Little Ilford gaol, like its contemporaries, operated under a strict regime of regulation and supervision. Every key postholder was held to a high standard of accountability for their actions. The Essex Quarter Sessions, for instance, appointed two or three “Visiting Magistrates” from their ranks, who oversaw the gaol on behalf of the county. They came very much from the privileged end of society, as the brief biographies of two of the more significant of their number – at the end of this article – show.
Visting Magistrates
They were expected to provide quarterly reports on conditions at the establishment and to furnish detailed breakdowns of costs, responsibilities, and staff appointments.
Upon receipt of the Visiting Magistrates' quarterly reports, the Quarter Sessions were obligated to compile annual statements on the gaol's conditions for the Home Secretary. These reports, many of which are archived in the Essex County Records Office, were not kept secret. The Essex Quarter Sessions were open to the press, and summaries of the reports were regularly published in local newspapers, ensuring the gaol's operations were subject to public accountability.
As the ultimate authority, the Quarter Sessions exercised significant control over the gaol's operations. They directly appointed key personnel such as the governor, chaplain, and surgeon and required regular reports from the governor. Their influence extended to the conditions within the gaol, dictating everything from the prisoners' diets to the clothing and bedding they were provided.
The tone was set for Little Ilford gaol just before it opened at the Quarter Sessions in July 1831.
During a discussion on conditions in local prisons. William Pole Wellesley, the wastrel whose profligacy led to the destruction of Wanstead House and local MP, expressed a reasonably liberal view for the time, arguing against the imposition of the harshest conditions.
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| Essex magistrate, William Pole Wellesley, the wastrel whose property adjoined Little Ilford gaol, had surprisngly liberal views about prison conditions. Etching from c 1827, a little before gaol contruction was underway. Etching couresy of Greg Roberts. |
I am about in the short term to report on the state of Ilford gaol, which in a week or two will be ready for prisoners … It is the duty of magistrates to keep the prisoners in safe custody. I believe a gaol ought to be a place of suffering, so much so, indeed, as to operate on the mind and body of one in confinement in such a way as to induce him to say: “If ever I get out of this place, they shall never catch me here again” … many who are out of gaol are in a much worse condition than those confined within its wall (Hear). A gaol is intended, as it ought, to be a place of suffering; we should not only be acted upon by a sort of pseudo philanthropy, which may be pleasing to our feelings but would nevertheless operate against the best interest of society.
From the 1840s, the House of Commons published annual statistical surveys on data relating to prisons nationwide (staff numbers and pay, details of prisoners, etc.), and the Essex Quarter Sessions produced fairly detailed summaries on the conditions of the gaols and detention centres under their purview. Visiting magistrates at Little Ilford, certainly in the early days of its existence, often used these reports to provide evidence for them to embark on a race to the bottom for conditions in local gaols.
However, from the 1860s, two more liberal magistrates took on the roles—John Gurney Fry and William Swainson Suart. They were men of financial substance with significant other public service records before becoming visiting magistrates (see brief biographies at the end).
Their contributions to discussions about the gaol and proposals for changes were usually aimed at improving conditions for staff and prisoners rather than being simply cost-cutting and punitive.
Staff
Staff numbers varied a little throughout the history of the gaol, but a typical complement was eight, comprising: a governor (in 1844 paid £150 p.a.), a chaplain – always CofE (£100), a surgeon (medical officer would be a more appropriate term today) (£40), the principal turnkey (£67), assistant turnkey and schoolmaster – this post would report to the chaplain – see later (£52), assistant turnkey and baker (£52), cook and labourer (15s per week, i.e £39 p.a.) and matron (£20p.a.) (source ERO QAGp 15). [Turnkeys were what today we would call wardens].
Initially, only the governor and his family lived on the premises, but additional staff accommodation was built above the brew and bakehouses for wardens in the 1840s. During the 1871 census, staff living within the gaol included the governor, the senior warden, his wife - the assistant matron - and two other prison wardens who were lodgers in the senior warden’s dwelling.
Occasionally, there was no turnkey who could double up as schoolmaster, in which case “the most orderly and competent of the adult prisoners being from time to time employed as a teacher under my (the chaplain’s) supervision” (ERO 1832).
Staff wages varied over the gaol's history, but comparative statistics with other prisons showed that they tended to be on the low side in Little Ilford. William Stringer was the longest-serving governor, occupying the role for almost the last twenty years of the gaol’s existence, but barely saw a doubling of his pay over the period.
