Loisand, page from book
OLD AND NEW BIRMINGHAM. Published 1874
The Old Prison of Birmingham
“It is easy “says Hutton “to point out some places only one-third the magnitude of Birmingham whose frequent breaches of the law, and quarrels among themselves, find employment for half-a-dozen magistrates, and four times that number of constables; whilst the business of this was for many years conducted by a single justice." He ascribes this law-abiding characteristic of the people of Birmingham to the industry of the people; the hand employed in business having, he says, "less time, and less temptation, to be employed in mischief." To the absence of "idle hands " in the town, therefore, may be attributed the smallness of the gaol accommodation necessary previous to the year 1733.
In earlier times the lord of the manor held a tribunal on his own premises, and probably, as was usual in such cases, a rude prison in some sort would be annexed thereto, with such implements for punishing as were then in use; as, the stocks and the whipping-post, which, as we have seen, were afterwards removed to the Welsh Cross. After the fall of the Bermingham family, one of the lower rooms of the Leather Hall in New Street was used as a prison; "but," says Hutton, "about the year 1728, while men slept an enemy came, a private agent to the lord of the manor, and erased the Leather Hall and the Dungeon, erected three houses on the spot, and received their rents till 1776, when the town purchased them for £500, to open the way." Up to this time the only entrance to New Street from the High Town had been through a narrow passage, similar to that at the entrance to Castle Street. In the days of the Leather Hall it acquired (from the use to which the basement had been put) the name of the Dungeon Entry, and this name remained for many years after the building of the houses in place of the-old hall.
From 1728 to 1733, the town had no other place of detention for offenders, except a dry cellar, belonging to a house opposite the site of the demolished Leather Hall. On the 9th of September in the latter year, however, a meeting of the inhabitants was held in the chamber over the Cross, at which it was "unanimously agreed upon that a Dungeon be forthwith erected at the Public expense of the said Parish, at the place commonly called Bridewell House, near Pinfold Street;" This was, according to Hutton, "of all bad places the worst; . . . dark, narrow, and unwholesome within; crowded with dwellings, filth, and distress without, the circulation of air is prevented." Its gloomy, forbidding aspect without is well depicted in the engraving on page 104, which is taken from the lithographic print by Mr. Underwood, contained in his series of views of "The Buildings of Birmingham, Past and Present," a work which is now becoming scarce.
This old "Bridewell" was like most of the provincial town gaols of that period; and what they were the reader may learn, if he can endure the recital of the sickening details, from the journals of visits paid to these wretched dens in 1773-5, by that noble-minded philanthropist, John Howard.
Whether the exemplary morality attributed by Hutton to the people of Birmingham suffered a relapse after the building of the new dungeon, we cannot tell; but it would certainly appear that the gaol soon became too small to accommodate its numerous prisoners; for, in 1757, it was found necessary "to take down the Three Houses fronting Peck Lane, in order to enlarge the Prison;" which proceeding was decided upon at a meeting held on the thirteenth of September in that year. This building remained the only local prison until the erection of the building in Moor Street, in 1795; and was not destroyed until 1806, when the building materials were sold for £250.