DOCSLIB.ORG

(Adapted from 'The Quaker Peace Testimony', This Timeline Illustrates

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
(Adapted from 'The Quaker Peace Testimony', This Timeline Illustrates (Adapted from ‘The Quaker peace testimony’, this timeline illustrates some of the Quaker work for peace that has gone on over the last 350 years.) 1661 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The declaration to King Charles II, signed by George Fox and eleven others, said Quakers “utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons”. The declaration was made against the backdrop of violent times in London. In 1661 many died in street battles and four thousand Quakers were in prison. The king outlawed meetings of Quakers, and others. The declaration was a political and strategic document, aimed to convince others that Quakers posed no threat because they rejected the use of violence. 1693 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania writes his influential “An essay towards the present and future peace of Europe”, proposing the establishment of a European Parliament as the best means to avoid future war. Penn was imprisoned four times for stating his Quaker beliefs. Penn advocated religious toleration and envisioned a colony based on religious and political freedom. 1807 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Slave Trade Act makes the Transatlatic slave trade illegal in Britain: Quakers had campaigned for the ban for many years since they first considered it in 1727 (23.24 Quaker faith & practice). 1813 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elizabeth Fry’s first visit to Newgate Prison. The conditions she saw horrified her. The women's section was overcrowded with women and children, some of whom had not even received a trial. She stayed the nights in some of the prisons and invited nobility to come and stay and see for themselves the conditions prisoners lived in. Her kindness helped her gain the friendship of the prisoners and they began to try to improve their conditions for themselves. Her concern for the welfare of prisoners causes a revolution in thinking about prison conditions. 1830s to 1860s ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Underground Railroad is developed in secret in America to help slaves escape from the southern states. Rev. Samuel R. Ward, a one-time resident of Poughkeepsie, describes in his autobiography the escape of his parents from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to southern New Jersey in 1820. They left with the intention "to reach a Free State, and live among Quakers." They found refuge in Greenwich, New Jersey. There were no slave-holders there, despite New Jersey being at that time a slave state, and, quoting Ward, "when the slave-catchers came prowling about the Quakers placed all manner of peaceful obstacles in their way.” 1846 to 1847 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quakers are remembered for what they did to help in the relief of the Irish Famine after the potato crop failed in 1846 for the second year running. When Quakers realised the seriousness of the famine, straight away they formed a committee to give help. Money, food and clothing were sought from Quakers in England and America. This was the first international relief effort. 1852 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quaker John Bright, MP for Manchester, delivers a speech to the House of Commons in opposition to the Crimean War, described as a ‘poetic anti-war masterpiece’. The Crimean War is seen as the first “modern” war in the age of mass communications – the first to be photographed, the first to use the telegraph, the first “newspaper war”. Britons were depicted as standing up against the Russian Bear to defend liberty– a fight of “Right Against Wrong’. As in our recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reason given by the British government for its involvement in the Crimea (the defence of Turkish sovereignty against Russian aggression) was a long way from its real and deeper aims: to reduce the power of Russia as a rival to British imperial interests; and to secure a firmer hold on the government of the Ottoman Empire. Because of this gap there was an important role for journalists and pamphleteers, poets, artists and photographers, orators and priests. 1870 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The War Victims Relief Committee (FWVRC) undertook relief work among the civilian population of towns and villages devastated in the Franco-Prussian War. This was the first time the Quaker star - the badge of the Quaker relief worker - was used, and the policy of no discrimination between the "sides" in war was formally adopted. War Victims Relief Committees were revived in 1876 for Eastern Europe and in 1912 for the Balkans. An official committee was also active in South Africa after 1900, particularly among Boers in internment camps. After the outbreak of war in 1914 the War Victims Relief Committee was revived to undertake overseas work of relief and later post-war reconstruction. 1914 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Friends Ambulance Unit is founded, in which many serve as an alternative to military service in WWI. It was refounded at the start of World War II and more than 1,300 members were trained and went on to serve as ambulance drivers and medical orderlies in London during the Blitz, as well as in many countries overseas. 1916 to 1918 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conscription starts in Britain and, as well as a opposing this, many Friends are conscientious objectors to military service and are imprisoned or sent to do “work of national importance” such as farming or mining. 1947 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Friends Service Council and American Friends Service Committee accept the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Quakers around the world. 