Despite London’s polished modern façade, the city retains innumerable streets and places with a distinctly Dickensian character. Few locations capture the Dickensian spirit more than the remnants of Marshalsea—the debtor’s prison where Charles Dickens’ own father was incarcerated, an experience that profoundly shaped the life of the young author-to-be.
In the tranquility of St George’s Churchyard, few would imagine that the brick wall that bordering the south gardens was once part of one of the worst prisons in the country. As Dickens described in Little Dorrit: “But, whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon the rooms in which the debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of many miserable years.”
Like some of his most memorable characters, 12-year-old Dickens was forced to grow up quickly when his father, John, was imprisoned for debt. Dickens’ mother and siblings joined John there, as was the custom at the time.
In the 18th century, over half of London’s inmates were debtors. By the 19th century, Marshalsea was so overcrowded that 300 prisoners crammed into just nine rooms. Prisons were for-profit institutions, and everything carried a fee; those who could pay the fees were allowed to leave and work off their debt, while those who could not had to remain, accruing even more debt. In 1729, a parliamentary committee reported that 300 inmates had died of starvation over a three-month period, with eight to 10 dying daily in the warm weather.
Life wasn’t much better for young Dickens. As the eldest son, he was sent to work in a blacking factory, joining his family for breakfast at the prison then working 10 hours a day pasting labels on blacking bottles. While his father was only imprisoned for three months, Dickens continued working at the blacking factory. This was a traumatic period for Dickens, and it served as inspiration when he later wrote The Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, and Little Dorrit.
There had been a prison on or near this site since 1373, but the remaining wall dates back to the second incarnation of Marshalsea, built in 1811. The Prison was shut down in 1842 by Act of Parliament, and its buildings were torn down during the 1870s. In Dickens’ words, “It is gone now; and the world is none the worse without it.”
