Tag Archives: Great Yarmouth

‘Thus were the Rules again broken’

Tuesday 14 January 1840 The Gaoler stops the prison visitor on her way to teach the boys in the House of Correction, informing Miss Martin that, once more, her young scholars have been in trouble. Only yesterday, the boys signed up to a set of rules drawn by their teacher, pledging to give up ‘quarrelling […]
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Christmas in Prison, 1839

On Christmas Day 1839 inmates at Yarmouth Gaol tucked into a hearty meal of roast beef and plum pudding paid for by the Mayor. I hope it was washed down with ale, as it had been in 1837. The festive dinner must have made a welcome change from the monotonous prison diet of bread and […]
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Tattooing in Gaol

In 1845 the bricklayer, James Thirkettle, was sent to the solitary cell for a day for making marks on the back of his hand by pricking with a needle and ink. The Gaoler recorded only three occasions when he discovered prisoners pricking themselves in the nine years 1836-45 but tattooing was one of the illicit […]
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Brothers in Arms

Isaac Riches was fourteen when first confined at Great Yarmouth Gaol in 1841. Picked up as a rogue and vagabond, allegedly in the act of stealing wood chooks, he was sentenced to six months imprisonment or payment of a fine. His parents, Christopher and Maria Riches, must have paid the surety for a week later […]
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