3-021-562 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The last of the old Fleet Prison, [London], 1868. 'The last remnant...has now disappeared, after existing nearly eight centuries, including two centuries as a prison for debtors, in which state it was quite discreditable to English civilisation. It had been used, indeed, for the confinement of debtors as long ago as the thirteenth century...The prison was burnt in the Great Fire of 1666...In the riots of 1780 the Fleet was [again] burnt, and the prisoners liberated by the rioters, who gave notice to the prisoners of the period of their coming; and on being informed it would be inconvenient, on account of the lateness of the hour, postponed their visit till the following day. The prison was rebuilt, in 1781-2, of brick, in a plainer style, parallel with the present Farringdon-street...prisoners heard the roar of the great City from without, in contrast with the stagnant life within the prison walls, above...which...St. Paul's boomed its solemn note of time...[Eventually] the Fleet [was] taken down and the materials...were sold in 1846. The ground, after lying almost useless for seventeen years, was sold to the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, which crosses the prison site; and the boundary-wall is now in course of removal'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.