Cruelty of the Laws of Debt - Eccentric Debtors - The County Bread

 

 

Of the hundreds of debtor prisoners who passed through Horsham Gaol there was one distinct and numerous class whose detention illustrates perhaps more sharply than that of any other the cruelty of the old laws of debt and trespass. In the Sussex gaol delivery rolls from the time of Elizabeth to that of George III are found the names of hundreds of individual, and groups of, prisoners whose bills of indictment had been thrown out by the grand juries, or who had been returned not guilty by petty juries.

 

Each of these prisoners after having served a term of imprisonment of any length of time up to six months, according to the date of his committal, awaiting his trial at the Assizes therefore according to English law was innocent, and according to the judges' order on the roll " is discharged by proclamation and must be delivered paying his fees," or " is acquitted and must be discharged paying his fees."

 

By this pronouncement the prisoner was free in theory, and was so in fact, if he had the money or the friends to pay his fees, but if he had neither he was sent back to gaol again, not for felony, but for this arbitrarily imposed debt which he had neither contracted nor approved; and with his prospect of life shorter as an innocent, than as a guilty man.

 

He owed the gaoler his discharge fees and the gaoler could hold him until they were paid or the prisoner was released by death. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1751, a writer cites the case of a man charged with felony and kept in prison ten months awaiting his trial. When tried he was acquitted, but at the time of writing the letter he had been a further six months in gaol because he could not pay the gaoler's fee of 30/-. "Such prisoners languish, many of them with cold and hunger, some with infirmity and disease, till death sets them free without fee or reward."

 

At the Sussex assizes held at Horsham on the 7th March, 1667, William Kennard, William May and Elizabeth Underbill, indicted for their several alleged felonies, were discharged by proclamation, legally and presumably really innocent. Nothing further is recorded of May and Underhill, whose fees it would seem were paid, but combined innocence and poverty took William Kennard from the Assize Court at the Town Hall back across " Scarefolkes " (Carfax) to the Gaol - to the gaoler, now his creditor and prosecutor, his judge and jury, and, after three years' further imprisonment, his executioner and undertaker, for he died in the gaol in May, 1670, and was buried in the old churchyard.

 

 

It was the accidental discovery by John Howard of the hundreds of these unfortunate inarticulate sufferers in the many gaols of the country, as represented here by William Kennard, that fired his indignation and started him on his great self-sacrificing and successful movement for prison reform, the first result of which was the Act. of Parliament in 1774 for the abolition of all prison fees. There were many Acts of Parliament for the relief of debtors from the beginning of the eighteenth century.

 

These acts were not prompted bv humane considerations but by the fact that debtors accumulated beyond the capacity of the gaols to hold them. Parliament was therefore obliged to make these special relief acts to liberate from all over England, sometimes as many as three thousand debtors in one year, from the effect of its absurd and cruel laws. All through the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century, as Parliament succeeded Parliament, these frequent but irregular reliefs of debtors were made, one unlucky batch of prisoners succeeded by the next. In accordance with the Act of Parliament of 1737 for the relief of insolvent debtors a list of those in Horsham Gaol was presented at the quarter sessions held at Steyning the 11th July, 1737:

 

Thomas Avery, committed 28th March, 1736, debt	£40
Thomas Cleamings, committed 30th May, 1736, debt	£40
Thomas Champion, committed 13th November, 1736, debt	£60
Thomas Dale, committed 21st January, 1735, debt	£74 18s
Richard Groome, committed 6th June, 1732, debt	£24
John Pay, committed 20th March, 1725, debt	£12
Thomas Winton, committed 12th April, 1736, deb	£20

 

In 1761 there were twelve debtors; in 1774 seventeen; in 1776 thirteen; in 1786 twenty- three: and in 1804 nine. In 1802 seven of the debtors then in gaol had 51 children " languishing for the want of parental care." After the Napoleonic Wars there was naturally a great decline in trade and in increase in unemployment and crime. The effects of these misfortunes were of course reflected in the prison records of Horsham Gaol. There was a sharp crescendo to the peak in 1817 when a hundred debtors and fifty-three felons crowded the gaol, sleeping three in a bed. From this year onward the number of debtors decreased but still remained high, though discharges from prison by means of insolvent debtors' courts greatly reduced the average length of their imprisonments.

 

During the year 1820, fifty-six debtors altogether were committed to the gaol, but the greatest number at one time in that year was thirty-two. In 1837 there were forty male and twelve female debtors. In 1838 thirty-one male and one female debtors were in the gaol. These insolvent debtors' courts were held at Horsham, and many prisoners obtained their discharges because their detaining creditors thought it not worth while to go to the trouble and expense of travelling from perhaps distant parts of the county to oppose them.

