"The State of the
Prisons in England and Wales", 3rd edition, 1784 John Howard,
1726-1790, became interested in prisons when he was made High Sheriff
of Bedfordshire, and so became responsible for the prisons in the
county. He was appalled by what he found. He went on to carry out
a survey of all the prisons in England and Wales, published in 1777,
and then of prisons in the rest of Europe, published in 1780.
These extracts show some of the things he wrote about: (a) describes
how he tried to get rid of the smell which clung to him after a prison
visit. Sources 1(b) to (e) describe some of the problems with prisons
and (f) gives part of one of his detailed accounts of a local gaol,
in this case Lancaster Castle.
Reproduced by permission of The British Library
From Sources 1 & 2 you could make notes on all the problems
with old, unreformed prisons.
Put some of the evidence you
have found from these sources in your Gallery Worksheet
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