Convicts working in the garden ground, attended by an armed warder

Book illustration showing convicts working in the garden ground at Millbank prison, attended by an armed warder, from page 267 of 'The criminal prisons of London and scenes of prison life' by Henry Mayhew and John Binny. The authors note that at Millbank there was a 'garden class' or 'convalescent class' of prisoner consisting "principally of convicts labouring under scrofula or falling away in flesh". In the garden area the authors meet "three 'privileged men,' in light-blue clothes, with two red stripes on the arm. Such men, we were told, can be kept here instead of being sent to the Hulks or the other public works. They are always the best-behaved and most trusty of the prisoners." One of these men the authors recognise as "the once eminent City merchant, who was sentenced to transportation for fraud some months ago." The warder comments that "life here must be a great change, for such as him especially. Some of the prisoners are better off than ever they were; but a person like that one, who thought nothing of dealing to the extent of a quarter of a million a day, must feel it sorely."