Pentonville Prison was created by Act of Parliament and building started from 1840 and ended in 1842: it received its first prisoners on 21 December 1842. The total cost to build the prison was £84,186 12s 2d which is approximately £5,086,302 and 32 pence in today’s money.
Joshua Jebb, Surveyor-General of Prisons, was the designer of Pentonville and he also served as one of the Board of Commissioners; over 60 prisons in the UK were designed with the blueprint of Pentonville in mind. It was originally constructed for the purpose of rehabilitation and, from the beginning, implemented the ‘separate system’ aiming to reform prisoners prior to transportation to Australia.
As part of the separation system, prisoners were only allowed out of their cells for exercise and church services. Even whilst exercising, they had to wear masks whilst exercising to prevent them recognising each other and to make communication almost impossible. Likewise, special chapels were built with stalls to keep prisoners physically separate and unable to converse.
The separation was noted even at the time to have a detrimental affect on the inmates mental health. An official report admitted that for every sixty thousand persons imprisoned in Pentonville, there were 220 cases of insanity, 210 cases of delusion and 40 suicides.
In 1902, at the closure of Newgate prison, condemned prisoners were taken to Pentonville to be executed. Moreover, those wishing to pursue a career as an executioner trained here. The last execution at this prison took place on 6 July 1961 when Edwin Bush, convicted for the murder of a shop assistant, was hanged.
The prison continues to function to this very day and typically houses inmates undergoing short sentences or beginning longer ones.