Marshalsea

The Marshalsea was a prison on the south bank of the River Thames in Southwark, now part of London. From the 14th century until it closed in 1842, it housed men under court martial for crimes at sea, including those accused of "unnatural crimes," political figures and intellectuals accused of sedition, and—most famously—London's debtors, the length of their stay determined largely by the whim of their creditors.

Run privately for profit, as were all prisons in England until the 19th century, the Marshalsea looked like an Oxbridge college and functioned as an extortion racket. For prisoners who could pay, it came with access to a bar, shop, and restaurant, as well as the crucial privilege of being allowed out during the day, which meant debtors could earn money to satisfy their creditors. Everyone else was crammed into one of nine small rooms with dozens of others, possibly for decades for the most modest of debts, which increased as unpaid prison fees accumulated. A parliamentary committee reported in 1729 that 300 inmates had starved to death within a three-month period, and that eight to ten prisoners were dying every 24 hours in the warmer weather.

The prison became known around the world in the 19th century through the writings of the English novelist Charles Dickens, whose father was sent there in 1824 for a debt to a baker. Forced to leave school at the age of 12 for a job in a factory, Dickens based several of his characters on his experiences, most notably Amy Dorrit, whose father was also a Marshalsea debtor.

Much of the prison was demolished in the 1870s, though some of the buildings were used into the 20th century, housing an ironmonger's, a butter shop, and a printing house for the Marshalsea Press. All that is left of it now is the long brick wall that marked the southern boundary of the prison, on which a local history library now sits, the existence of what Dickens called "the crowding ghosts of many miserable years" marked only by a plaque from the local council. "t is gone now," he wrote, "and the world is none the worse without it."