The Old Portsmouth Prison (Cumberland Street/ Gloucester Road)
The Old Portsmouth Prison was opened in 1852 as a male convict public works penitentiary. The need for new prisons arose out of petitions raised by Australian landowners, in all but the Western part, which effectively ended largescale transportation as a form of punishment in 1852[1]. When this happened, over 9,000 convicts were awaiting transportation and thus Portsmouth prison was built to fill the gap.
The Prison was built along the lines of Joshua Jebb’s other prison designss, with convict accommodation set in two parallel four storey brick wings, each 36 feet wide. The west wing held 38 bays, was 292 feet long, and the east was 236 feet long. At the south end of the east wing, on its east side, was a 3-storey wing, which contained 35 punishment cells. In the reentrant angle (interior angle of the two wings) were officers’ quarters, to the north were medical offices complete with a second wing containing further offices and an infirmary. Between the east and west wings was a central block containing the kitchen, wash house, bakery and pump house. South of it were privies, bath house, and offices and to the north was the chapel. Another accommodation block was built between 1869 and 1870, and a new infirmary between 1870 and 1872.
A new wash house was built in 1870, a new shoemakers’ shop in 1881, a tailors and shoemakers’ workshop between 1886 and 1888. These were utilised by the prisoners as part of their incarceration “work”. After the closure of Pentonville Prison in 1885, Old Portsmouth Prison was selected to receive prisoners in their probationary stages i.e. the first few months of separate confinement. At some date before 1894 eight new punishment cells were erected south of the separate cells.
With the completion of the dockyards, and hit by a drought of new prisoners, the old prison closed in November 1894. The then defunct facilities were handed over to the Admiralty.
[1] A History of Police in England by W L Melville Lee