Thomas Bourke - Fenian at Woking

In the 1860's Woking Convict Invalid Prison housed many Irish Fenians (a term used since the late 1850s for Irish nationalists who opposed British rule in Ireland) including Thomas Francis Bourke. Thomas was sentenced to death for his role in the uprising (high treason) though this sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

The Fenians were members of a movement in Ireland that wanted independence from British rule. Some people in Ireland believed the British government had refused to help the Irish out during the potato famine because they'd hoped it would solve the Irish 'problem' i.e. kill them off. The only hope for Ireland, the Irish believed, was complete separation from the UK. And if that meant fighting the British, then so be it.

Their war on the British caused a wave of anti-Irish feeling throughout the UK, which didn't bode well for the Fenians when they were finally caught and imprisoned. I suspect they were treated more harshly than other prisoners ...

The following extract describes Bourke's experience at Woking Convict Invalid Prison:

On 27 February 1868, having completed his probation, Burke was transferred to Working Convict Prison in Surrey. This was considered to be a hospital prison for both the physically and mentally ill. For an unknown reason he was moved back to Millbank on 20 April 1868; he spent only two weeks there, returning to work.In Woking Burke's diet consisted of bread and tea for breakfast. He was allowed 20 ozs of bread, 1/4 ozs of tea, 4 ozs of milk and 11/2 ozs of sugar daily. His dinner was soup, potatoes (8 ozs) and bread. Prisoners were permitted 10 ozs of meat each day, but appear not to have always got it; it may have been used to make the soup. The supper was bread and tea.


Each prisoner on punishment was granted a daily concession of 8 ozs of bread, 1/4 ozs of tea, 11/2 ozs of sugar and 4 ozs of milk. After the public, which followed the exposure of the treatment of O'Donovan Rossa while in prison, the MP for Cork county secured the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into prison conditions. Headed by the Earl of Devon, this met in the summer of 1870. Burke was one of those granted an interview. He wrote also at length to the Commission on the sufferings of his deranged friend and fellow-Fenian in Woking, Ricard US. Burke - no relation.


He had been only three times to exercise... I believe, the only times he has been out of bed since 23 July. I am also told ... that for the past thirteen days he has taken little or not food. This treatment is well calculated, if not intended, to provoke him to some desperate act of violence... from my experience of the officials of this prison I feel confident they would be but too anxious to avail themselves of any colourable pretext to lay violent hands upon my poor friend, by laying open his head with their staffs, or cutting him down with their sabres; for the criminal imbeciles,. confined in this prison, have not an immunity from this inhuman and brutal treatment; and from the course adopted by the officials of this prison towards my fellow prisoners within twenty-four hours after they had submitted their evidence to the Commissioners, that the submitting of evidence ... by any prisoner should not prejudice the future treatment of that prisoner while in prison... I have every reason to believe that my poor friend will be subjected to ... all the worst effects of penal discipline, and the treatment which has already deprived him of reason will be persistently and steadily followed up until it deprives him of life.


Burke's own prison career was coming to an end. As The Tipperary Fenian Denis Dowling Mulcahy wrote his father: Between half-past twelve and one o'clock, Thursday, the 22nd December 1870, the Governor, Captain Bramly, communicated to me, Dr. Power, Colonel Burke, and Mr. Dillon, that he had instructions to ask us if we would accept our release on condition of leaving the country, never again to return to it, or the alternative of remaining in penal servitude to finish our sentences.

According to the New York Times, however, a Thomas F Burke was released from prison in March 1869 following a petition handed in to Queen Victoria.

Who knows ...

A big thank you to Kieran Maxwell who emailed me with the following information: I can confirm that the Burke you refer to was the Burke that was released by the Queen as part of a general amnesty for the fenian prisoners.

Inmates 1870s

On this BBC website, I found the following snippet:

Janice Jelley in Billericay has discovered that two members of her family ended up in the Woking Invalid Prison in the 1870’s after being convicted of starving one of their wives to death.

Blimey! I wonder why they did that.

Newspaper clippings

24 Apr 1886 - CONVICT ESTABLISHMENT ... Last week nearly a hundred convicts arrived at this prison [Parkhurst], and more are coming nearly every day. It is stated that over a dozen of the officials at Pentonville have been ordered to join here, where duty is now very heavy. It is said that the large prison at Woking is to be devoted to the reception of lunatic criminals after the manner of Broadmoor, hence the influx of prisoners to Parkhurst. (IW County Press) - source: http://members.lycos.co.uk/s0uthbury/parkhurstsnippets.htm

It sounds as though prisoners were being shifted between prisons left right and centre during the late 1800s.

