The imprisonment of debtors in Britain dates back to the 13th century. Debtors who were not traders – which by the 18th century included most skilled craftsmen – did not qualify to become bankrupt but were given the status of ‘insolvent debtors’, although farmers were specifically excluded. Remaining responsible for their debts, but being unable to pay them, they remained subject to common law proceedings and, if their creditors so wished, could be imprisoned indefinitely. Not until 1861 were insolvent debtors allowed to apply for bankruptcy and the established imprisonment for debt came to an end.
The major conceptual flaw with imprisoning debtors was that it then prevented them from earning and so being able to pay off their creditors. Many spent their remaining years locked up in London or local prisons, unless relatives or friends came forward to settle the debt, or the creditors themselves had a change of heart and helped out.
Although debtors were imprisoned throughout the country, London is the most infamous for its debtors’ prisons. The Fleet, Marshalsea and King’s Bench Prisons were the largest and best known and most important; but there were others: the City’s own debtor prison in Whitecross Street, opened in 1815. Novelist Charles Dickens' father John was imprisoned in the Marshalsea when Charles was a child. As a consequence, debtor’s prisons feature in several of Dickens’ novels: Mr Pickwick in The Pickwick Papers was sent to the Fleet and Mr Micawber in David Copperfield was imprisoned in the King's Bench, and most famously, Little Dorrit’s father spent much of his life in the Marshalsea.
The Fleet Prison stood on the banks of the Fleet River. Over the river in Southwark, the Marshalsea and the King’s (or Queen’s) Bench Prisons stood side by side. The Marshalsea and Fleet both closed in 1842, merging with the Queen’s Bench Prison to form the Queen’s Prison, which itself closed in 1862, Thereafter; there were no defined debtors’ prisons. Imprisonment for debt was abolished in 1869. Nothing remains of the Fleet, King's Bench or Whitecross Street, but remnants of the Marshalsea are still be to found in Southwark.
The Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors was established in 1813. This allowed debtors to be released on condition that they handed over all their assets. The Debtors’ Act of 1869 abolished imprisonment for debt, although a debtor who had the means to pay but chose not to, could still be imprisoned for up to six weeks, introducing the principle that no man may be imprisoned unless his default is wilful. By 1877, only 3.1 per cent of all committals to prison were for debt.
Life inside London's debtors' prisons
Life in London’s debtors prisons was, to say the very least, unusual. Whitecross Street was close to a regular criminal prison but the Fleet, Marshalsea and King’s Bench were another matter. Debtors were allowed extensive privileges compared to other prisoners, including being allowed visitors, their own food and clothing, and the right to work at their trade or profession as far as was feasible in prison.
Accommodation was in single or shared rooms, although many prisoners were not permanently incarcerated within the prisons. As long as they paid the keeper, prisoners who could provide security and pay off part of their debt, could take lodgings within an area outside the prison walls called the ‘Liberty’ or ‘Rules’. In 1776 only about a third of prisoners lived outside the King’s Bench.
John Howard in 1776 reported of The Fleet: "They also play in the court-yard at skittles, mississippi, fives, tennis, &c. And not only Prisoners: I saw among them several butchers and others from the market; who are admitted here as at another public house. The same may be seen in other Prisons where the Gaoler keeps or lets the tap. Besides the inconvenience of this to Prisoners; the frequenting of a Prison lessens the dread of being confined in one. On Monday night there was a Wine-Club: on Thursday night a Beer-Club: each lasting usually till one or two in the morning. I need not say how much riot these occasions; and how sober Prisoners and those who are sick are annoyed by them."
Many prisoners found it more acceptable to live in relative comfort in debtors' prison rather than in poverty outside.
How to find the records of inmates
The records for the Fleet (1686-1842), King’s Bench (1719-1862) and Marshalsea (1773-1861) are held at The National Archives in Series PRIS 1-11. Genealogy website Ancestry has details of over 700,000 criminals detained in the Marshelsea, King’s Bench and Fleet prisons from 1734 to 1862, although these are only a small proportion of the records held at The National Archives. For those imprisoned for debt outside London, records are mostly going to be held locally within the records of the Quarter Sessions.
