Mansions of Misery – A Wonderful & Informative Account of the Marshalsea

To many modern readers, the Marshalsea Debtors Prison is something that appears in the writings of Charles Dickens, fresh off the pages of books such as Little Dorrit. What one needs to understand the shame of the debtor’s prison was all very real to the young Dickens, as it was to many in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Mansions of Misery, written and researched by the excellent London historian and Professor, Jerry White, an expert on London from 1700 to the modern day. He has taken a forensic insight of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and applied it to a prison that would have feature large as a dark shadow over London for all those who were in debt.

White explains that the Marshalsea while being a prison, unlike its criminal gaols, was more like a lodging house to debtors who until they had repaid their debt would reside within its walls. To describe the old Marshalsea, White, uses the diary of a former inmate who was a well-known musician of the time, John Grano.

While White effortlessly describes life and the machinations of life in the Marshalsea, something that does register with the reader, is the reality of debt, how debt seemed inescapable and would grind down the debtor. What I felt is that while reading this excellent history the crushing hopelessness of debt and for many it would be a reoccurring theme throughout their lives.

What the diary of John Grano does do is show the distinct difference between the two halves of the prison, there was the comfortable side, and those on the poorer side. How some could live in relative comfort while in the Marshalsea, while others really did suffer, so much so that a jailer was brought before the courts for the deaths of four inmates.

The way White has written this book, is as if the Marshalsea, is a microcosm of life outside the walls in the London area. Showing that there was a complete mixture of inmates, rich and poor, fraudsters and hucksters, and many other colourful characters filled the prison. I found this to be a fascinating and engaging read about a place that people often forget was a dark shadow over many lives.

Jerry White has written an engaging and very readable account of life in the Marshalsea and of London in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. I am sure it will be a must read for all those interested in the social history of London for many years to come. ( )