1950 onwards ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quaker opposition to nuclear weapons begins to build. Friends take part in marches to Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment throughout the 1950s and 60s. 1972 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Quaker-sponsored School of Peace Studies is opened at the University of Bradford. 1979 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friends take part in marches at Greenham Common against cruise missiles and support Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. 1982 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twenty-five members of Quaker staff ask their employer, Meeting for Sufferings, to withhold that proportion of their tax that would fund war preparations, until assured that it would be used for non-military purposes. Meeting for Sufferings accepts the request and challenges the law in court, unsuccessfully. 1982 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quaker House Belfast– established as a discrete place for people to talk and listen during ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The international campaign to ban landmines coalition formed. A prominent supporter was Diana, Princess of Wales. The organization and its founding coordinator, Jody Williams, jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to bring about the Mine Ban Treaty (Ottawa Treaty). Informal discussions which helped to launch this campaign began at Quaker United Nations Office Geneva and New York. 2009 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rachel and Sally celebrate a civil partnership at Bourneville Meeting House. Photo: Hannah Eno. At Yearly Meeting (the ultimate decision making body of Quakers in Britain) in York, Quakers sought a change in the law so that same sex marriages can be prepared, celebrated, witnessed, reported to the state, and recognised as legally valid, without further process, in the same way as opposite sex marriages are celebrated in Quaker meetings. April 2011 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quakers in Britain decide to boycott products from the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The settlements are illegal under international law. Quakers regard this boycott as a nonviolent move for peace for Israelis and Palestinians. August 2011 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1,500 Quakers came together in Canterbury for Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG) and made a corporate commitment to become a low carbon sustainable community. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • GOING to SEE a MAN HANGED Page 1 of 10
    GOING TO SEE A MAN HANGED Page 1 of 10 GOING TO SEE A MAN HANGED. By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY JULY 1840. X-- , who had voted with Mr. Ewart for the abolition of the punishment of death, was anxious to see the effect on the public mind of an execution, and asked me to accompany him to see Courvoisier killed. We had not the advantage of a sheriffs order, like the "six hundred noblemen and gentlemen" who were admitted within the walls of the prison; but determined to mingle with the crowd at the foot of the scaffold, and take up our positions at a very early hour. As I was to rise at three in the morning, I went to bed at ten, thinking that five hours' sleep would be amply sufficient to brace me against the fatigues of the coming day. But, as might have been expected, the event of the morrow was perpetually before my eyes through the night, and kept them wide open. I heard all the clocks in the neighbourhood chime the hours in succession; a dog from some court hard by kept up a pitiful howling; at one o'clock, a cock set up a feeble melancholy crowing; shortly after two the daylight came peeping grey through the window- shutters; and by the time that X-- arrived, in fulfilment of his promise, I had been asleep about half-an-hour. He, more wise, had not gone to rest at all, but had remained up all night at the Club along with Dash and two or three more.
    [Show full text]
  • Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London
    Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London Christine Winter Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London Royal Holloway, University of London, 2012 2 Declaration I, Christine Winter, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Date: 3 Abstract In the history of crime and punishment the prisons of medieval London have generally been overlooked. This may have been because none of the prison records have survived for this period, yet there is enough information in civic and royal documents, and through archaeological evidence, to allow a reassessment of London’s prisons in the later middle ages. This thesis begins with an analysis of the purpose of imprisonment, which was not merely custodial and was undoubtedly punitive in the medieval period. Having established that incarceration was employed for a variety of purposes the physicality of prison buildings and the conditions in which prisoners were kept are considered. This research suggests that the periodic complaints that London’s medieval prisons, particularly Newgate, were ‘foul’ with ‘noxious air’ were the result of external, rather than internal, factors. Using both civic and royal sources the management of prisons and the abuses inflicted by some keepers have been analysed. This has revealed that there were very few differences in the way civic and royal prisons were administered; however, there were distinct advantages to being either the keeper or a prisoner of the Fleet prison. Because incarceration was not the only penalty available in the enforcement of law and order, this thesis also considers the offences that constituted a misdemeanour and the various punishments employed by the authorities.
