Pentonville (HM Prison)
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Image:Pentonville Prison ILN 1842.jpg
HM Prison Pentonville is a prison built in 1842 in North London. Its design was influenced by the "separate system" developed at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.
The first modern prison opened in London in 1816 - the new Millbank prison. It had separate cells for 860 prisoners, and proved satisfactory (to the authorities at least) thus commencing a programme of prison building to deal with the rapid increase in prisoner numbers occasioned by the ending of capital punishment for many crimes and a steady reduction in the use of transportation.
Two Acts of Parliament were passed allowing for the building of Pentonville prison for the detention of convicts sentenced to imprisonment or awaiting transportation. Construction started on the 10th of April 1840 and was completed in 1842. The total cost to build the new prison was £84,186 12s 2d. Its design consisted of a central hall, with five radiating wings, all of which are visible to staff positioned at the centre. (This design, intended to keep prisoners isolated from each other -- the "separate system" first used at Pennsylvania's Eastern State Penitentiary -- was not, as is often thought, a panopticon. Guards had no view into individual cells from their central position.) Pentonville was originally designed to hold 520 prisoners under the separate system, each having his own cell, 13 feet long, 7 feet wide and 9 feet high. Conditions were vastly better and healthier than at Newgate and similar older prisons and each prisoner was made to undertake work, such as picking coir (tarred rope) and weaving. Pentonville became the model for British prisons and a further 54 were built to the same basic design over the next 6 years, and hundreds throughout the British Empire. The cost of keeping a prisoner at Pentonville was about 15s. (75p) a week in the 1840's. Prisoners under sentence of death were not housed at Pentonville until the closure of Newgate in 1902 when it took over responsibility for executions in north London. Condemned cells were added and an execution room built to house Newgate's gallows which were transferred to it.
The closest tube station is Caledonian Road.
Famous residents
The singer Pete Doherty spent four nights here in February 2005 on charges of robbery and blackmail, and beginning January 27th, 2006 he will spend at least two weeks on multiple drug charges. The actor John Alford spent six weeks here in 1999 after being convicted of selling illegal drugs to a reporter.