Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

Court dealt with both complaints in the same way, referring them to the Committees of the
respective hospitals.
Staff at Bridewell, too, exploited their intermediary roles between prisoners and the public
in the same manner as staff at Bethiem, although not to the same degree, not enjoying the
benefit of as curious a show to hawk. In 1714, for example, the Hempdressers and their servants
were berated for inter alia barring anyone from seeing a prisoner 'without strong drink or money'
as a bribe 541 . Just as the seventeenth century ruling requiring Bethlem staff to discriminate
between the quality of visitors had been allowed to lapse, the contemporaneous prohibitions of
holiday and Sunday visiting at Bridewell had to be reenacted in 1715 and 1742542.
The poors' box at Bridewell served the same function as that at Bethiem, and was framed
according to the same ideology, being erected in 'a convenient place...for Charity of well disposed
p[er]sons as come into this hospitall...for better reliefe of the poore'543.
As at Bethiem, many visited Bridewell out of higher motives, like John Newton, friend of
the poet Cowper, who paid a 'charitable visit' to an 'unhappy man' there in l784. It was for
similar reasons of charity and religious consolation that evangelicals like Wesley, and Alexander
'the Corrector' Cruden, visited inmates in other city prisons545.
The End Of Visiting At Bethiem
My concluding sub-heading is something of a misnomer, for (as already indicated) visiting did
not simply end at Bethlem, but was gradually curtailed by a series of measures culminating,
though not terminating, with the introduction of the ticket system in 1770. Indubitably, it was
late in coming, and both contemporaries and historians have been justified in criticising the
Governors for their failure to reform visiting any sooner. Despite regular and thoroughgoing
541 Thid, 9 Sept. 1714, lol. 18.
Ibid, 2 Dec. 1715 & 3 Sept. 1742, loIs 176 & 155.
ibtd, 7 Aug. 1673, fol. 548. This entry. occurs soon alter the rebuilding of Bridewell following the Great
Fire, when a new poors' box was ordered erected there.
Cowper, Letters, vol. ii, Itr dated 8 March 1784 220-21. Cowper, himself, was decidedly unsympathetic to
the applications of the man's family for his intercession in the case, having a high moral regard for 'th€ integrity'
of 'Justice'.
See Wesley, Jorarnals, paasim; Cruden, The Case of El,za&efh Canning & The History of Richard Potter,
a Sailor, and a Prisoner in Newgafe, who was tried at the OId-B,tilep in Jraly 176S...Centainin an acco*nf of
hi, being convinced of sin and converted in the cell, of Newyate (London, 1763).
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