A chronology of the major events in the history of imprisonment for debt and escape from debt in England. Compilation in progress.
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 by
December 21:
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.’
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:
1654
March, April and May: Three acts
June 9:
August
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
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.
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
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.
1725
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.