6 Feb 1915 - DEATH ... has occured of Mrs Mary Ann PRICE, aged 84, who had to her credit over 34 years efficient service in H.M. Female prisons. She joined the prison at Millbank as Assistant Matron in 1862 and was subsequently transferred to Parkhurst when the establishment was used for women. She afterwards went to Woking when the women prisoners were transferred from Parkhurst to that place. Before her retirement in 1896 she had attained the position of Chief Matron ... (IW County Press) - source: http://members.lycos.co.uk/s0uthbury/parkhurstsnippets.htm

Woking Invalid Convict Prison - A Thieve's Palace

The following was written by a gentleman called Chas Cook who visited a number of prisons in the late 1800s:

Add to the above that I have visited all our convict
prisons and all our London prisons, from gloomy
Newgate, with its many old and historic reminiscences,
and through whose precincts a Jack Sheppard and a
Jonathan Wild have wended their way, to the more
modern and well-ventilated and comfortably warmed Pen-
tonville, containing some eleven hundred prisoners ; from
Dartmoor, bleak and barren, where the Claimant served
nearly seven years, to Portsmouth, where he resided in an
extra large cell, and where also Benson, of the 'Turf Frauds '
notoriety, whiled away his time mending stockings in the
' Doctor's party ' ; from Woking, truly called the ' Thieves'
Palace,' where I have seen the recreation room with its
draughts, dominoes, sofas, and paintings on the wall (not
to mention an aviary) ...

An AVIARY?? In a prison?? No wonder they shut it down so quickly!!

Famous inmate: Florence Maybrick

Florence Maybrick was an American woman who was tried and sentenced to be hanged in August 1889 for murdering her British husband. This was later commuted to life imprisonment.

There's an interesting twist to the story because a little while after Florence was imprisoned, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette (W T Stead) received a letter of confession from a dying man in South Africa. The man claimed to have had a grudge against Mrs Maybrick and set her up by poisoning her husband with arsenic.

Of course, Florence Maybrick was found guilty of the offence. It didn't help that the judge was a notorious misogynist whose remarks about Mrs Maybrick's adultery played no small part in her conviction.

What wasn't brought to the attention of the jury, however, was that James Maybrick (almost twice the age of Florence) was a debauched philanderer with several illegitimate children. He was also habitual drug user. His drug of choice? Arsenic.

There was a huge outcry when Florence was found guilty ... and a great deal of pressure from America for Florence's immediate release.

However, even though the case against Florence was deemed unsafe, she spent 14 years in prison. Florence spent a significant part of her sentence at Woking Invalid Convict Prison and wrote an incredible account of her experiences shortly after her release in 1904. The following is an 11,000 word extract from her book: Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story, MY FIFTEEN LOST YEARS (Google Books). It's an excellent account of life in Woking Invalid Convict Prison, covering everything from food, punishment, manual labour, sickness and more:

In Solitary Confinement
Removal to Woking Prison

ON the morning of the 29th of August
I was hastily awakened by a female
warder, who said that orders had come
down from the Home Office for my removal
that day to a convict prison.
When I left, the governor was standing
at the gate, and, with a kindliness of voice
which I deeply appreciated, told me to be
brave and good.
A crowd was in waiting at the station.
I was roughly hustled through it into a
third-class carriage.
The only ray of light that penetrated
those dark hours of my journey came from
an American woman. God bless her,
whoever she is or wherever she is! At
every station that the train stopped she got
out and came to the carriage door and
spoke words of sympathy and comfort.
She was the first of my countrywomen to
voice to me the protest that swelled into
greater volume as the years rolled by.
As the train drew up at Woking station a
crowd assembled ... read more

More history ...

The following extract was taken from The Knaphillian and gives some intersting background to the prison:

In 1858 the Home Office bought just over 64 acres of land from the London Necropolis Company in order to build a special prison for disabled prisoners in Knaphill. Known as the ‘Woking Invalid Convict Prison’ it was the first prison to be specifically for disabled prisoners – not just for those physically ill, but also those suffering from mental illness.

The main prison building was designed by Sir Joshua Jebb and Arthur Blomfield (sometimes mis-spelled as ‘Bloomfield’ as in Bloomfield Close). It consisted of two large wings on either side of a large central tower. The west wing was for the chronically sick and insane, whilst the east wing was for some of the more able-bodied prisoners.

