‘There are two ways to enter Dartmoor Prison, and it is far, far preferable to work there.’
- Anonymous
Her Majesty’s Prison, Dartmoor (known simply as ‘The Moor’ to prisoners and guards alike) is the oldest, and by far the most notorious prison still in use in the UK. Located in the middle of the Dartmoor National Park, it is also considered the most difficult prison to visit, especially from a long distance away. It’s reputation as being a punishment prison for intractable repeat offenders, coupled with various riots, murders, spectacular escapes and notorious inmates, make the word ‘Dartmoor’ synonymous with brutality, harsh living conditions, even harsher discipline and a long-established (and well-deserved) reputation as the hardest time a British convict could do.
Dartmoor was designed by well-known architect Daniel Asher Alexander and constructed using local labour and local materials, especially the Dartmoor granite used in building the cell blocks. It was opened in 1809 and intended to hold French prisoners taken during the long-running Napoleonic Wars and as a replacement for their previous accomodation, the filthy disease-and-rat infested prison ship (known as ‘hulks’) then anchored 17 miles away in Plymouth Sound. Along with French prisoners, it also held American prisoners taken during the War of 1812.
After the end of hostilites with America and France, the prison was closed down in 1816. During it’s time as a military prison it held between six and ten thousand prisoners of which over 1500 were to die, mostly from cramped conditions, harsh treatment, poor food and disease.
The first event of not was the infamous ‘Dartmoor Massacre’ on April 6, 1815. The atmosphere in the prison had been growing increasingly tense, both on the part of the inmates and the prison administration. The inmates were making increasingly vociferous complaints about the quality (or lack thereof) of their rations. In turn, the prison staff became increasingly concerned that there would be some form of disturbance among the inmates. It came to a head when the guards discovered a small hole carved in an internal wall which led, not outside the prison, but merely to another yard within the prison walls. The prison’s commander, a Royal Navy captain and regarded by many inmates as a perpetual drunk and common sadist, ordered the guards on the walls to open fire into the prison compound. Seven prisoners were killed and thirty one were wounded. The youngest inmate to die was just fourteen years old.
The prison was closed down in 1816 and lay unused until 1850. During the intervening time, many of Britain’s convicts were sentenced to transportation to penal colonies in faraway places such as Tasmania or Australia. Not surprisingly, the Australians in particular began to greatly resent the British simply dumping their criminals in their country and made it increasingly clear that they were highly unwelcome. This led to an increased demand for prison space back in the UK andso Dartmoor was extensively rebuilt and upgraded. It opened as a prison for civilian convicts in 1850.
The regime at Dartmoor was an especially harsh, cruel and degrading one, with flogging and birching accepted as a routine part of prison life. Like the desolate moorland that surrounded it, the prison was usually cold, misty, windy and wet for most of the year. Severe overcrowding was a particular problem at Dartmoor, with up to 2000 inmates sharing a single cell block at one time, with the prison’s three other blocks in a similar state. The overcrowding, coupled with the poor food and the constant bad weather, allowed disease to swiftly spread throughout the prison. In total, a staggering number of inmates have died at Dartmoor since it was first opened. Some 500 inmates have died of measles and at least another 1250 from typhoid, smallpox, suicide, the ‘Dartmoor Massacre’ and some inmates were even killed in convict-on-convict duels.
One reason for the high death rate, and a considerable amount of unrest among inmates at the time, was the variety and quality of the inmate food rations. Prisoners at this time were issued daily with one and a half pounds of bread, half a pound of beef, half a pound of vegetable, one ounce of barley and one third of an ounce of salt. On Wednesdays and Fridays, one pound of potatoes and one pound of fish were also issued. This may seem like a generous daily ration to some, but it must be remembered that the variety of the food on offer would have done little to maintain an inmate’s health and that the quality of the food was invariably highly suspect and usually varied between the poor and the inedible.
