Defence

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Overview

Prison Type Convict Hulk

Date opened 1849

Date closed 1857

Ports Portsmouth
Woolwich

Map location in the vicinity

County Hampshire

Attached Ship Unite (1853-56)

Critical Remarks

On plans for abolition being made in 1855, prisoners began to be sent to Chatham Convict Prison (ID 1007). However, a fire which destroyed the hulk in 1856 meant that the remaining convicts had to be dispatched to a temporary prison requisitioned from the navy at Lewes (see ID 1009). The destruction of the Defence brought the convict hulk establishment in England to a close.

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Prison Info

Prison Type Convict Hulk

Date opened 1849

Date closed 1857

Ports Portsmouth
Woolwich

Map location in the vicinity
Lat. 51.495394 Long. 0.070793

County Hampshire

Attached Ship Unite (1853-56)

Critical Remarks

On plans for abolition being made in 1855, prisoners began to be sent to Chatham Convict Prison (ID 1007). However, a fire which destroyed the hulk in 1856 meant that the remaining convicts had to be dispatched to a temporary prison requisitioned from the navy at Lewes (see ID 1009). The destruction of the Defence brought the convict hulk establishment in England to a close.

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Prisoner Statistics

Year 1853

Annual -

Daily Daily average - 521

Principal Primary Sources

Report of the Manager of the Convict Hulk Establishment, for the year 1849 (Parl. Papers, 1850, XXIX.13), p.9; Report of the directors of convict prisons on the discipline and management of the hulk establishment. For the year 1850 (Parl. Papers, 1851, XXVIII.213), p.28; Directors of Convict Prisons: Reports on Discipline and Management of Pentonville, Parkhurst, Millbank, Portland, Portsmouth, Dartmoor, and Brixton Prisons, and Hulks, 1853 (Parl. Papers, 1854, XXXIII.181), p.264; Directors of Convict Prisons: Reports on Discipline and Management of Pentonville, Parkhurst, Millbank, Portland, Portsmouth, Dartmoor, and Brixton Prisons, and Hulks, 1854 (Parl. Papers, 1854-55, XXV.33), p.317; Directors of Convict Prisons: Reports on Discipline and Management of Pentonville, Parkhurst, Millbank, Portland, Portsmouth, Dartmoor, and Brixton Prisons, and Hulks, 1855 (Parl. Papers, 1856, XXXV.1), p.242; Directors of Convict Prisons: Reports on Discipline and Management of Pentonville, Parkhurst, Millbank, Portland, Portsmouth, Dartmoor, and Brixton Prisons, and Hulks, 1856 (Parl. Papers, 1857 Session 2, XXIII.65), p.373

Additional Primary Sources

Henry Mayhew and John Binny, The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of Prison Life (London, 1862), p. 208, 228

Secondary Sources

Charles Campbell, The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement, 1776-1857 (Bowie, MD., 1993), pp. 235-258

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