15 January 1840 Yesterday, when the boys’ lesson was over, Walter Tunmore was sent to bed so the surgeon could treat a puss on his side. Passing by his cell, Sarah Martin heard the boy sobbing and went to speak with him. He pleaded with his teacher to make sure to come and see him […]
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Sunday 12 January 1840 Sarah Martin gathers her strength to deliver her Sunday morning sermon in the prison chapel. Rarely does she miss a visit to the gaol but yesterday she regretted, ‘I am compelled by a bad cold to remain at home.’ In her absence, she now learns, the boys returned to their riotous […]
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Monday 30 January 1839 The three boys, sent down for 30 days hard labour 28 January 1839, are quick to make their presence felt in Yarmouth Gaol. Today, the Governor locks them in the solitary cells for 12 hours for ‘for fighting and making use of obscene language’. The boys must have been fighting with […]
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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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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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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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I am an historian reading for a DPhil in History at Balliol College, University of Oxford. My research is most concerned with housing in Britain during and after the First World War. I've been called a political historian, a social historian, and a cultural historian. I don't see any reason to be one and not the other.
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