Vox Meditantis

Friday, 7th November 1828

This morn I woke with my belly gnawing at itself like a cur with a bone. The bell rang for chapel but my legs would scarce carry me down the stone stair. Mary what was in the next cell did not rise at all and they carried her to the infirmary ward. I heard the turnkey say it were gaol fever but I think it were want of food more like.

We had our bread at eight of the clock. Mine were near black and hard as the flagstones but I ate every crumb and licked my fingers after. Some of the women save a morsel for the evening but I cannot. When the hunger is on me I must eat all or go mad with the wanting.

The chaplain come round after and spoke to us of sin and judgement. He asked me could I read my letters. I said I could read some from the dame school in Shoreditch before Mother died. He asked what I liked best to learn and I thought on it. I told him I liked my sums well enough when there were apples or farthings to count but letters pleased me more for I could make words. He seemed pleased at that and said he would bring me a tract to practise on. I did not say that I would rather have his bread than his tract but I kept quiet and thanked him proper.

When he were gone I had to empty the slop bucket. The water in it were still and I saw my face looking back at me. I did not know myself at first. My face is thin as paper now and my eyes are sunk back in my head like a dead thing. I am eleven years old but I look like an old woman. I looked away quick for it frightened me to see what I am become.

This afternoon we worked in the yard picking oakum till our fingers bled. The wind were bitter cold coming off the river and cut through my dress like knives. I thought on the mutton pies they sell at the corner by Newgate Street. The smell of them used to make my mouth water when I passed by with Mother. Now I am inside these walls and can smell naught but lime and misery.

At dinner we had gruel. It were thin as ditch water with scarce a oat to be found in it but it were hot and I drank it down grateful. Some of the women say the new gaoler is a hard man and gives us less than we ought to have. They say the old one were better but I cannot remember him. All I remember is being cold and hungry which is the same as now.

The woman in the corner who were here when I come says the Lord Mayor’s procession will be on Saturday next. She says there will be roasted chestnuts and hot pies sold in the streets and fine ladies in their carriages. I try not to think on it. What good does it do me to think on such things when I am locked up here? I shall not see it nor taste none of it.

Tonight after supper – which were the same bread as this morn with a bit of cheese hard as stone – I sat on my pallet and thought on the dame school again. I liked to make my letters best of all. I remember writing my name over and over on the slate. The scratch of it were pleasing. Now I have no slate and no name hardly. I am just a number here.

The candle is near burnt down and I must stop. My fingers are too cold to write more. Tomorrow will be the same as today I suppose. The same hunger, the same cold, the same grey walls. I am that tired of it all but there is naught to be done. I must bear it as I can.

Early nineteenth-century London saw contested prison reform and enduring hardship within institutions like Newgate Gaol, despite the Gaols Act 1823 mandating chaplains’ visits, paid gaolers, and separation of female prisoners to curb abuses. Newgate, notorious for overcrowding, disease, scant rations, and harsh labour such as oakum picking, remained emblematic of these failures in 1828. The diary’s mention of the upcoming Lord Mayor’s Show aligns with its fixed 9th November date in this era, a civic spectacle visible just beyond the prison walls. Subsequent legislation, notably the Prisons Act 1835 with central inspectors, strengthened oversight and advanced reform.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.