ABSTRACT
The majority of those imprisoned for debt were released relatively quickly having satisfied their creditors. This chapter explores how prisoners were able to achieve this through a study of the diverse debtor economy. It uses official enquiries into gaols, diaries and memoirs of prisoners, details revealed in court cases, and the discussion of debtors’ prisons in popular literature. Prisons were remarkably liberal institutions which allowed prisoners to organise their external affairs such as selling property or calling in their own debts to raise capital. Additionally, prisoners were able to continue working from within gaol either at their old trade or adapting their skills to meet the need of the internal economy. This consumer culture reflected the external world to the prison and, it is argued, could contribute to local economies by providing cheap goods and services to those not normally able to afford a lawyer to bespoke tailoring. Debtors’ prisons, it is emphasised, encouraged the payment of debts by focussing the strategies of their inhabitants rather than facilitating the method by which they raised capital.