    [Show full text]
  • Engaging the Trope of Redemptive Suffering: Inmate Voices in the Antebellum Prison Debates
    Engaging thE tropE of rEdEmptivE SuffEring: inmatE voicES in thE antEbEllum priSon dEbatES Jennifer Graber n 1842 American Sunday-School Union pamphlet presented the ideal prisoner. According to the text, Jack Hodges—a convicted Amurderer serving a twenty-one-year sentence at New York’s Auburn Prison—admitted his guilt, displayed proper penitence, reformed his behavior, and expressed thanks for his prison experi- ence. The Reverend Anson Eddy, who had interviewed Hodges in 1826, regaled readers with stories of Hodges’s modest upbring- ing and descent into lawlessness. He detailed Hodges’s crime, trial, and death sentence, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. According to Eddy, Hodges encountered upstand- ing prison staff and a kind chaplain at Auburn. In his solitary cell, the inmate read his Bible, which helped lead him from sin to grace. Not only did Hodges experience personal salvation, the prisoner committed himself to evangelizing others. Eddy’s pamphlet is full of quotations attributed to Hodges, including the inmate’s claim that “I loved [Auburn]. I loved the prison, for there I first met Jesus.”1 pennsylvania history: a journal of mid-atlantic studies, vol. 79, no. 2, 2012. Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania Historical Association This content downloaded from 128.118.152.206 on Wed, 14 Mar 2018 15:39:26 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms PAH 79.2_04_Graber.indd 209 18/04/12 12:28 AM pennsylvania history While Eddy’s pamphlet, like so much antebellum religious literature, focused on the story of an ideal convert, it also featured social commentary on the nation’s prisons.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise of Prisons and the Origins of the Rehabilitative Ideal
    Michigan Law Review Volume 77 Issue 3 1979 The Rise of Prisons and the Origins of the Rehabilitative Ideal Carl E. Schneider University of Michigan Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Law and Psychology Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons, and the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Carl E. Schneider, The Rise of Prisons and the Origins of the Rehabilitative Ideal, 77 MICH. L. REV. 707 (1979). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol77/iss3/27 This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE RISE OF PRISONS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE REHABILITATIVE IDEAL Carl E. Schneider* THE DISCOVERY OF THE ASYLUM: SOCIAL ORDER AND DISORDER IN THE NEW REPUBLIC. By David J. Rothman. Boston: Little, Brown. 1971. Pp. xx, 376. $12.50. I. INTRODUCTION In 1971, David Rothman published this appealing and pro­ vocative study of the rise of the large custodial institution-the penitentiary, the insane asylum, and the almshouse-in Jack­ sonian America. The Discovery of the Asylum has been influen­ tiaP and remains the best general treatment of prisons in antebel­ lum America. 2 It merits careful, though cautious, attention from the legal community. This essay attempts to give it that attention and to use the opportunity to begin to explore a significant but little-studied question: When did what Professor Allen has called the rehabilitative ideal3 first begin to be taken seriously in Eng­ land and the United States? A review of Rothman's book invites that inquiry because an examination of the book's two main • Editor-in-Chief, Michigan Law Review.-Ed.
    [Show full text]
  • In Jail with Charles Dickens (1896)
    fCROFOUMED BY PRESERVATION €. ii'4 ¥ I DATE.:.!FCll 2.1..1987. itt iatt wUto ffiteleu / / Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with fundiri^ from UnjA^rsity of : Toronto _ https://archive.org/details/injailwithcharlOOtrum IN JAIL WTTH Charles Dickens BY ALFRED TRUMBLE Editor of The Collector ’• MiCROFORMED o' PRESSRVATIOM SERVICES yUL 2 1 1987 DATE London SUCKLING & GALLOWAY 1896 Printed in America. INTRODUCTORY. EADERS of Charles Dickens must all have remarked the deep and abiding Interest he took in that grim accessory to civili- zation, the prison. He not only went jail hunt- ing whenever opportunity offered, but made a profound study of the rules, practices, and abuses of these institutions. Penology was, in fact, one of his hobbies, and some of the most powerful passages in his books are those which have their scene of action laid within the shadow of the gaol. It was this fact which led to the compilation of the papers comprised in the present volume. The writer had been a student of Dickens from the days when the publication of his novels in serial form was a periodical event. When he first visited England, many of the landmarks which the novelist had, in a manner, made historical, were still in existence, but of the principal prisons which figure in his works Newgate was the only one which existed in iv Introductory. any approximation to its integrity. The Fleet and the King’s Bench were entirely swept away; of the Marshalsea only a few buildings remained, converted to ordinary uses. In this country, however, the two jails which interested him, still remain, with cer- tain changes that do not impair their general conformance to his descriptions.
    [Show full text]
  • Irregular Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, and the "French Pox," C
    Minnesota State University, Mankato Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects Capstone Projects 2020 "The Cruelest of Ills": Irregular Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, and the "French Pox," c. 1550-1630 Sarah Fischer Minnesota State University, Mankato Follow this and additional works at: https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds Part of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons Recommended Citation Fischer, S. (2020). "The Cruelest of Ills": Irregular practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, and the "French Pox," c. 1550-1630 [Master’s thesis, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/1069/ This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects at Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. "The Cruelest of Ills": Irregular Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, and the "French Pox," c. 1550-1630 By Sarah Fischer A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts In History Minnesota State University, Mankato Mankato, Minnesota May, i April 27th, 2020 "The Cruelest of Ills": Irregular Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, and the "French Pox," c.
