Lancaster

We visited Lancaster Castle on 24 October 2016, and joined a small group tour. The Castle contains an operating criminal court and until closed in March 2011 it held Europe’s longest-serving prison. The site has been fortified since Roman times with the current castle dating from Norman times. It is not on the very highest point of the hill; St Mary's has that honour so we can assume that a "church/priory" predates the Norman conquest.

Edward and Elizabeth Moors were convicted at the Lancaster Lent Assize in 1818; see the Family History section of this Blog.

Although talking photos in an operating court is usually not allowed, I was invited to be photographed in the dock where Edward and Elizabeth would have stood.

The dock has an interesting relic of this age, namely the branding iron which consists of a metal holdfast designed to immobilise the wrist and fingers, whilst a red hot branding iron embossed with the letter M was applied to the brawn of the thumb. This identified the convicted person as a 'malefactor' or 'evil-doer.'

The Branding Iron was last used in 1811. It was the practice of the gaoler to raise the convicted person's hand to show the Judge that, as it was said, a fair mark had been made. It became the rule that before a prisoner was tried he was required to raise his hand so that it could be seen whether he bore the brand mark and was therefore a previous offender.

A group of us on the tour were also briefly closed in one of the holding cells under the court; not even a slit of light enters.

In the early 1800s, convicts were not locked up in prisons and for the guilty punishment was dispersed quickly. The options were immediate hanging, public shaming (placed in stocks and similar public displays) or transportation. Those sentenced to transport in Lancaster had 16 days to walk to London; women (and children?) were in carts, probably pulled by the men. In London they were placed in hulks and usually had to work each day until their ship sailed.

Postscript:

Edward was one of 250 male convicts on the General Stewart that sailed from Portsmouth, England on 19 July 1818 arriving in Sydney on 31 December 1818. It must have been a good trip with only 4 convicts dying on the voyage.

Elizabeth with their 2 children arrived on the Lord Wellington on Wednesday 19th January 1820 with 87 (English and Irish) female prisoners and 45 children; the twenty four women who had young children with them on the voyage were sent immediately to the (old) Factory at Parramatta, located over the jail. Due to much controversy including speeches in parliament this voyage was almost a luxury passage by convict ship standards; well provisioned, lightly loaded with a lengthy stop over in Rio de Janeiro, and no lives lost.