Tag Archives: Prison

In the July of 1916, the Government introduced the Home Office Scheme whereby Conscientious Objectors were given the chance to leave prison and work at designated labour camps called “Work Centres.”. It was announced that from the 1st of March 1917 “Dartmoor Prison will be closed for convict prisoners and …

Most of the early reports of Dartmoor Prison paint a stark and sombre picture of prison life behind those imposing granite walls. But here is one from 1909 that almost reads like an advert for the gaol which could have appeared in a travel magazine. Clearly Mr. B. T. Bridges …

Following the cessation of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 many ex-servicemen found themselves homeless, out of work and penniless with no option but to tramp the country looking for employment, sleeping rough and begging. So great were the number of tramps and beggars that in 1824 the Vagrancy Act was …

Being incarcerated in any prison must instil a feeling of helplessness in any prisoner, but imagine what that emotion must feel like in times of a national crisis? Currently the world is fighting its way through the Covid 19 pandemic and any locked away must wish they could be with …

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again,” this could well be a motto of one John Michael Gasken, a prisoner serving time at Dartmoor Prison. In the February of 1931, he along with another prisoner, John Mullens effected an escape from the prison. Both remained at …

In the December of 1881 John Bray from Chudleigh, then aged 59, was arrested and charged with stealing  some horse hair along with other items from an outhouse at Bickington.  That same month he appeared at Ashburton Assizes charged charged with the offences and was  committed for trial at the …

Just imagine, it’s the late 1800s and a month ago you had just been ordained as a Catholic priest. You are enjoying your breakfast when out of the blue you get a request from your Bishop to go to the infamous Dartmoor Prison to conduct the Sunday service. The only …

It is reputed that Charles Ross was one a the very few Dartmoor prisoners who ever managed to escape and get completely away from penal servitude at the prison. In the mid 1800s Charles Ross, a landowner, was sentenced to serve seven years in Dartmoor Prison for robbery with violence. …

Let me take you back to Princetown on the morning of Tuesday the 4th of June 1907. It’s ten o’clock and Princetown is suddenly engulfed in a shroud of thick Dartmoor fog – nothing new there then. Through this opaque wall of mist can be heard the sound of horse’s …