Reforming our prisons in the 19th century, the story of Sarah Martin

Black Horse Row, 1841

Now I am always looking out for new blogs which extend my knowledge, and I am fully aware of my own limitations as a writer and researcher, so here is a very informative site on the 19th century and in particular the moves for prison reform.

So I would recommend Convictions, by Helen Rogers* and the rest I shall leave up to Helen.
“In 1818 a dressmaker stepped through the gates of Great Yarmouth Borough Gaol hoping to read the Bible with a young mother, confined to prison for cruelty to her infant daughter, and save her from damnation. 

For quarter of a century Sarah Martin continued visiting the gaol, preaching each Sunday in the prison chapel, teaching thousands of inmates to read and write, helping them learn new skills so they could support their families after release.

This blog is about the conviction, or faith, that drove Sarah Martin to devise one of the first schemes for prisoner rehabilitation.  After she died in 1843, the Victorians memorialised her as a courageous pioneer of prisoner reform but now Sarah Martin has long been forgotten. 

While her pious judgements about inmates will be off-putting to many of us today, her practical approach to working with prisoners and their families, sometimes for years after their sentence, has much to teach us, as does her kindness.

On this blog I will be sharing snippets from the book I am slowly writing, Conviction: Stories from a Nineteenth-century Prison. I have written some academic articles on reading, writing and singing at Yarmouth Gaol and am working on more. 

But in this blog I am experimenting with a different style of history writing that starts with people, their lived experience, voices and stories. If you have information on any of the individuals mentioned in this blog or would like to know more about them, please drop me an email h.rogers@ljmu.ac.uk.

So one to read.

Picture; Black Horse Row (Row 3) where the Riches family lived in 1841
* http://convictionblog.com/