The whole site was surrounded by a wall, eighteen feet high, the bricks of which can occasionally still be found on the escarpment down towards Robin Hood Road.

Work began on the building in 1858 with prisoners and officers brought in from Lewes, Carisbrooke and Dartmoor to help with the construction.

The north-east wing was opened on the 28th April 1859, although the official opening of the whole site was not until the 22nd March 1860 when three-hundred prisoners were transferred from the already cramped and inadequate Lewes Prison in Sussex.

The average number of prisoners at Knaphill was 613.

In 1867 work began on the second prison at Knaphill – this time for female convicts, and once again some of the more able-bodied men from the male prison were employed as cheap labour.

The new prison opened on the 5th May 1869 when 100 were transferred here from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight.

Many of the women worked in the prison kitchens or laundry, whilst a number were employed as Tailoresses, Needlewomen or Knitters. Woking Prison was also well-known for its Mosaics Department where the women could earn 1s2d a day breaking up refuse marble to be laid as mosaic floors. Some were exhibited at the ‘International Exhibition of Fine Arts and Industry’ at the Royal Albert Hall in 1872, and it is said that part of the floor of St Paul's Cathedral and the ‘South Kensington Museums’ were produced at this time. St John’s Church also exhibits some of the work

In 1886 it was decided to close the prisons at Woking over a ten year period, and in 1888 most of the male prisoners were transferred. The invalid prison finally closed on the 21st March 1889 and in November the Home Office transferred the site to the War Department.

In 1891 they bought an extra 20 acres adjoining the site from the Necropolis Company for £5,600, to be used as part of the parade ground.

The female prison continued to be used until October 1895 when it too was closed and the last of the women transferred to Holloway. During the First World War the female prison was used as a military hospital, whilst the male section housed various units, including many troops from all over the Empire.

After the Second World War the barracks became the base for the Royal Military Police who finally vacated the site in 1965 when they moved down to Chichester (although part of the site was retained as a clothing store)

The site then became available for housing with Woking Borough Council and The Guinness Trust developing part of the estate in the early 1970s – followed by more private houses in the 1980s and 90s – although it is perhaps the restoration of the original prison officers quarters in Wellington Terrace and Raglan Road that are the most distinctive part of the area.

Ordnance Survey Map 1870

This Ordnance Survey Map of Woking Invalid Convict Prison, Knaphill from 1870 clearly shows that our house (marked in red) was almost smack bang wallop in the centre of the prison complex.

Most images you see of the prison show the big block south-east of our house. We're not sure what the big block north-west of our house would have been.

I imagine there would have been a lot of curtain twitching going on during the prison's heyday watching all manner of convicts coming and going ;-)

Naughty naughty!

Every now and again I stumble across interesting tidbits of info about the sorts of people incarcerated at Woking Invalid Convict Prison. This chap, it would appear, had a problem staying out of trouble...

John Solloway
1860
Described as 'rather delicate health' he was given three months hard labour (despite only having one arm) for 'willfully exposing himself to insult certain females'. In other words: a flasher! Also described as a rogue and a vagabond.

Was this the same John Solloway imprisoned in Lewes Prison the previous year for stealing 56lbs of lead from a roof in Derby Arboretum (the UK's first public park)?

I guess some things never change.

Original Victorian Floor Plan

When Rob and I visited National Archives in Kew a couple of weekends ago, we didn't really have a clear idea of what we wanted to look at, not to mention where or how we would find it. There must be millions of documents there! By some miracle, the very first document we looked at was this: the original Victorian floor plan of our house. What are the chances of that??? And what an incredible looking document it is too; A3 in size with crumbly edges, like all important old documents should look!

On the close up below, you can see that what is now our dining room was once the kitchen (with a circular copper in the corner next to the fireplace). And what is now the kitchen was once the outside pantry and coal cellar. It appears the house had its own outside toilet, although it's difficult to ascertain whether this was an original feature or whether it was added later by Inkerman Barracks.

A copper, by the way, was a sort of water tank heated up by the coal fire or range. It would have been used to fill a tin bath, for example.

Victorian prison warders' uniforms

I began to wonder what Victorian prison warders would have looked like and discovered these fab images on the Internet. Althought they don't portray prison warders from Woking Invalid Convict Prison, they do portray prison warders of the same era.

The first image depicts Mr Lewis Cooke, his wife Mary and their three children. Lewis Cooke was a warder at Stafford Gaol between 1881 and 1891. The second image depicts a female warder at the same prison.