    [Show full text]
  • Worrying About Crime: Experience, Moral Panics and Public Opinion in London, 1660–1800
    This is a repository copy of Worrying About Crime: Experience, Moral Panics and Public Opinion in London, 1660–1800 . White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/97078/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Shoemaker, R.B. (2017) Worrying About Crime: Experience, Moral Panics and Public Opinion in London, 1660–1800. Past and Present, 234 (1). pp. 71-100. ISSN 0031-2746 https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtw046 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Worrying about crime: Experience, moral panics, and public opinion in London, 1660-1800 Robert B. Shoemaker University of Sheffield Final Version Submitted 12 February 2016 [email protected] Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Matthew Green, Tim Hitchcock, Joanna Innes, David Lemmings, Richard Ward, Phil Withington and the journal’s anonymous readers for their helpful comments and
    [Show full text]
  • Jesus College
    CD LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. ClMS COLLEGE HISTORIES CAMBRIDGE JESUS COLLEGE m gantbitattp of COLLEGE HISTORIES JESUS COLLEGE BY AKTHUR GRAY, M.A. FELLOW AND TUTOR OF JESUS COLLEGE PRESIDENT OF THE CAMBRIDGE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY LONDON F. E. ROBINSON & CO. 20 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY 1902 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE NUNS OF SAINT RADEGUND - I II. THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK - - 28 - III. THE REFORMATION 5 1 IV. ELIZABETH AND JAMES - ?O V. REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH - - 98 VI. RESTORATION DAYS - - 122 VII. BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS - 141 VIII. THE JESUS UNITARIANS - 163 IX. THREE FRIENDS - 189 X. THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE - - 2O7 XI. WITHIN LIVING MEMORY - - 222 APPENDIX - -235 INDEX - - - - - - 242 120065 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE - - I. VIEW BY LOGGAN (circa 1 688) Frontispiece - II. NORTH TRANSEPT OF THE CHAPEL Facing 24 III. ENTRANCE TO THE CLOISTERS 38 IV. THE HALL - - 92 V. A CORNER OF THE LIBRARY 134 VI. VIEW FROM THE FELLOWS' GARDEN l6o VII. THE CHAPEL, LOOKING WEST 2l8 VIII. ENTRANCE OF THE NUNNERY CHAPTER- HOUSE ... 234 INTRODUCTION THE writer of a College history must cut his coat accord- ing to the measure of his cloth. A knowledge of the conditions of his task should make the historian of Jesus take a modest view of its importance ; for, though the tree sprung from Alcock"s acorn has now grown to some size and not a little vigour, for the best part of its existence it was overshadowed by taller neighbours in the academic grove. In fact, except in some short periods of unwonted prosperity, Jesus was, until recent ' 1 times, emphatically a small college, low in revenues, and in numbers competing with Peterhouse and Magda- lene rather than with Caius or Christ's.
    [Show full text]
  • FIGURING FOLK JUSTICE Francis Howard Greenway's Prison
    INDEX JOURNAL ISSUE NO. 2 – LAW Helen Hughes – Figuring Folk Justice FIGURING FOLK JUSTICE Francis Howard Greenway’s Prison Scenes from Newgate, Bristol, 1812 by Helen Hughes HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.38030/INDEX-JOURNAL.2020.2.2 39 INDEX JOURNAL ISSUE NO. 2 – LAW Helen Hughes – Figuring Folk Justice INTRODUCTION Francis Howard Greenway’s pair of oil paintings, The Mock Trial and Untitled [Scene inside Newgate], 1812, are sometimes celebrated as the only known artworks made by an Australian convict to depict imprisonment in a British gaol prior to transportation. Whether or not this claim is true, the paintings undoubtedly offer valuable insight. In the first instance, they depict in detail English prison life at the tail end of the long eighteenth century, just prior to nation-wide reform based on the recommendations of figures like John Howard, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Fowell Buxton, James Neild, and Elizabeth Fry. Secondly, by capturing the proceedings of a mock trial, Greenway’s paintings distil into an image the coexistence of different modalities of law and justice during a transitional moment in English legal history. Greenway executed the paintings in the decades following the publication of William Blackstone’s landmark Commentaries on the Laws of England in 1765, which synthesised a range of material, legal, mythical, historical, and ideological precedents to present a picture of the common law as a principled and coherent legal structure—one to which all Englishmen were equally subject. Put another way, Greenway painted these images while English law was undergoing a formative shift: from a decentralised, localised, often unwritten, and customary practice, to a centralised, bureaucratised, written, and formal structure.
