Newgate - exercise yard

An illustration of prisoners in the Exercise Yard at Newgate prison, from 'London: a Pilgrimage' by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré, 1872. Jerrold writes that "a turn round Newgate will surprise many a smug, respectable Londoner, who imagines that the people who beg or steal in order to avoid work, are all natives of Whitechapel or Drury Lane". Jerrold observed, in the exercise yard, a tall prisoner who had been a colonel in the English army. In another yard he saw "the wholly crushed little postman [who] alone represented the wage class". He also noted that: "The main body of the prisoners were in the garb of gentlemen ...Those who will not work, and cannot honestly live without work, are of all classes".

This image made an impact on Vincent Van Gogh who painted his own version (Prisoners Exercising) in 1890 while he was in an asylum in Saint-Rémy.