Not many people can claim to have one grandfather who was gaoler to the other. Harold Fielding Hall had that distinction, though understandably he didn’t trumpet this widely.
In 1828 Hilkiah Hall, was imprisoned for debt in Durham Gaol. Harold’s other grandfather, William Green, was working there as surgeon, later as governor. Did his parents first meet when they played together as children in the ‘debtors’ airing yard’? Durham was a small town, and the families would have had many opportunities to meet. What makes their story even odder is that the bankrupt would have been of higher social standing than his gaoler.
In order to unravel this strange connection, I’ve been reading a series of fascinating articles by Ruth Cranfield in the Durham County Local History Society’s Bulletin (now called Journal). Through the lens of Durham Gaol, she brilliantly analyses the evolution of the prison system that is still in place today. In fact most of Durham Gaol’s buildings date from William Green’s time as governor, between 1837-1867.
The new Durham Gaol had its own set of rules, drawn up locally.
The eighteenth Century prison was locally run and, crucially, paid for out of local taxes. Containment was the only criteria, and conditions in the old gaol and the house of correction (for vagrants and beggars) were grim. Reformers, like the Quakers JJ Gurney and his sister Elizabeth Fry, publicised the inhuman conditions of the nation’s prisons. Reform was in the air.
The ‘new’ Durham Gaol was opened in 1819. It had its own set of rules, and the governor was answerable to local magistrates. Visiting Justices reported four times a year.
Separation was key to the reformed prison service. Women were to be housed away from the men. Bankrupts had always been kept apart from felons and vagrants, and bankrupts who could pay the governor for bedding and a feather mattress had very different treatment from those with no funds. Bankrupts were always an anomaly in the prison system; they were not compelled to abide by the prison rules. Most had no incentive to escape, as they were safer from their creditors inside than out.
What reformers and the authorities feared most was contamination: that those awaiting trial, men and boys with no criminal history would be corrupted by contact with hardened felons. They were to be kept separate and treated differently.
Fear of contamination grew. By the time Hilkiah Hall was incarcerated in 1828 ‘enough barriers had been erected within the prison that 13 classes of prisoners could be kept separate’. In 1836 a new governor carried this principle a step further and, following an American model that was becoming increasingly popular in the UK, imposed a rule of silence on all prisoners who had been classified according to their crime. They were forbidden to communicate with each other in any way, clearly a hard rule to enforce, however many barriers they put up.
William Green, Harold’s grandfather, was a firm believer in the principle of separation, and approved of the new buildings erected by the local justices during his tenure, buildings that are still in use today. Prisoners confined to a solitary cell would be unable either to corrupt or be corrupted. In 1845 the first of the new wings was completed, with cells for 72 prisoners. Numbers continued to rise, so further blocks were built.
An 1857 plan of Durham Gaol, showing the new wings that were added while William Green was Governor.
Faith in the principle of separation was eroded by ever-increasing recidivism and a rapidly increasing prison population. True, the prisoners loathed the single cell system, but there was no evidence it worked as a deterrent. Elizabeth Fry was not the only observer who regarded it as downright cruel. A modified system which allowed some association in small supervised groups was introduced in Durham quite early on.
But by the 1860s, when the tide of opinion was turning, the buildings had already been built and are still in use today. Prisons were also subject to greater control by central government, as now. Our present system is rooted on those nineteenth century principles. And the buildings remain.
https://www.durhamweb.org.uk/dclhs/