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Correctional Institutions information for Berkshire and places above it in the hierarchy
- General information about correctional institutions.
- House of Correction in Reading (the old lock-up) was in what is now Greyfriars church and housed petty criminals, ‘rogues and beggars’, see the Berkshire Echo Vol 67, 2014 from the RBA.
- The original county jail was built in 1786 in Reading and later replaced in 1844 by Reading Goal on the same site. A description is given in the Reading Gaol by Reading Town mentioned below.
- Reading Gaol (1844-2013):
- The original Reading Gaol, which was situated on the old Abbey site, was built in 1786. This was demolished in 1842 to make way for a new modern gaol which was completed in 1844, designed by George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffatt. It was based on a cross between Pentonville Prison and Warwick Castle. Descriptions of the (now closed) gaol from Berkshire FHS, RBA and Wikipedia.
- Records (ref PRP1) are held by the RBA.
- Digital download from Berkshire FHS of 6 burial records for prison executions between 1873 and 1913.
- Reading Gaol by Reading Town, Peter Southerton, ISBN 0750902965, 1993 is a detailed history with a list of governors and executions; this, and other related books, are held by Reading Central Library.
- Light in Dark Places: Photographs of Prisoners in Reading Gaol, article from the Berkshire Family Historian, Dec 1999.
- Visiting Justices’ report book on Reading Gaol, 1860-1878 (D/EX 1847), Reading Prison, 1878-2013 (P/RP1) and Reading Prison execution book (P/RP1/14/1)are held by the RBA.
- Their best known prisoner was Oscar Wilde in 1895. See his book Ballad of Reading Gaol, free online from Project Gutenberg, describing his time there.
- It housed internees during WW1, both enemy aliens and Irishmen involved in the Easter Rising, see the Berkshire Echo Vol 75, Apr 2016 from the RBA.
- The prisoners and/or staff will be listed periodically in the censuses and trade directories.
- Historical criminal records at the TNA for England and Wales (including some for Berkshire) are available online by subscription from Find My Past containing records from 1770 to 1935.
- The Complete Newgate Calendar is now online.
- Old Bailey Online - the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913: "A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."
- Derek Wilcox's Black Sheep Index - "an index of Victims and Villains (and some heroes too) extracted from newspaper reports of court cases and inquests between 1865-1900" (archived copy).
- Capital punishment in the 18th & 19th centuries - many listings and articles.
- About Prison History - from the Open University's International Centre for the History of Crime, Policing and Justice.
- The Digital Panopticon - "allows you to search millions of records from around fifty datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey".
