ABSTRACT
Successive Committees of Parliament revealed the unmistakable connection between the rapid increase of crime, the overcrowding of the gaols and the upgrowth of a whole population of juvenile and professional criminals. Beyond an occasional inquiry into the cost of the hulks and the practicability of penal colonies, the House of Commons and the Ministers of the Crown—occupied, it is fair to say, by the war with France—seem, between 1791 and 1810, to have taken no more interest in prison administration than the majority of local authorities. The first sign of this awakening was Sir Samuel Romilly’s eloquent appeal to the House of Commons, early in 1810, for a reform of the whole criminal law, including the administration of the prisons. A more important Parliamentary campaign, led by the Hon. Henry Grey Bennet, George Holford, and Sir William Eden, with the support of Sir Francis Burdett, Sir Samuel Romilly, and Lord Holland, took place in 1814 and 1815.
