ABSTRACT
Amidst the flurry of representations with which it was customary to greet a new administration, Richard Cross, the incoming Home Secretary, received a deputation on 2 May 1874 from the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science. It urged various steps for the promotion of uniformity in discipline and management in the local prisons. With ambition diminished neither by accomplishment nor the passage of time, Du Cane found the chairmanship of the Directorate of Convict Prisons too small a seat upon which to take his life’s rest. Savings from the employment of prisoners in building and maintenance, and a doubling of industrial output, would take time to achieve and were at best, as Du Cane surely knew, possibilities to be pursued by diligent management, gifted with more than a modicum of luck. Minimum standards were undoubtedly raised, but little progress was made towards Du Cane’s financial goals.
