Remember the Poor Prisoners

Inmates of Newgate Prison often had to pay for food, bedding, heating and candles, and even for entering or leaving the prison. They were also allowed to purchase luxuries such as alcohol and permitted to gamble. Better off prisons therefore enjoyed greater comforts than poorer inmates. As this print demonstrates, some were permitted to beg for alms.

The cry of ‘Remember the Poor Prisoners’ was familiar enough in London to feature in Marcellus Laroon’s Cryes of the City of London, print series first published in 1687. This prisoner – perhaps a debtor rather than a criminal – carries a cup to receive coins and wears tattered clothes.