Inveraray Jail - Prisoner Records
INVERARAY JAIL - PRISONER RECORDS http://www.inverarayjail.co.uk/ USE THE EDIT / FIND ON TOOLBAR TO SEARCH NAMES and ENTRIES BY TOWN and VILLAGE By tradition and history 'the county town Argyll, Inveraray's courthouse and prisons, designed by James Gillespie Graham in 1813, after original plans by Robert Reid in 1807, opened in 1820 - Whilst Reid's original plans hadd included a courthouse and three prisons - one for males, one for females and one for debtors - The Prison Commissioners, lacking finances, had to be content with building only the courthouse and but one prison, eight cellss contained in its two floors - Following the 1839 Prisons (Scotland) Act, a second prison, separating men and women and designed by Thomas Brown of Edinburgh, was opened at the end of 1848, the new three-storied prison having twelve cells, an exercise gallery and a pair of outdoor exercise yards, the idea of separating male and female prisoners stemming from the somewhat misguided persuasion that such a system gave prisoners time to reflect upon their sins ! After the passing of the 1877 Prisons (Scotland) Act, the responsibility for the running and financing prisons taken away from local authorities, small local prisons were successively closed in favour of large prisons, such as Glasgow's 1882-built Barlinnie Prison and though Inveraray's jail, the last of the small prisons, was closed on August 31, 1889, courts continued to sit in Inveraray's courthouse until around 1954.4. After an extensive programme of restoration was undertaken by The Scottish Office in the 1980's, the building then lying empty for some years, Inveraray Jail was opened to the public as a 'visitor attraction' in May 1989 and the records of more than 4,000 of its Victorian prisoners put online for the interest of family history researchers.
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