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The trial of William Acton, warden of the Marshalsea prison in London, took place in August 1729. Acton was charged with murder after three prisoners died. The trial became a major public event. John Ginger writes that, when the Prince of Wales's bookseller presented his bill at the end of that year, two of the 41 volumes on it were accounts of Acton's trial.

1729 Gaols Committee

Thomas Bambridge, warden of the Fleet (standing, far left), is questioned by James Oglethorpe (seated, far left).

The trial took place as a result of an inquiry by a parliamentary committee, the Gaols Committee, which was set up in February 1729 to look into the state of England's jails. The committee was chaired by James Oglethorpe (1696–1785), a Tory MP who was later the founder of Georgia. After a friend of his, who had been imprisoned for debt in the Fleet prison, died in a sponging house, Oglethorpe had begun to ask questions about the treatment of debtor prisoners, which resulted in the committee's appointment.

The committee visited the Fleet on 27 February and the Marshalsea on 25 March. Commissioned by Sir Archibald Grant (1696–1778), William Hogarth accompanied the committee on its visit to the Fleet, sketching it, then later painting it in oil. In the painting, Grant is standing third from the right. The art historian Horace Walpole (1717–1797) wrote of the painting in 1849: "The scene is the committee. On the table are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, half-starved, appears before them. The poor man has a good countenance, that adds to the interest. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very figure that Salvator Rosa would have drawn for Iago in the moment of detection."

Charges

Death of Thomas Bliss

Thomas Bliss, a debtor, died after Acton tortured him for having tried to escape. The Marshalsea – along with all other prisons in England at the time – was run as a private enterprise, with prisoners expected to pay a prison fee to the warden. Bliss was unable to pay, and had been left without food as a result. He tried to escape by throwing a rope over the prison walls, but the guards chased him, severed the rope, and he fell 20 feet into the prison yard. Acton wanted to know who had supplied the rope. He beat Bliss with a bull's "pizzle" (a whip made out of a bull's penis), stamped on his stomach, then placed him in "the hole," a damp space under a staircase, followed by incarceration in the "strong room."

Originally built to hold pirates, the strong room was just a few yards from the prison's sewer. It had no drain, no sunlight, no fresh air – the smell was described as "noisome" – and was full of rats and sometimes "several barrow fulls of dung." Several prisoners told the court that it contained no bed so that its inhabitants had to lie on the damp floor, often next to the corpses of the previous occupants.

Bliss was left in the strong room for three weeks wearing a skullcap (a heavy vice for the head), thumb screws, iron collar, leg irons, and irons round his ankles called sheers. One witness said the swelling in his legs was so bad that the irons on one side could no longer be seen for overflowing flesh. His wife, who was able to see him through a small hole in the door, testified that he was bleeding from the mouth and thumbs. He was given a small amount of food but the skullcap prevented him from chewing, and he had to ask another prisoner, Susannah Dodd, to chew his meat for him. He was eventually taken to the sick ward, and died a few months later.

During the trial, a group of prisoners Acton had paid to police the jail told the hearing there was indeed a bed in the strong room. One of them said he often chose to lie in there himself, because the strong room was so clean; the "best room on the Common side of the jail," said another. This, despite the court's having heard that one prisoner's left side had mortified from lying on the wet floor, and that a rat had eaten the nose, ear, cheek and left eye of another.

Other deaths

Three other prisoners, Captain John Bromfield, Robert Newton, and James Thompson, also died after a beating from Acton, followed by time in "the hole" or strong room, before being moved to the sick ward, where they were left to lie on the floor in leg irons.

Verdict

Ginger writes that Acton was so about his reputation that he requested the indictments be read out in Latin, but his worries were misplaced. The government wanted an acquittal to protect the good name of the Knight Marshal, Sir Philip Meadows, who had ultimate responsibility for the Marshalsea. Meadows had hired John Darby as prison governor, who in turn had leased it to Acton to run for a profit. A stream of witnesses spoke of Acton's good character, including his butcher, brewer, confectioner and solicitor – his coal merchant thought him "improper for the post he was in from his too great compassion" – and he was found not guilty on all charges.

References

• Howell, T.B. A Complete Collection of State Trials. T.C. Hansard, 1813.
• Ginger, John (ed.) and Grano, John Baptist. Handel's Trumpeter: The Diary of John Grano. Pendragon Press, 1998; written 1728–1729.
• Walpole, Horace. Anecdotes of Painting in England, Henry G. Bohn, 1849.