HISTORY OF DARTMOOR PRISON

From 1803 to 1815 Britain was at war with Napoleonic France and many thousands of prisoners were taken. To help accommodate them redundant warships were commissioned as floating prisons known as ‘the hulks’. Several hulks were at anchor at Plymouth among other places and conditions were so bad with poor sanitary arrangements, little exercise, lack of fresh air and a poor diet, the death rate rose to an unacceptable level and a prison on land was decided upon. Princetown on Dartmoor was considered a suitable location and that is how Dartmoor Prison came to be built.

First prisoners arrived on 22nd May 1809 and the prison was full by the end of the year. It soon became overcrowded and remained so. In April 1813 American prisoners began arriving and the overcrowding became worse. Outbreaks of diseases – pneumonia, typhoid, smallpox, etc. killed more than 11,000 Frenchmen and 271 Americans. Their graveyards and memorials are at the rear of the prison. The wars finally ended and the prisoners were repatriated, the last of them leaving in early 1816. The prison then closed until opening again as a penal establishment for criminals in 1850.

The Military Service Act of 1916 introduced compulsory Conscription. ‘Conscientious Objectors’ or ‘Conchies’ as they were called could apply before Tribunals for exemption on moral or religious grounds and either accepted non-combatant duties or agreed to serve at a Government Labour Camp. In 1917 Dartmoor prison was designated a Labour Camp and around a thousand such men replaced the convicts, occupied their cells and performed the same work as they had done. All locks were removed, they had freedom of movement locally and the Warders acted as supervisors only. They and their families were generally despised and suffered much hardship.

The bad old days are gone – no more quarrying, digging the barren moorland by hand under armed guards, and brutal punishments have been abolished. We now hold low category prisoners who are encouraged to undertake training programmes to help them on their release. Skilled advisors hold discussion sessions to make them aware of how unacceptable their crimes are. Single cell accommodation still applies and they eat in their cells. Showers and telephone communication with their families are freely available. They are not here to be punished; their punishment is loss of liberty tempered by help towards reform and rehabilitation.