A chronology of the major events in the history of imprisonment for debt and escape from debt, focused on England, but touching on Scotland, Ireland, the British empire and elsewhere too. Compilation forever in progress.

1536

By the act 27 Henry 8 c.39, Suffolk Place, and its surrounding gardens and land, is transferred from Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, to Henry 8.

1545

Suffolk Place is converted into a MInt.

1551

Under the charter of Edward VI, part of Southwark is sold to the City of London, becoming Bridge Ward Without, excepting the Mint. The Mint ceases production in August, due to reports of corruption.

1608

September 20: The Second Charter of King James I brings numerous religious liberties within the governance of the City of London, making some exceptions for Whitefriars and Blackfriars.

1649

September 4: ‘An Act for discharging Poor Prisoners unable to satisfie their Creditors‘ passed by the Commonwealth Parliament. First ever relief act for imprisoned debtors. Followed a few months later by:

December 21: ‘An Act for discharging from Imprisonment poor Prisoners unable to satisfie their Creditors’, which was revived in 1657.

1650

February 4: The English colony in Barbados passes ‘An Act for the relief of such Persons as lie in Prison, and others, who have not wherewith to pay their Creditors.’ It provides for debtors to work for their creditors until the debt is paid.

April 6: The Commonwealth Parliament passes ‘An Act for granting Habeas Corpus to poor prisoners for Debt, upon Oath that they are not worth £5, to go at Liberty upon their own Security, for prosecuting their own Habeas Corpus’, which was revived in 1657.

1652

April 27: The relief acts of December 1649 and April 1650 are revived by “A further Additional Act for Relief of Poor Prisoners.”

1653

October 5: ‘An Act for the relief of Creditors and Poor Prisoners’ is passed.

1654

March 31, April 18 and May 16: Three acts passed, suspending the working of the act of October 1653.

May 26: ‘An Ordinance for Relief of Debtors in Scotland in some Cases of Extremity’ is passed.

June 9: ‘An Ordinance for relief of Creditors and Poor Prisoners’ is passed.

August 11: ‘An Additional Ordinance for the Relief of Creditors and Poor Prisoners’ is passed.

1657

June 26: “An Act touching several Acts and Ordinances made since the twentieth of April, 1653, and before the third of September, 1654, and other Acts” revives the acts of 21 December 1649 and 6 April 1650, having them in force for 12 months from 24 June 1657.

1676

First use of the term ‘Alsatia’ in relation to the area around Whitefriars, by Henry Care in ‘The Character of an Honest Lawyer.’

May 17: Henry Care reports the ‘Amazon Guards’ of the Mint vanquishing a party of bailliffs, attempting to make arrests in the sanctuary.

1691

Publication of Moses Pitt’s ‘The Cry of the Oppressed’, a collection of testimonies from incarcerated debtors on the privations and tortures they suffer in prison.

The Riot of the Alsatians against The Templars, on the occasion of the Temple authorities blocking up a gate between the Temple and Whitefriars.

1693

Execution of Frances Winter for his part in the riot against the Templars.

1697

The Act against Pretended Privileged Places abolishes Alsatia and the other sanctuaries in London.

1702

May 25: Both ‘An Act for the Relief of Poor Prisoners for Debt’ and ‘An Act for the better Improvement of Suffolk Place, in the Borough of Southwark, in the County of Surrey’ gain Royal Assent.

1705

Parliamentary hearings into Southwark Mint, which has revived after the suppression of 1697.

1710

Publication of A True Description of the Mint.

1712

Parliament passes the first relief act requiring that the debtors’ names and abodes are published in the London Gazette, 10 Anne, c.20/c.29.

1713

Publication of Memoirs of the Mint and the Queen’s Bench.

An election is held for Southwark, returning John Lade and Fisher Tench to parliament. However, it’s legitimacy is contested, on the grounds that voters in the Mint were not eligible. The result is annulled.

1714

May 3: A new election is held, with the same result as the overturned one, John Lade and Fisher Tench being elected.

1720

August: The South Sea Bubble bursts, meaning many investors are plunged into debt.

Chief Justice Prat expands the Rules of the King’s Bench Prison to encompass St. George’s Fields.

1722

The Act Against Southwark Mint dissolves the sanctuary, and offers terms for the inhabitants. Nearly six thousand people register for relief, the majority having it granted.

1723

February 11: Parliament considers, and rejects, a petition from ‘several thousands of his Majesty’s subjects under insolvency in Suffolk-place’ [i.e. the Mint].

July 16: The first Surrey Quarter Sessions to hear the Minters’ applications for relief is held, at Guildford.

The ‘Black Act‘ is passed, later used to prosecute some of the Wapping Minters for ‘going in disguise.’

1724

January 14: Penultimate hearings of the minters applying for relief, at Croydon Quarter Sessions.

April 14: Last of the quarter sessions, at which there were hearings of the minters applying for relief, was held in Ryegate.

November: Both the  Act relieving insolvent debtors and the Act suppressing Wapping Mint become law. The latter definitively suppresses Wapping Mint, and renders it impossible to claim any similar rights within the London Bills of Mortality.

December: Wapping Mint is suppressed by the local authorities, supported by soldiers from the Tower of London garrison.

1728

Publication of James Dalton’s ‘A Genuine Narrative of all the Street Robberies committed since October last’, which mentions a molly house in the mint, run by Sukey Bevell.

1729

In the wake of the reports of the parliamentary Gaols Committee, 2 George 2 c. 20, ‘An Act for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors‘ is passed. This is the first act to offer relief to fugitives who have gone abroad leaving unpaid debts. A further act, 2 George 2 c. 22, ‘An act for the relief of debtors with respect to the imprisonment of their persons‘, limits the privations they suffer during arrest and in prison.