 

The most curious, perhaps the happiest, and certainly the lengthiest-termed prisoner in Horsham Gaol was one Simon Southward, a native of Boxgrove, a miller by trade, who, having neglected his business and become troublesome to his neighbours, was arrested on the 22nd February, 1767, for a debt of £15, at the suit of the Duke of Richmond. The prosecution in this case appears to have been of a friendly nature in order to serve the interests both of the debtor and his neighbours. In effect while it relieved the neighbourhood it confirmed and increased the eccentricities of the individual who in prison assumed the noble title of " Earl of Derby, King in man."

 

He insisted that he was not a debtor but a Royal state prisoner and he would accept nothing which was not presented as coming direct from the King, his cousin. In his fancies he was humoured by the gaoler and his fellow prisoners who always addressed him as " My lord," and, indeed, to such a pitch of importance had he attained in the prison atmosphere that he would respond to no other salutation. He remained in the Carfax gaol to its end, and was one of the first prisoners in the new East-street gaol.

 

He is described as a very fine man, 6ft. in height, of commanding presence and dressed in a coat of ancient cut and a cocked hat with a black cockade. Usually affable and polite in manner, he was very wrathful, and with difficulty pacified, when. his ire had been roused by any want of proper deference to his assumed dignity. Supported luckily by a weekly parish allowance the ex-miller maintained his exalted rank until June, 1810, when after forty-three years' imprisonment he died in the gaol at 82 years of age.

 

As an eccentric debtor prisoner at Horsham Simon Southward was succeeded by one Jane Dabbs. She entertained no illusion about Royalty, and whatever dignity she may have possessed deserted her when she entered the prison. With no money or friend to pay her debt (amount not stated) she endured a miserable ten years of bad health in gaol. She declined attention and medicine and at 76 years of age departed tragically, without any expresstion of appreciation or gratitude for her long holiday. At the inquest " a most respectable jury " upon the information that she had received three shillings per week from an unknown source, and that " therefore she did not want for any comfort " concluded that she " died from the visitation, of God."

 

There was nothing eccentric or fanciful about James Forster's experience of prison fare at Horsham. Contemporary in his confinement both with Simon Southward and Mary Dabbs his education and circumstances were such that he could neither see " dignity " nor feel " comfort " in their society. On the 25th October, 1792, he writes to a solicitor, "From your former knowledge of me I hope my present application will not be in vain. A continued chain, of unforseen misfortunes has brought me to this wretched repository of horror and distress - let me see you I only ask for ten minutes' conversation. Do not deny this favour to the afflicted and unfortunate tho' your most obedient servant, James Forster."

 

Probably the most surprised prisoner at Horsham was a private soldier who having been struck by a Lieut. Hayes commenced a civil action for damages against him but found himself unable financially to pursue his case. It appears the lieutenant therefore turned round on him and sued him for his legal costs. For these, which of course he was unable to pay, he was attached by the Sheriff's officer and committed to the gaol.

 

A similar case came from Petworth where two rival surgeons came to loggerheads. One brought an action for slander against the other, but losing his case was sued by his opponent for the legal costs and, failing to pay them, was "clap't into the gaol." Subsequently, however, he obtained his discharge.

 

It must not be supposed that all debtors were poor and honest. The great majority doubtless were so, but at Horsham, as elsewhere, there were fraudulent debtors, those who could use the prison and the law as a means of escape from financial liabilities, usually large amounts. Others there were who would use it as a shield against genuine creditors by getting friends to swear small debts and thus get themseivse arrested and put in prison, where they would be protected, and by arrangement with the gaoler live comfortably, able to defy those to whom they were really indebted.

 

Horsham Gaol was also at least on one occasion used for political purposes. Two days before the election in 1715 John Burstow, a burgess of Horsham, was taken in execution of a judgment against him for a debt of £50 at the suit of one Lindfleld, the Tory agent. The warrant had lain dormant for several years: but now in order to prevent his voting it was put into operation and Burstow was put into the gaol. He was however, liberated by Lord lrwin who paid the debt in order that Burstow might vote for his nominees, the Whig candidates.

 

From the beginning of the seventeenth century many Bills for the better management of prisons and treatment of prisoners were introduced into Parliament, but a large proportion of them were abortive; some of them, which passed into law, were qualified by a time limit, subject to renewal - and lapsed; some were of a permissive rather than of a compulsory nature and so with others, instead of being usefully and beneficially carried out, became dead letters and left things under the arbitrary personal rule of the gaoler much as they were before. The gaoler could ignore or violate many of these laws almost as he chose. It was therefore not so much for the want of laws as for the execution of them that the state of the prisons was always far In arrear of the provisions made for their improvement.

 

In 1669 an Act was passed for the relief of poor prisoners, in the preamble of which it is stated that "whereas poor and needy prisoners committed to the common gaols for felony many times perish before their trial and the poor there living idle and unemployed become debauched and come forth instructed in the practice of thieving and other vices," by this Act justices may provide such prisoners with materials and set them to work.

