Woking’s hidden prison to see light of day
Press Contact: Daniel Shepherd
Phone: 07535881679
Email: Institutionalhistory@gmail.com
The Institutional History Society are excited to announce the unveiling of a new website on the 30th July dedicated to exploring the astounding and oftentimes gruesome crimes of inmates at Woking’s Victorian Prison.
The Institutional History Society was originally set-up in June 2019 to explore the lurid, the scandalous, and often unfair lives, treatments and crimes of people from times gone by.
Daniel Shepherd BA, co-founder of the Society, says-
“The past is in constant symbiosis with the future, it feeds our impending actions, explains deep-held sentiments and can constrain us with outmoded prejudices: none more so than our attitudes towards the mentally ill, the poor and imprisoned. These people, by virtue (or ill-fortune) of genetic, class or circumstantial quirks, were forced to the fringes of society, incarcerated, mistreated, sometimes experimented upon and then forgotten: unable to give voice to themselves and fated to fade from history. Until now.”
Gem Minter, co-founder and keen advocate of social history adds –
‘We set up this society to battle the erasure of peripheral peoples from the historical record. These inmates, these patients, had lives as exciting and vivid as any baron or poet, they loved, they lost, they endured, but most of all they existed: it’s time we told their stories.’
Their current Project is researching the men’s Woking Invalid Convict Prison, active between 1859-1889, investigating the desultory to the deranged, the dangerous and the detained and everything in-between. Leaving no page unturned, they have already discovered fascinating tales of impropriety in a prison which once housed the likes of Fenians, zoophiles, a Jack the Ripper suspect and more.
In order to preserve and share these captivating stories, they have created a new website to house archival documents, useful resources, a forum for genealogists and hundreds of hours of investigative research poured into podcasts, biographies and blogs – all exploring in detail, the histories of antiquity’s forgotten people.
So if you’re interested in historic true crime, want to find out if one of your ancestors was a felon or if you’re interested in volunteering, why not drop them an email at institutionalhistory@gmail.com…