Today there's little trace of the brutal gaol in Newcastle's Carliol Square which cast its grim shadow over the city between 1828 and 1925.
But a new exhibition at City Library, Newcastle, reveals the grisly details of the conditions inmates were kept in, the crimes they were being punished for, and what everyday life was like inside the prison. It also contains archive photos of many of those who were detained, alongside a whip used to punish offenders. and a book containing the skin of a man executed in Newcastle in 1850.
The Life and Death of Newcastle Gaol, 1822-2022 is based on the research of a team of academics headed by Dr Shane McCorristine of Newcastle University. The exhibition is the latest phase in a long-term project to gather research, ideas, memories, images and other content that can help tell stories about the gaol and, more broadly, the East Pilgrim Street area and its history.
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Dr McCorristine said: “The story of the gaol and those who were imprisoned there in many ways reflects the changing story of Newcastle. The area between Manors and Pilgrim Street, where Carliol Square is, was once the main route between the city and the Quayside, but soon after the gaol was demolished in 1925, the whole area began to be transformed.
"There are few signs of the gaol’s existence visible today, so the exhibition provides a way for people to remember a bygone piece of the city’s history. We had a great response to our request for the public’s help, with people sending us a range of stories about the prison and those who worked there or were detained there.”
The exhibition will also include rare items loaned from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, including a bale of oakum, handcuffs, and the original key to the prison.
The gaol was designed by John Dobson and replaced Newgate, Newcastle’s medieval prison. Opened in 1828, it was among the first prisons to use a radial ‘panopticon’-style system, seen as a modern and progressive design that would help reform rather than punish offenders.
However, only five of the six radial wings were ever built due to high construction costs, and the number of inmates quickly increased due to the population growth Newcastle was experiencing at the time and an increase urban and poverty-related crime.
Within ten years of the gaol opening, it was condemned for being damp and overcrowded, and there had been numerous escapes. Frequent violence among prisoners was also a problem in these early decades. Eventually, in 1858, Dobson was asked by the council to pull down the wings and replace them with a single four-storey block of 144 cells.
The exhibition includes stories of some of the daring escapes made by prisoners, including 27-year-old Mary O’Neil, who had been arrested in 1870 for stealing a purse on Clayton Street. Within a few weeks of starting her sentence, she had managed to remove the iron bars from the window in her cell and climb up on to the roof before disappearing over the imposing, 25-foot high boundary walls. She evaded capture for six months before being re-apprehended by a policeman in Liverpool.
The exhibition will also cover the double execution in November 1919 of Ambrose Quinn and Ernest Bernard Scott - the last ever to take place in Newcastle. Scott and Quinn were both 28 years old at the time and both had murdered women, in Scott’s case an unrequited love named Rebecca Jane Quinn and in Quinn’s case his wife, Elizabeth Ann Quinn (the victims coincidentally shared a surname).
The local press detailed Scott’s unshakeable and seemingly unmoved expression until his execution, with newspaper reports reporting that he ‘spent his time singing, whistling and humming hymn tunes’. However, Quinn was weeping in the cell next door.
Dr McCorristine and the research team will explore some of the stories of the gaol and its inmates in a free public talk on Tuesday, June 14, hosted by the Lit & Phil, Newcastle. A second event will take place at the City Library on Thursday, June 16. For more information and to register to attend visit www.litandphil.org.uk/events/ or www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/newcastle-libraries-3037748424.
The exhibition is running free of charge in the Local Studies section, Floor 6 of the City Library until July 31.
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