Interestingly, on average, there was a ratio of about 7 inmates to one staff member in the gaol, compared to about 30 children to one staff member in the children’s workhouse on Forest Lane later in the century.
As indicated earlier, the Quarter Sessions and the visiting magistrates tightly defined the staff's working conditions and job descriptions.
The governor
The Governor was required to keep up to 30 different journals and log books about prison life, which were open to regular inspection by visiting magistrates. They included: the governor’s journal, a separate journal/day book for each member of staff, the provision dietary book, a bedding and clothing book, a quarterly account book, a ledger, a cash book and day book, prisoners received and prisoners discharged books, a prisoners’ punishment book, an inventory of books furnished by the chaplain and volumes dedicated to reports written to visiting magistrates, and the Quarter Sessions, as well as correspondence ledgers and a prisoners’ misconduct book.
In the early 1840s, the governor, John Anderson, gave a detailed statement of his daily routine to the Quarter Sessions as part of a bid for a pay rise (ERO QAGp 15). If it was accurate, he was a busy man.
He said his day started by ensuring the turnkeys were in the correct uniform, and the prisoners were unlocked and set to work by them (6 a.m. in the summer, 7 a.m. in winter). He supervised breakfast at 8 a.m. and met with the schoolmaster to review his work at 9 a.m. An hour later, he attended the chapel, supervised the service, and inspected the infirmary, yards, and cells.
During this period, he interviewed prisoners, reported any misconduct or injustices, and saw that any instructions he had previously given relating to this were being executed. He would then attend to anything requiring entry into his various journals and write any of the reports he was responsible for submitting. At about noon, he would discharge any prisoners due for release.
He occasionally attended some of the magistrates courts his gaol served, including visiting the Ilford court once a fortnight when he met up with the local magistrates. He would write “letters to the friends of all prisoners under 21, appraising them of the time they will be discharged from jail, and if any prisoners are taken ill, their friends are written to.”
He was charged with running an economically tight institution, so he proudly stated that “the cost per prisoner, per head, per day on my appointment, including staff and all other expenses was: 1841: 1/7d, 1842 1/4d and 1843 1/3d.”
Other staff
Legislation from 1814 required all gaols to have a chaplain. The relatively well-renumerated postholder usually doubled up as a local vicar with an additional stipend from the parish. He provided a detailed account of his activities in 1845, in which he described performing morning and evening services of the Church of England and preaching every Sunday.
He also performed church services on Christmas Day and Good Friday and was “always prepared to administer the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to those who wish and be fit to receive the same.”. He claimed to frequently read scriptures to prisoners who came to him at the chapel and to instruct school classes. He provided “a sufficient number of bibles and prayer and other books of a religious and moral character” (ERO Q/SBb 550)
The Assistant Turnkey/schoolmaster reported to the chaplain and would have had a professional relationship with all prisoners – not just those of school age. He would teach religious studies and assist with reading and writing for the illiterate, based on books approved and supplied by the chaplain. Quaker influence, stressing the importance of religious teaching in prisons, is well illustrated by the etching below, showing Elizabeth Fry reading the bible to female prisoners in Newgate.
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| Elizabeth Fry, reading to prisoners at Newgate, showing imporatnce of religious teaching and education to many prison reformers |
Fewer details survive of the job descriptions of the more junior staff, although the matron—the postholders of which were usually married to another staff member—was in charge of all female prisoners and their cells and yards in gaol, as well as both male and female infirmaries, in the absence of the surgeon.
The tight regime and supervision the gaol experienced and its accountability to so many bodies, including the press, made it appear to be a scandal-free institution throughout its existence.
The life experiences of its two most significant visiting magistrates suggested an open-minded and public-spirited approach to its governance in its latter days, which was very much at variance with some of the corruption associated with many of the guardians who supervised workhouses, locally and beyond.
John Gurney Fry - biography
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| John Gurney Fry - 1804 - 1871 |
From a young age, he was immersed in the world of penal reform. His mother, Elizabeth, was not the most attentive of parents, and by the time he was nine, she began to dedicate herself to prison reform, particularly with women in mind. This early exposure to penal reform would shape John’s childhood and serve as a catalyst for his later involvement as an Essex magistrate and visitor to Little Ilford gaol.
Aged just nine, he witnessed his mother's remarkable involvement with the plight of women prisoners at London’s Newgate gaol. She established education classes and collected clothing for them. Two years later, she founded the Association for the Reformation of Female Prisoners at Newgate, and the following year—when John was just 14—Elizabeth made history as the first woman to give evidence to a parliamentary committee on prisons. These achievements were a testament to Elizabeth's dedication and a significant influence on John's future path.