    [Show full text]
  • Crime and Punishment
    Crime and Punishment The Old Bailey This database has a fully searchable digital collection of criminal trials held at London’s central criminal court the Old Bailey, from 1674 to 1913, and of the Ordinary of Newgate’s Accounts, between 1676 and 1772. It allows access to over 197,000 trials and biographical details of approximately 2,500 men and women executed at Tyburn, free of charge for non- commercial use. Connected Histories Connected Histories brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and nineteenth century Britain with a single federated search that allows sophisticated searching of names, places and dates. A number of different resources are offered including, newspapers, government records, images and maps or local records. A search can be limited to a defined resource, for example, government records. Connected Histories also offers its own links to primary source databases which includes Nineteenth-Century British Pamphlets and provides a short description and weather it is open access. Users will need to select the cancel option if a Window Security Message Appears to access Connected Histories. London Lives London Lives makes available, in a fully digitized and searchable form, a wide range of primary sources about eighteenth-century London, with a particular focus on plebeian Londoners. This resource includes over 240,000 manuscript and printed pages from eight London archives and is supplemented by fifteen datasets created by other projects. The database draws from: Parish Archives; Criminal Records; Coroners Records; Hospital and Guild Records. It provides access to historical records containing over 3.35 million name instances.
    [Show full text]
  • Purgatory and Prison: Punitive Spaces in Old and Middle
    PURGATORY AND PRISON: PUNITIVE SPACES IN OLD AND MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE A Dissertation by KATAYOUN TORABI Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Britt Mize Co-Chair of Committee, Nancy Warren Committee Members, Laura Mandell Justin Lake Head of Department, Maura Ives August 2018 Major Subject: English Copyright 2018 Katayoun Torabi ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the connection between incarceration and purgative penance as it developed in medieval Christian tradition, with a particular focus on the ways in which that connection is represented in Old and Middle English literature. Both earthly and otherworldly prisons, I argue, were closely linked through their purpose of reform and rehabilitation. Prisons were seen as transformative spaces and punitive measures were a means of correcting and reintegrating transgressive members of the community. Medieval communities felt compelled to assist prisoners with alms, clothing, food, and spiritual guidance. In order to facilitate this aid, prisons were centrally located, punitive sentences were short, and prison boundaries were permeable, allowing inmates easy access to the outside world. Likewise, the community felt an obligation to care for and rehabilitate the transgressive dead in Purgatory through intercessory prayer, alms, and masses until the deceased received absolution and were released into Heaven. Because prisons were seen as morally and spiritually transformative spaces, a similar rhetoric emerged around earthly and otherworldly carceral spaces. Purgatory and—to a certain extent—Limbo were imagined as G-d’s divine prison in Old and Middle English literature; and prisons were often described by medieval writers as a kind of earthly Purgatory.
    [Show full text]
  • A Comparison Between Newgate Prison As Described in Contemporary Images and in Daniel Defo
    CORPORAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL PUNISHMENT? A COMPARISON BETWEEN NEWGATE PRISON AS DESCRIBED IN CONTEMPORARY IMAGES AND IN DANIEL DEFOE’S MOLL FLANDERS AND JEREMY BENTHAM’S MODEL FOR THE PANOPTICON Maria-Gloria Simpson Abstract: This article deals with the effects that the material shape of a prison and its system of punishment may have on offenders and touches on the role that art can play within a given society by denouncing or highlighting inhumane or corrupt procedures, thus putting in motion social and political reforms. As a case study Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon will be compared with Newgate Prison, as described in images of the period and in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, with a view to examining its potential implications for prisoners as a result of an increased institutional exercise of power and control. Although never built as a prison in England, over time the Panopticon offered an architectural blueprint for other institutional buildings such as hospitals, schools, factories and asylums in Britain and abroad. The choice of artefacts for this article was suggested by the perceived role that visual and narrative works played in eighteenth-century England as a propelling force for the reform of the penitentiary. In fact, with the benefit of hindsight, it could be argued that reciprocal influences were engendered whereby the realistic descriptions of prisons in artworks awoke a social consciousness of the need for penal reforms which, in turn, fed the public taste for further works portraying crime and punishment. In his book, Imagining
    [Show full text]