In the letters patent 1617 confirming the incorporation and franchises of the Borough of Horsham the claim of the corporation that "from the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary they (the bailiffs) had power to commit to the gaol and the prison of the same borough." was admitted and allowed.

 

In the case of Horsham it may have been at this time that the corporation, perhaps by arrangement, was entitled to use the County Gaol. Though the precise date of the establishment and the site of the first Sussex County Gaol at Horsham are unascertained, conjecture as to both is well founded upon good evidence and will serve to place it properly in a historical perspective of the town.

Tradition nearly always based upon fact - as late as the latter half of the eighteenth century associated the gaol with Butler's Chantry, founded in Horsham in 1447, and held that a religious house established by the chantry in North-street, was, after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, about 1538, converted into the gaol.

 

In the first known survey of the borough made in 1611 the jurors present "Item.  There are divers tenements which have been parcel of a chantry in Horsham called Butler's Chantry and of a brotherhood there which have come to the King's hands by dissolution and granted again to hold of his manor of East Greenwich or other of His Majesty's manors."

In the Patent Rolls of Edward VI. March 10, 1549, is the grant to Anthony Aucher of Acrynden, Kent, and Henry Holsted of Chilworth, Surrey, inter alia, " and the close called Butler's Close 10 acres which belonged to the chantry called Butler's Chantry there and the two closes of land lying together called Moresland 10 acres.

 

All of which belong to Butler's Chantry." In another part of the survey of 1611 it is stated that " John Lyntott, son and heir of Richard Lyntott deceased, holds to himself and his heirs of the Lord (of the borough) aforesaid a certain house called the Gaole house with barnes, backsides, gardens, and 20 acres of land with the appurtenances to the same messuage adjoining called Butler's, some time the gaol-house being' five Burgages and a half by the year at the same feast 5s. 6d."

 

These premises are more particularly defined in a pair of indentures dated the 25th, 26th March, 1859, wherein John Lyntott conveys to Richard Lucken " all and every that his messuage or tenement gaol or gaol house situate lying and being in the borough and town of Horsham near unto or opposite against the George Inn or Tavern, together with a certain building called the outlet adjoining thereto and all and every that ancient pile of stone building formerly used for a common gaol or ward for prisoners - abutting and adjoining to or near a certain lane or highway called the North Street, on the east. To certain lands and tenements of Richard Pilfold on the west. To a certain highway or void place called the Gaol Green on the south and to certain lands and. tenements of John Lyntott part and parcel of the premises called the old gaol on the north. As the several metes and boundaries thereof do more plainly divide them."

 

From these extracts and deeds the site of the first county gaol at Horsham can be fixed approximately north of Tysmans House on the west side of North Street, and the second gaol just in North Street, on the west side, with the gaoler's house at the north-east corner of the Carfax. So far as we are aware there is not extant any drawing or plan of the first gaol. The gaol building itself was pulled down about 1750.

 

The earliest reference that we have found that can be taken as applicable to the first Horsham Gaol is in the Horsham parish church registers. " Richard Sowton of Nuthurst for coining of money was hanged at Horsham and buryed 15th June, 1541." Though the gaol is not mentioned in this entry, the fact that the coiner was hanged at Horsham plainly implies, we think, its existence here at that time. It is, too, a plausible inference, strengthened by the fact given that the religious house, probably the most structurally suitable tenement in the town for a gaol, and recently vacated, should be suggested, adopted for and adapted to that purpose by the proper authorities. Circumstantial evidence less plausible than this has hanged more than one unfortunate prisoner at Horsham.

 

In the Hayley MSS. there is a reference to the Horsham gaoler. On March 4, 1578, " a man was hanged in chains in St George's field beyond Southwark for murthering ye Horsham gaoler in ye same field. Here again is no mention of Horsham Gaol but it is manifest there could have been no Horsham gaoler if there was no Horsham Gaol.

In trying to imagine the structure and administration of the early Horsham gaols one must dismiss the modern idea of a majestic specially-built, sombre, fortress-like building such as appear the comparatively few remaining prisons in the country today, each with its important governor, its large staff of uniformed officials and warders, its rigid system of forced discipline, and its accommodation for several hundreds of prisoners. The sixteenth and seventeenth century common gaols in no manner compared with their present day imposing successors.

 

The gaol in those early days served only to keep the prisoners safe while alive until the assizes were held. A felon or alleged felon having been apprehended and committed by a justice of the peace had to be taken by the parish constable (who was empowered to obtain such help as he required for the purpose) to a lawful place of detention, there to remain unless bailed out (as was very seldom the case) until discharged by death or the due course of law, and the only lawful place of detention was the common gaol.

 

" The gaol itself is the King's and the keeping thereof is incident to the office of Sheriff and inseparabe therefrom." But neither the King nor the sheriff troubled himself much with this part of his business. The King required only the bodies of the felons to be delivered for trial, and if found guilty, for punishment by his judges on circuit, and the only obligation of the sheriff was to deliver the felons for trial and to see that the sentences of the judges were carried out. Punishments following convictions were usually short and sharp personal inflictions except in the cases of banishment or transportation, which did not commence until the beginning of the seventeenth century. The amount of accommodation required in the county gaols therefore was only for such persons committed for felony as accumulated from assize to assize, and the debtors.

 

It was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century that punishments of felons by imprisonment began to grow; long terms of penal servitude or hard labour requiring huge buildings to accommodate large numbers of prisoners are a comparatively modern punishment. In early times there was an almost entire absence of rules of management. There were but few Parliamentary enactments upon which to frame them.

 

The prison was administered as a private speculative business and was run by the gaoler, who, though nominally under the sheriff, managed the prisoners and their concerns whilst in his charge according to his own caprice and interests. He took charge of all allowances and monies statutorily or charitably allotted to the maintenance of his felons and debtor prisoners, and - after sifting it probably - distributed it.

 

He supplied their needs and luxuries on cash terms. To those who could afford them he let private rooms and hired beds and bedding and other utensils, and for a fee he could grant " areas of liberty " or " the liberty of the prison " outside the prison walls. All charges for these were his perquisites. He kept the " tap," i.e.. the public house usually, as at Horsham, near to, or adjoining, the prison, and supplied exclusively his prisoners at his own price with the drinks to drown their sorrows and hide their distresses.

 

He had no opposition, was under but little supervision, and was at liberty to make the concern as profitable to himself as possible. " The gaoler avowedly lived upon the fees he extracted from the prisoners committed to his charge." . . . " Every incident in prison life from admission to discharge was made the occasion for a fee."

 

 

 

 

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