A workhouse is built in Mint Street, opening around Christmas.

1742

An Act for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors is passed.

1747

An Act for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors is passed.

1753

Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, for the better preventing clandestine marriages, is passed. It puts to an end so called ‘Fleet Marriages’, performed in prisons such as the Fleet, and (by this time, former-) sanctuaries such as the Savoy and the Mint.

1759

A major reform, the Lord’s Act, 32 George 2, c.28, alleviates the conditions of imprisoned debtors.

1760

An Act for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors is passed.

1761

The previous years relief act is adjusted, owing to a loophole that thousands of debtors took advantage of.

1772

The Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts – also known as the Thatched House or the Craven Street Society – is founded in London.

1777

First publication of John Howard’s “The State of the Prisons in England and Wales.”

1780

The Gordon Riots result in the majority of London’s prisons being opened, many totally destroyed, with thousands of debtors thereby released.

1783

Parliament passes “An Act to prevent Prisoners in the King’s Bench Prison, or the Rules thereof, or their Families or Servants, gaining Settlements in the Parish of Saint George the Martyr”, 23 George 3 c. 23.

1784

Third edition of John Howard’s The State of the Prisons is published, the last during his lifetime.

1785

Parliament passes “An Act for reducing the Time for the Imprisonment of Debtors committed to Prison, upon Prosecutions in Courts of Conscience, in London, Middlesex , and the Borough of Southwark , to the same Periods in each Court; and for abolishing Fees paid by those Debtors to Gaolers, or others, on Account of such Imprisonment”, 25 George 3 c. 45.

1786

Parliament passes two acts concerning imprisoned debtors: “An Act for regulating the Time of the Imprisonment of Debtors imprisoned by Process from Courts instituted for the Recovery of Small Debts; for abolishing the Claim of Fees of Gaolers, and others, in the Cases of such Imprisonment; and for ascertaining the Qualifications of the Commissioners” and “An act for the further relief of debtors, with respect to the imprisonment of their persons; and to oblige debtors, who shall continue in execution in prison beyond a certain time, and for sums not exceeding what are mentioned in the act, to make discovery of, and deliver upon oath, their estates for their creditors benefit.”

1790

The Rules of the King’s Bench Prison, the area outside the walls in which prisoners could get permission to reside, is redefined.

1792

April: Publication of the Report from the Committee Appointed to Enquire Into the Practice and Effects of Imprisonment for Debt.

1793

Renewal of The Lords’ Act of 1758.

1794

The first relief act since the Gordon Riots is passed: 34 George 3, c.69: An act for the discharge of certain insolvent debtors.

1795

The Rules of the King’s Bench prison redefined once again.

1799

The Lords Act is made perpetual.

1801

On 23rd June, An act for the further relief of debtors, with respect to the imprisonment of their persons was passed, allowing creditors to release debtors without giving up any claim on the latter’s property. Four days later on 24th June, ‘An act for the relief of certain insolvent debtors’ was passed, allowing debtors to petitions for release.

1804

Another relief act passed, on 30th July.

1805

An act amending the previous years’ relief act is passed on 7th February.

1806

Another relief act passed, 21st July.

1808

An Act for the Discharge of Debtors in Execution for Small Debts, from Imprisonment in certain Cases passed, 30th June.

1809

An Act for the Relief of Prisoners in Custody for Non-payment of Money pursuant to Orders of Courts of Equity (49 Geo. 3. c.6.) passes on the 13th of March

1812

An act to allow Parochial Relief to Prisoners confined under Mesne Process for Debt in such Gaols as are not County Gaols becomes law on the 29th July 1812.

1813

An act authorising the Commissioners of Customs and Excise to make an Allowance for the necessary Subsistence of poor Persons confined for Debts or Penalties sued for under their Orders becomes law on the 23rd of March 1813.

1831

The Merthyr Uprising, considered the first proletarian insurrection in Britain, is sparked by the seizure of property for unpaid debts. The local debtors courts are ransacked.

1843

Imprisonment for debt abolished in New South Wales.

1858

Abolition of the ‘Franchise’ debtor prisons in Hallamshire, Hexham, Knaresborough, Newark, Swansea and Wakefield, by the act 21 Victoria c.22.

1867

Abolition of imprisonment for debt in civil cases, in France.

1869

The abolition of imprisonment for civil debt in England and Wales by the act of Parliament 32 & 33 Victoria c.62. This is coupled with a major reform of the bankruptcy laws (32 & 33 Victoria c. 71) and the dissolution of the Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors (32 & 33 Victoria c. 83). It does not abolish imprisonment for debt outright.

1870

“An Act to facilitate the Arrest of Absconding Debtors”, the Absconding Debtors Act, 33 & 34 Victoria c. 76, allowing for the arrest of debtors considered to be at risk of flight.

Imprisonment for debt abolished in Singapore.

1872

Imprisonment for debt abolished in Jamaica.

August 6: The Debtors Act (Ireland) passes, abolishing civil imprisonment for debt.

1873

January 1: The Act for the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt in Ireland comes into force.

1874

Imprisonment for debt abolished in New Zealand.

1879

Imprisonment for debt abolished in Barbados.

1880

September 7: Debtors (Scotland) Act passed, abolishing imprisonment for debt in Scotland, from the 1st of January 1881.

1888

Imprisonment for debt abolished in Antigua.

1970

The Administration of Justice Act, 1970 c. 31, section 11 reforms the Debtors Act 1869 by further restricting the circumstances in which debtors may be sent to prison.