If you share this view, you must be in jail...

2:20pm Friday 8th August 2008

ALTHOUGH a popular place to visit, Durham is small and its attractions - though very grand - are perhaps modest.

Furthermore, there is no great list of famous people associated with Durham with which to entertain visitors and capture the imaginations of tourists.

Down the ages, the famous are few and far between. The Prince Bishops and a 3ft 3in tall Polish dwarf called Count Joseph Boruwlaski spring to mind - or perhaps the ghostly gipsy piper that haunts the old prison cell beneath Elvet Bridge. Then there is Tony Blair, who went to school in the city.

Beyond this, however, a tour guide could well struggle to come up with names to entertain a visiting coach party.

However, Durham's hall of fame or, more accurately, hall of notoriety, really comes to life when we turn our attention to the prison.

Over the years, some of the most notorious figures in British criminal history have resided at Durham as unwilling guests of Her Majesty.

They have included Mary Ann Cotton, Myra Hindley, Harold Shipman, Rose West, John McVicar and Mad Frankie Fraser, to name but a few.

These are, of course, the exceptional characters of illgotten fame.

Many other inmates during the prison's 186-year history are largely forgotten.

Even unfortunate individuals who ended their lives on the Durham gallows were often no more than a passing curiosity, soon forgotten by the locals who continued to go about their lives, in freedom, beyond the prison walls.

Apart from prison officers who often reside in the city, most Durham people, thankfully, know little about life inside.

From the outside, they admire the elegant, almost cheerful facade of the lightlycoloured stone of the courthouse that masks the dark, grey, formidable and rather sinister-looking walls of the 19th century jail that lurk behind.

Completed in 1819 by Ignatius Bonomi in the shape of a quadrangle, the prison was built partly with money from the Bishop of Durham.

In the 19th century, it was the bishop who appointed the jailer or "gaoler" as he was known in the preferred spelling of the time. Often residing in the prison along with his family and earning a salary of £300 a year in the 1850s, we would call him the governor today.

Under him were employed the prison chaplain (£200) a surgeon (£40) and other staff, including a schoolmaster, taskmaster, matron, turnkey, porter and a number of warders.

At the time of the 1851 census, there were 225 prisoners at Durham. Thirty-six were women (always segregated from the men) and 11 of these gave their occupation as prostitute.

About 91 of the 225 prisoners in the jail in 1851 were County Durham born. These were mostly natives of larger towns in the old county, such as Sunderland, South Shields, Gateshead and Darlington.

Fordyce, the Durham historian writing in 1851, noted that many prisoners were from outside the county.

These were said to be men of "bad character and dissipated habits, who had sought a new residence after being driven from their native place".

It was noted that 647 County Durham residents were imprisoned at Durham Jail in 1851, mostly for short-term sentences, but 1,178 "strangers" to the county were also sent to the prison during the year.

Inmates came from a wide range of occupations, but some were more common than others.

For example, in the 1851 census, the prisoners in Durham Jail included 22 miners and 38 sailors.

More than a quarter in 1851 were aged 20 or under, including Bridget and Ellen Mc- Quire, two sisters from Newcastle described as ballad singers.

They were aged only 12 and 14. The youngest prisoner in the jail at the time was an Irish-born boy, James Horn - an 11-year-old common labourer.

By the time of the 1881 census, Durham was holding 501 prisoners. Sixty-three of them were coal miners, 68 soldiers and 21 sailors.

Offences convicted by miners were often associated with drunkenness, or occasionally violence erupting during employment disputes.

For soldiers and sailors, military indiscipline was a common offence and many of those jailed were awaiting court martial.

Occasionally, sailors were imprisoned for refusing to sail on what they considered un-seaworthy ships.

The number of young people in prison was always a cause for concern.

Following a Government inspection in 1851, a report noted that the inmates encountered by young boys during their stay often influenced the future criminal activities of the youngsters.

"It is feared that the runaway apprentice is taught the art of picking pockets and the pickpocket is induced to become a burglar," stated the report.

Speaking further about the boys, the report noted that it was "pleasing" to their "precocious vanity that they become familiarised with crime and, gradually, think little of the punishment, from seeing their seniors along with them in prison".

It was noted that the boys often sat around all day in a room filled with up to 100 prisoners and often gave double the trouble to the officers than most of the adults.

The punishment of prisoners in the 19th century included the cat o' nine tails, but punishment was determined by age. Generally, boys could only be whipped in the presence of the jailer and surgeon.

Prisoners were fed on a basic diet that included oatmeal, porridge, bread and fish - each served on set days.

The diet was very similar to that fed to the inmates of the workhouse in Crossgate and, in truth, conditions there were probably just as bad as in prison.

As in the workhouse, the prison inmates were kept busy at work. Their work included weaving, mat making, cleaning, teasing rope and joinery for the men, with knitting and sewing among the tasks given to women.

Of course, occasionally, prisoners kept busy with escape plans, but few succeeded in this respect.

● In next week's Past Times we will look at some of Durham's notable escapes.

Eating Out