Large oakum room (under the silent system) at the Middlesex House of Correction, Coldbath Fields

Book illustration of the large oakum-picking room, operated under the silent system, at the Middlesex House of Correction, Coldbath Fields, from page 301 of 'The criminal prisons of London and scenes of prison life' by Henry Mayhew and John Binny. One of the punishments in Victorian prisons was to unravel old rope to extract the fibre, or oakum. "Each picker has by his side his weighed quantity of old rope, cut into lengths about equal to that of a hoop-stick. Some of the pieces are white and sodden-looking as a washer-woman's hands, whilst others are hard and black with the tar upon them. The prisoner takes up a length of junk and untwists it, and when he has separated it into so many corkscrew strands, he further unrolls them by sliding them backwards and forwards on his knee with the palm of his hand, until the meshes are loosened. Then the strand is further unraveled by placing it in the bend of a hook fastened to the knees, and sawing it smartly to and fro, which soon removes the tar and grates the fibres apart. In this condition, all that remains to be done is to loosen the hemp by pulling it out like cotton wool, when the process is completed."

A guard tells the authors that it is hard work for new inmates with soft hands as "the hard rope cuts and blisters their fingers, so that until the skin hardens, it's very painful". At Coldbath Fields 3.5 tons of oakum were picked a week "which, at the present [1862] price of £5 the ton, would produce the sum of £17 10s."