When John was 17 (1821), Elizabeth established the London Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, where she campaigned against women being manacled in chains, the public execution of female prisoners, prison ships (hulks), solitary confinement and above all, capital punishment.
At the age of 21, John married his second cousin, Rachel. Their union was not just personal but also a consolidation of their family's social standing. Both were well-connected Quakers, and the witnesses to their marriage included prominent names such as Frys, Barclays, Buxtons, Gurneys, and Pellys. However, John's health was a constant struggle, and his illness marred the ceremony. A witness to the event noted, “It was too much for John. He was not feeling well and kept having to lie down.”
After the wedding, the couple lived in St Mildred’s Court, which was simultaneously the headquarters of the family banking and tea businesses, a family home, and a hostel for unmarried clerks working for the business.
They lived there for over fifteen years, although it was not very conducive to family life. By the time of the 1841 census, they had moved to Little Warley Lodge in Billericay, which they shared with their three children, his brother-in-law and his four children, a governess, and 13 servants. This was a farm, which John sold in 1847. He moved to Hale End in Walthamstow in 1851 with his wife, two unmarried daughters, and just seven servants!
By then, John was already an Essex magistrate and merchant with the East India Company. Having sold the farm, he could devote himself more to charitable and public service duties. Among the roles he undertook over the following twenty years were: Trustee of the City Orthopedic Hospital (1851), Deputy Lieutenant of Essex (1852), Chairman of the Metropolitan Free Hospital – Devonshire Square, The City, where “The friendless have immediate attention paid to their ailments” (1852) Vice President of the Agricultural Benevolent Society (1860) – with a brief to alleviate the needs of “decayed farmers, their widows and orphans” and was “a generous subscriber to the Benevolent Asylum for the Insane of the Middle Classes” (Evening Standard 10 Feb 1862).
It is difficult to fully assess John’s impact on Little Ilford gaol, as there is no definitive statement of it, but weaving through reports of his contributions, on the bench, at Quarter Session proceedings and through press reports, he seemed to be a mildly reforming character, who without his mother’s zeal, would appear to have been a force for good for the institution and its inmates.
In the late 1860s, he and Rachel moved from Hale End to Prittlewell near Southend for health reasons. Rachel died at the end of 1871, and John six months later, on 11 June 1872, of Typhoid. The Essex Herald explained the circumstances. Having presided over a meeting of Ilford magistrates on 1 June, he went home to Prittlewell and died ten days later:
His doctors agree in their opinion that his death indirectly resulted from the poisoned air of Ilford Court, and this eldest son of the great philanthropist may be said to have followed his mother’s example and to have been, perhaps indirectly, a martyr for the public benefit, for had he not been so constant an attendant to his magisterial duties, he would in all probability, have lived for many years.
William Swainson Suart - biography
William Swainson Suart was born 30 July 1814 in Liverpool and educated at Royal Military College, Addiscombe. He then received a commission in the East India Company, which effectively ran India on behalf of the British government. He became a cadet in the Royal Bombay Corps of Engineers in 1833 and married Elizabeth Murray in 1849 in that city.
He was a civil engineer who worked on land reclamation and drainage work. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1842 and transferred to Aden as an engineer in 1847. His wife had their first child there, and he was promoted to captain the following year. He finally retired from the East India Company’s service with the honorary rank of major in November 1857 during the Indian Rebellion (Mutiny).
After his return to England, he was appointed to the Commission of the Peace for Essex on 16 October 1860 and “long acted as chairman of the Committee of Visiting Justices at Ilford Gaol”. By the time of the 1861 census, six months later, he was living in Chigwell with his wife, three children and six servants. A decade later, the family was down to three servants and just two in 1881. He played an active part in the Essex Court of Sessions, particularly in matters relating to the Beconsfield Division (of which Little Ilford Gaol was a part)”.
He was outspoken about the 1877 Prisons Act, which he described as “An Act for Abolishing the Ancient Office of Justice of the Peace”. He was interested in juvenile crime and wrote and published a pamphlet on the subject, which was apparently full of suggestions, which we have been unable to access.
Like Fry, Suart seems to have been a fair and publicly minded individual who served the court without fear or favour.
He was a governor of Chigwell Grammar School, and active in that community. He died after a long illness on 23 May 1882 (aged 69) in Bowls, Chigwell, and left an estate valued at £4,290 (twenty times a clerk’s salary of the day). (Sources: obituaries in The Essex Herald, Chelmsford Chronicle, Naval and Military Gazette and Ancestry).