Image source: http://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?theme=33&originator=%2Fengine%2Ftheme%2Fdefault%2Easp&page=&records=&direction=&pointer=8515&text=0&resource=2651

Frances Hood - Assistant Matron

In 2002, a Roger Hood posted the following question on Roots Web:

Could anyone please tell me where I might find information/ history of Woking Prison? My gt. grandmother FRANCES MILLICENT HOOD was assistant matron at the Female Convict Prison Knaphill on 1881 census (although Millicent was spelt Nuliecut). She was a Widow aged 36. Two of her children were living in Prison Street , JASPER HOOD my grandfather aged 6 described as a boarder and ALICE Hood aged 11 a nursemaid.

I was quite intrigued by that fact that little Alice was a nursemaid at the tender age of 11, and after a quick search discovered that it wasn't uncommon for nursemaids to be little more than children themselves. They were among the youngest and least experienced of all domestic servants, only one step up from the lowly scullery maid.

Poor Frances, it couldn't have been easy being a widow with two young mouths to feed. By all accounts, Victorian prison warders were badly paid. She probably didn't have any other choice but to send little Alice out to work.

In addition, I discovered the following rules and regulations that had to be observed by a prison matron:

The Matron is to reside in the Prison and be under the directions of the Governor; she is to have the care and superintendence of the whole female department, and enforce upon the Female Prisoners the observance of the Prison.

She shall be present at the distribution of meals to the Female Prisoners, and daily visit every part of the Prison appropriated to Females, inspect the bedding, clothing, and food of the Female Prisoners, and see every Female Prisoner at least once in twenty four hours ...

Source: http://vcp.e2bn.org/gaols/section11335-staff.html

Letter from a Convict

It would appear that Woking Invalid Convict Prison wasn't the worst place to be incarcerated if this letter extract from a convict in Australia to his brother in England is anything to go by:

... But Millbank is altogether a rough style of prison, both in the way of carrying out prison discipline and in that of prison arrangements. All is loud, indecent, rough (It must be remembered that all this relates to an experience of several years ago) In other respects you will find the change to Millbank grateful to you. The cells - infinitely the best of any I have seen (or even heard of, with the exception of those at Woking, an invalid station) are welcome beyond conception for their windows alone. These are a good size, with clear glass, and open wide, so that you can see the real light of day, and freely breathe and feel the fresh air ...

I read elsewhere that Woking Invalid Convict Prison was one of the most progressive prisons in Victorian England ... although they weren't averse to using 'the battery' to shock their prisoners ... if you can call that progressive!

Full letter published in the Cornhill Magazine Vol XIII No 76

Source: http://users.bigpond.net.au/paulfisher/Genealogy/Roe/roe_letter.htm

George Myers

So, it would appear that the Woking Invalid Convict Prison - and therefore possibly our house - was built by none other than the great George Myers! In short ...

George Myers (born in 1803 in Kingston-upon-Hull) was one of Victorian England's most prolific builders, best known for his work with the architect and designer Augustus Pugin. Settling in Southwark (London) in 1842, he ran his own national contracting business working alongside more than 100 architects over the course of his long and varied career.

His works included the building of the original camp at Aldershot, various army hospitals, Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum (see pic below), Broadmoor Hospital, The Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum and restoration work at the Guildhall, the Tower of London, and Windsor Castle.

Myers also built and restored over 90 churches in his lifetime, averaging around three a year!

Myers died of a stroke on 25 January 1875 and was buried at Norwood Cemetary. Unfortunately his tombstone was demolished by Lambeth in the 1970s ... just like the beautiful Woking Prison.

Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum.

The Building of Woking Invalid Convict Prison

Accounts of Expenditure in the building of Woking Invalid Convict Prison between 1856 and 1868. Found on a recent visit to the National Archives in Kew.

The bundle of documents came in a large cardbox box which had the musty, dusty, sooty smell as though it had been hidden up a chimney for the past 150 years!

After carefully removing the ribbon we discovered a number of documents: annual accounts of expenditure submitted to the Surveyor General of Prisons by a Mr George Myers between 1856 and 1868. (The paper had once been pale blue but had mostly faded to grey).

The first one, dated 1st April 1857, was for the construction of Woking Invalid Prison. A variety of works continued all the way into the mid 1860s with work on the female prison taking place around 1865 to 1867. The last entry in this particular batch of documents is for the enlargement of 2 houses between 1967 and 1868.

