Henley Historical and Archeological Group

THE season of regular meetings of the Henley Archaeological and Historical Group got off to a start on October 7 with a lecture by Mark Stevens of the Royal Berkshire Archives on “The History of Reading Prison from Georgian Times to the First World War”.

The first prison was built by the county in 1785 on roughly the site of the present building, replacing the old bridewell on Castle Street in Reading. This new prison was to have a capacity of 60 prisoners and to be run with a professional approach to custody, funded by taxation and inspected by magistrates.

Prisoners were to be provided with food, given separate day rooms for men and women and even to have a small garden for produce. The Victorians thought that allowing prisoners to associate was a bad thing and failed to encourage personal discipline.

It was not feasible to convert the existing prison to the “separate system” by changing its architecture to house one prisoner per cell.

It was decided in 1842 to build a new prison with a capacity of 200 prisoners at a cost of £25,000 to be financed by adding one penny to the rates for 30 years.

After 20 years of operation, it was recognised that this prison system had no impact on the level of reoffending and that prison should instead be presented as a deterrent to offending.

Hard labour, hard fare and hard board were emphasised but this proved no more effective at reducing reoffending.

In 1895, the prison’s most famous inmate, Oscar Wilde (prisoner C.3.3), was given and served a two-year sentence there.

At the outbreak of the First World War, enemy aliens were housed in there and, in 1916, Irish patriots.

Reading prison was closed in 1919 and became a government store.

It re-opened to take prisoners after the Second World War and finally closed its doors in 2013. The next meeting of the group will feature a talk by John Rogers on “Kings, Boxes and Dots”, a brief history of the Post Office.

This will take place on Tuesday, November at the usual time of 7.30pm in the Chantry House in Henley.

Anthony Lynch