100 pages, paperback, 146mm x 208mm.
17 B&W photos
Published by Leonie Press, March 2002.
Reprinted December 2003, March 2007
Price: £ 5.99 Postage and Packing: £ 1.50
Whether the inmates would have agreed is another matter, although the food was thought by many to be superior to that provided in the workhouse. The regime included the physical exertions of the treadmill, the drudgery of picking oakum, the pointlessness of turning a crank which "ground nothing but air", the back-breaking ordeal of moving heavy cannonballs from one pile to another and occasional floggings.
Over the years, as well as local criminals, debtors and offenders against the Game and Bastardy Laws, Knutsford Prison housed disaffected Chartists and those awaiting transportation. From 1886, until it was taken over by the Home Office as an Army detention barrack in 1915, nine executions took place on its scaffold.
Retired prison chaplain David Woodley has researched the history of the prison and describes the work of its governors, chaplains, surgeons and visiting magistrates. He looks at the role of the warders and at the lives of the male, female and juvenile prisoners who made up the gaol community.
This book provides a fascinating glimpse into an often overlooked aspect of Knutsford's social history.
To assist genealogists and local historians the book has been comprehensively indexed. The index can be consulted on-line, so that you can see if there is mention of a person, place or event of interest to you. To access the Index, click here
David Woodley worked for 20 years as a prison chaplain, serving in Wormwood Scrubs, Cardiff, Risley and Styal. He initially retired and lived in Macclesfield, Cheshire for a number of years before he and his wife moved to Somerset in 2007 to be closer to their grandchildren. /div>