As it turns out, George Myers (1803–1875) was a renowned Victorian builder and craftsman. See next blog post.

The Hello Ghosts ...

I have an interesting story to tell you.

When we first bought the house on Raglan Road, it needed a lot of 'cosmetic' work doing to it. I decided to take two weeks off work and commuted the 30-odd miles every day to make a start on some of the more labour intensive stuff.

On the first or second day I was up a ladder in the spare bedroom scraping artex off the ceiling when I distinctly heard a man say 'hello'. It was so clear and loud that my first thought was 'crikey, the postman has let himself in'. I scrambled down the ladder and raced downstairs but the house was empty. In retrospect the 'hello' definitely seemed to come from the doorway of the spare room and was the kind of hello that would preceed an introduction of sorts.

In any case I put the incident to the back of my mind and carried on with my work.

About a week later my dad came down from Yorkshire to help out with some of the joinery that needed doing. Whereas I was still commuting between the house and our flat in London, my dad decided to camp out at the house.

One morning when I arrived my dad had something interesting to tell me.

"I was in the kitchen washing my breakfast dishes this morning," he said, "when I heard a woman's voice say hello. It was so clear she could have been standing in the kitchen with me."

Needless to say I was a little freaked out. Having said that, everyone that comes to visit tells us how friendly and welcoming the house is. And for that we have our hello ghosts to thank, I believe.

Raglan Road / Prison Cottages

The first three (of 9) houses on our stretch of Raglan Road, formally Prison Cottages. The porch is shared between two houses. The front of these houses are now Grade II listed. Simliar architectural arches and brickwork would have been found on the prison building.

An early discovery

One of the first snippets of information I unearthed relating to our house was this, taken from John and Anne's Family Pages: http://www.kernick.me.uk/index.html

"William James Kernick: born 21st August, 1873, at 3 Prison Cottages, Woking, where his father, John Oliver, was an Assistant Warder at the Invalid Convict Prison. He died in Bodmin in June, 1878, aged 5.

Francis George Kernick: born 30th November, 1875, at 2 Prison Cottages, Woking, but unfortunately died the following year on 8th November, of whooping cough."

A little bit more about John Oliver Kernick can be found here on the same website: http://www.kernick.me.uk/page5.html It would appear that John entered the Prison Service and was stationed firstly at Bodmin Prison, later being transferred to Woking. At the end of five years in Woking he was moved back to Bodmin in Cornwall. Sadly he died just a year after Francis' death on the 21st of November 1877 aged 42. (According the the Kernick Family Website, it was a sudden and unexpected death. A coroner's inquest held on the same day recorded a death from 'natural causes'.)

Did little Francis die at 2 Prison Cottages? And was this the reason the family returned to Bodmin? Who knows. It's weird to think that these strangers from the past have such an intimate and potentially heartbreaking link with our home.

A bit of background.

Just before we moved into our first home in September 2007 we discovered that our street (Raglan Road) had once been part of a large Victorian prison for infirm convicts built in 1858.

In fact, our small stretch of Raglan Road (9 houses numbered 87 to 103) were once known as Prison Cottages and had housed a variety of prison officers. An original Victorian floor plan of our house (image coming soon) indicated that the house was for subordinate officers working at the female prison. The female section of the prison was built several years after the male section using convict labour ... but more about that to follow.

The prison was taken over by the army in the early 1890s (circa 1892) and renamed Inkerman Barracks after the Battle of Inkerman fought during the Crimean War on 5 November 1854. The prison was converted to house two battalions of infantry. The first infantry battalion to be quartered there in 1895 was 2nd Battalion The Royal West Surrey Regiment (The Queen's). In September 1947 the Royal Military Police moved to Inkerman Barracks, establishing Inkerman as the home of the Corps. http://www3.hants.gov.uk/museum/aldershot-museum/local-history-aldershot/barracks/inkerman-barracks.htm

Sadly, as the years passed, people began to forget about the prison. Particularly when the barracks themselves were demolished to make way for housing developments. This I find really depressing, especially when you consider how stunning the building once was. The old Lunatic Asylum, built around the same time (now converted into luxury apartments) is still intact.

Lots of locals know that this was once the site of Inkerman Barracks, but have no idea that it was also location to one of the most progressive prisons in Victorian England. In writing this blog I hope to create a better picture of the prison; it's buildings, it's inmates, it's employees, it's location and more ... lest they be forgotten forever.

Woking Invalid Convict Prison

Woking Invalid Convict Prison.