for debts was, with a few exceptions, abolished by legal reforms enacted in 1869.  In any event, a person adjudicated bankrupt would not have been imprisoned for his debts, as the whole point of bankruptcy was to provide a civil (not criminal) regime to deal with the affairs of an insolvent debtor.

One does often find, however, that people who had been bankrupted made themselves scarce and can be tough to find in later censuses.

The 17 December 1880 notice in the London Gazette simply shows that the trustee in bankruptcy was inviting claims from creditors, a normal part of the bankruptcy process.

[Morganllan]

Hello
where and when was John born and do you have him on other Census records?

Morgan

[chafox]

 
John's family are in Brixton London whilst all this is going on in Shrewsbury.

It is the only year when I can't find him anywhere.
So maybe what you say is true that he was just making himself scarce.

My list of absents is actually quite large, now, and I have been collecting censuses for all my historical families and their collaterals for years. It's amazing how many just can't be found. Gypsies and merchant seamen  aside, which I can understand.

Terry

[Morganllan]

Hello

You didn't say how old John was in 1881, but I found a John Robins age 63, Baker, born Chelmsford, Essex about 1818. He was a Convict at "Convict Prison" Parkhurst I O W

RG11 Piece 1177 Folio 107 Page 24

Morgan

[chafox]

  thanks Morgan, but John was a builder or surveyor by trade,

I think we aren't looking at a prisoner  at this date, by what others are telling me.
In the 1891 census he is a builder's manager in Alverstoke Hants.
He was born c 1838 in Bishop's Tawton in Devon.

Terry

[reunion1]

Hello Terry
John Rawle Robins wasn't far away in November 1881 as his son Alfred was conceived then (born 14th August 1882)
and John shown as  builders foreman in August 1882. The address of the the rest of the family in 1881 census is in a road built between 1878 and 1881 so perhaps he was involved in the building of that.