Recollections of Old Liverpool | Page 8

Market. Booths were erected
opposite the Infirmary and in Folly Lane. It was like all such
assemblages--a great deal of noise, drunkenness, debauchery, and
foolishness. But fairs were certainly different then from what they have
been of late years. They are now conducted in a far more orderly
manner than they were formerly. I went to a large one some years ago,
in Manchester, and, on comparing it with those of my young days, I
could hardly believe it was a fair. It seemed to be only the ghost of one,

so grim and ghastly were the proceedings.
I recollect the celebrated Mr. John Howard, "the philanthropist,"
coming to Liverpool in 1787. He had a letter of introduction to my
father, and was frequently at our house. He was a thin, spare man, with
an expressive eye and a determined look. He used to go every day to
the Tower Prison at the bottom of Water-street; and he exerted himself
greatly to obtain a reform in the atrocious abuses which then existed in
prison discipline. In the present half-century there has been great
progress made in the improvement of prison discipline, health, and
economy. Where formerly existed notorious and disgraceful abuses, the
most abject misery, and the very depth of dirt, we find good
management, cleanliness, reformatory measures, and firm steps taken
to reclaim both the bodies and souls of the erring. It is a most strange
circumstance that the once gross and frightful abuses of the prison
system did not force themselves upon the notice of government--did
not attract the attention of local rulers, and cry out themselves for
change. Still more strange is it that, although Mr Howard in 1787, and
again in 1795, and Mr. James Nield (whose acquaintance I also made in
1803), pointed out so distinctly the abuses that existed in our prisons,
the progress of reform therein was strangely slow, and moved with
most apathetic steps. Howard lifted up the veil and exposed to light the
iniquities prevalent within our prison walls; but no rapid change was
noticeable in consequence of his appalling revelations. To show how
careless the authorities were about these matters, we can see what Mr.
Nield said eight years after Mr. Howard's second visit, in 1795, in his
celebrated letters to Dr. Lettsom, who, by the way, resided in
Camberwell Grove, Surrey, in the house said to have belonged to the
uncle of George Barnwell. Now, it should be borne in mind that Mr.
Howard actually received the freedom of the borough, with many
compliments upon his exertions in the cause of the poor inmates of the
gaol, and yet few or no important steps were taken to remedy the
glaring evils which he pointed out. Some feeble reforms certainly did
take place immediately after his first and second visits to Liverpool, but
a retrograde movement succeeded, and things relapsed into their usual
jog-trot way of dirt and disorder. When Mr. Howard received the
freedom of the borough an immense fuss was made about him; people

used to follow him in the street, and he was feted and invited to dinners
and parties; and there was no end of speechifying. But what did it all
come to? Why, nothing, except a little cleaning out of passages and
whitewashing of walls. I went with Mr. Howard several times, over the
Tower Prison, and also with Mr. Nield, in 1803. As it then appeared I
will try to describe it.
The keeper of the Tower or Borough Gaol, which stood at the bottom
of Water-street in 1803, was Mr. Edward Frodsham, who was also
sergeant-at-mace. His salary was 130 pounds per annum. His fees were
4s. for criminal prisoners, and 4s. 6d. for debtors. The Rev. Edward
Monk was the chaplain. His salary was 31 pounds 10s. per annum; but
his ministrations did not appear to be very efficacious, as, on one
occasion, when Mr. Nield went to the prison chapel in company with
two of the borough magistrates, he found, out of one hundred and nine
prisoners, only six present at service. The sick were attended by a
surgeon from the Dispensary, in consideration of 12 guineas per annum,
contributed by the corporation to that most praiseworthy institution.
There was a sort of sick ward in the Tower, but it was a wretched place,
being badly ventilated and extremely dirty. When Mr. Nield and I
visited the prison in 1803, we did not find the slightest order or
regulation. The prisoners were not classed, nor indeed, separated; men
and women, boys and girls, debtor and felon, young and old, were all
herded together, meeting daily in the courtyards of the prison. The
debtors certainly had a yard to themselves, but they had free access to
the felon's yard, and mixed unrestrainedly with them.