 

In 1673 an Act of Parliament was passed to establish a table of fees for all the gaols in the kingdom. This act was anticipated In. Sussex by two years by a table of fees for the Horsham gaol compiled at the Quarter Sessions held at Petworth in January, 1671: but in 1690 it was complained that " good laws for the regulation of prisons have not been regarded, but buried, to the great encouragement of extortion of fees, exactions of chamber rent in and about London within a call of the Courts of Justice." The writer goes on to ask, " What must the prisoners in the county gaols expect but ruin when the law is like a stream, the further from the fountain head the more corrupt and less pure it is"? and, writing of gaolers, he continues, " who by ravishing exhorbitant sums from the distressed and most unfortluiate prisoners have advanced themselves into vast fortunes and estates so that no justice can be expected at the hands of a gaoler."

 

"The prisons" (1685), says Macaulay, " were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime and every disease." By an Act of Parliament in the time of Elizabeth there was made a compusory allowance of bread by the county authorities for the maintenance of felons, and so far back as we have found an allowance was always given in Sussex.

 

The amounts paid by the county treasurers to the gaolers of Horsham " for the maintenance of poor prisoners," including the distribution of the county bread as it was called, varied very much during the latter half of the sixteenth century, of course according to the number of prisoners and also probably to fluctuations in the prices of wheat. Later, in 1734, the amount paid for bread at Horsham was l/- per week per felon. In 1764 the allowance was 1/2 per week both in the Gaol and in the House of Correction, and this allowance continued until 1779, when an entire new set of rules and regulations was framed for the new gaol, completed and occupied that year, by which the allowance was fixed at 21bs. of bread per day.

 

Whilst the murderer and highwayman were thus maintained alive by a regular, if very meagre, subsistence at the public expense, the unfortunate insolvent debtor might, and frequently did, starve to death. He had not to be produced by the Sheriff to the Judge for trial and so there was no compulsory provision for his maintenance In 1759 an Act was passed providing that creditors putting debtors in gaol might be required to allow them 4d. per day for maintenance, but not being compulsory the payment was seldom made or demanded. "I did not find," says Howard, " in all England, except Middlesex and Surrey, twelve debtors who had obtained from their creditors the 4d. per day to which they had a right. The means of procuring it were out of their reach." The poor debtors were placed upon. their own resources or upon charity. Ambrose Rigge is said to have worked at his trade as a saddler in the prison, and others could put their labour to some extent to the profit of themselves and the gaoler.

 

Every year about Christmas, from as early as 1757, a messenger went round the county of Sussex to collect alms for the poor prisoners. In the diary of Thomas Turner, of January 11th this year. is the entry, "This day I gave a man 6d. who came a beggin for the prisoners in Horsham gaol, three of which are clergymen, two of them for acting contrary to the laws of men but not in my opinion to the laws of God, i.e., for marrying contrary to the Marriage Act. The other is for stealing some linen, but I hope he is innocent.

 

 

" The amounts collected annually varied very much and were sometimes considerable. In 1812 the amount was £165; the money was distributed at 2/- per head per week until exhausted. Outside the gaol was a fixed poors' box and on fair-days, when the gaol green was crowded with people, the prisoners in the upper wards of the gaol let down bags on pieces of string to beg money from passers by. Mr Eversfield, of Denne, in 1732, and perhaps for many years, used regularly to send several stone of beef every Thursday for the poor debtors. Timothy Shelley, of Field Place, at the end of the same century, used also regularly to send them food. Sheriffs at the assizes sometimes visited the gaol and left a donation, perhaps of £5 or £10; and there were other cases of private generosity to the poor prisoners, but there was no endowment at Horsham.

 

The debtors of later years certainly appear to have learnt communally how to exploit the feelings of the public at passing events. At Christmas there was llb. of beef and a quart of strong ale for everyone. At local celebrations, rejoicings, coronations, comings of age, or what not, all these opportunities brought the debtors a, considerable though very short-lived improvement in their diet and a welcome touch of excitement to their drab existence. In 1804 they shared in the local rejoicings at the recovery of George III from his illness, and, after a good " blow-out," sang their own national anthem.

 

Though prisoners here are we
Yet shall our minds be free Cheerily to sing:
Soon may we hence depart,
And may base Bonaparte
Take our place under Smart, (the gaoler)
God Save the King.

 

But the debtors' free minds were very accomodating. They could rejoice with the Town or against the Town as profitable chance might offer. Upon the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, whilst the Town much resented the pressure that caused its Protestant local M.P., Mr Hurst, senr., to retire in favour of the Earl of Surrey, a Catholic, the debtors found a capital opportunity in sending their congratulations to the new M.P. for which and from whom they received a present of £.5. When, upon the passing of the Reform Act of 1832, the Earl lost his seat to Mr Hurst, junr., the free minds were again ready with congratulations to the victor, for which they received £2.

 

Their last participation in the public rejoicings were those at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838, and the coming of age of Mr Eversfield, at Denne, in 1843. Notwithstanding all these gifts of food and money, their work. their begging, their local celebrations and rejoicings, and their " groats " - if they got them, which is extremely doubtful - the insolvent debtors' hold on life in Horsham Gaol on the whole was extremely precarious and unhappy.

 

 

 

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