The idea of a national penitentiary

Central government became directly involved in the ownership and administration of prisons through its part in carrying out transportation. This punishment, which can be traced back (as banishment) to the twelfth century, was authorised by legislation and by exercise of the prerogative, in conditional pardons. ¹ Legislation began in 1593 by providing abjuration of the realm as an alternative to martyrdom for certain religious offenders. ² In 1597 the justices were empowered to banish or send to the galleys rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars (39 Eliz., c.4). Transportation was greatly expanded under the early Stuarts and Commonwealth, and after the Restoration it was regularly attached to conditional pardons. In the course of the eighteenth century, stimulated, at least in part, by rising imperial ambitions, criminal legislators provided transportation as a penalty and it 'became one of the legislature's most favourite forms of punishment'. ³ Most of the transported went to the American colonies of Maryland and Virginia. The revolt of 1775 closed this depository, and stopped the export (then proceeding at a rate of about 960 a year) ⁴ Central government, faced with the ceaseless outpourings of the courts, had to resort to emergency measures. Their chosen device was to put the convicts to hard labour, holding them in floating prisons, or hulks, ⁵ moored on the Thames. The hard labour consisted of various public works to improve the navigation of the river. ⁶ The Act also authorised use of the houses of correction for the serving of sentences of hard labour, ⁷ but as it simply moved responsibility and expense from central to local government it is hardly surprising that this part of the Act came to nought.