ABSTRACT
Peel's Gaol Act of 1823 did not set out a governor's duties in detail, but merely stipulated that he was to visit each cell at least once every twenty-four hours, and that he was to keep a journal, 1 His primary task, at common law, was to maintain the safe custody of the prison. It was largely as a guarantee of diligence in this respect (although indemnification of loss by embezzlement may also have had something to do with it) that a governor provided sureties to the sheriff (and often to the magistrates as well). The history of imprisonment is liberally studded with corruptly assisted 'escapes', and very naturally the first to be suspected in the circumstances were the staff. By the 1830s a successful bid for freedom seems almost invariably to have been carefully scrutinised by the visiting justices, with a view to taking disciplinary or even court action against the governor and his staff. 2 George Chesterton remarked in his memoirs that the possibility of an escape had been a source of 'ceaseless discomfort' to him - a feeling probably shared by most governors. 3
