An Account of all the Gaols, Houses of Correction or Penitentiaries, in the United Kingdom...as far as relates to Scotland.

£950 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Rare. OCLC records copies University of London , Lilly Library , University of Amsterdam and National Library of Australia . A detailed and shocking account of all the prisons in Scotland at the beginning of the 19th century with information on the size, number and type of prisoners, labour undertaken by the prisoners and the allowances for food and clothing. The report highlights overcrowding, disease and the dilapidation of prisons in the period. In Glasgow the prisoners at the Tolbooth jail are given a small stipend of 6d to support themselves while in the prison and prisoners preparing for execution are, “allowed a warm dinner extra” (p.13), at the Bridwell prison in the same city the inmates are fed on, “porridge and milk for breakfast, broth and bread for dinner, bread and water for supper, and those at hard labour get potatoes and herrings three times a week for supper”. The main prison in Aberdeen is said to be “very much crowded, and obnoxious to the health of the prisoners” although it is noted that a new prison building is planned. The Bridewell prison in Edinburgh (with a total of 1,490 prisoners in 1818) is given a very detailed description noting that the prisoners are provided with: “…bread from wheat, ground over all, without any of the bran being taken out, made up in loaves of the size of 12 to the weight of a quartern loaf…two of these loaves to each prisoner weekly…Prisoners sentenced to be fed on bread and water only have three of these loaves daily. Oatm

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