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Lady Matilda Maxwell
Lady Matilda Maxwell

High Street, 1955
High Street, 1955

Prison Cells

Mitchell Library, Glasgow Collection

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Prison Cells

A woodcut showing three disused cells in the Justiciary Courts and jail at the southern end of the Saltmarket, as they appeared c 1872.

The new jail in the Justiciary Courts building on Saltmarket was opened in 1814 with fifty-eight cells for felons and debtors and two others for criminals condemned to death. The building was remodelled in 1845 and again in 1910-1913.

In Glasghu Facies the Episcopalian priest and historian J F S Gordon bemoaned the fact [in his view] that even the condemned cells of the 1870s were more "cheerful and comfortable" than the ordinary prison cells of the past, and that jails had become merely "inviting comfortable Homes for Vagabonds".

Reference: Mitchell Library, GC 941.435 GOR

Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning

Keywords:
gaols, jails, Justiciary Courts, prison cells, prisons



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