Was there an ulterior motive behind prisoner ‘memoirs’?

Prisoner memoirs are often used in order to obtain the authentic voice of a prisoner. In this blog I shall be exploring the memoir of Frederick Brocklehurst, committed for “addressing the people on social and labour questions in a secluded part of Boggart Clough”. [1] What stood out to me most about this ‘guiltless crime’, is that he could have “purged his offence” [1] by paying a fine but chose not to on principle and chose to take the alternative punishment of a month in Strangeways Gaol. His memoir first saw the light of day in the Manchester Evening News and was later produced in book form by T Fisher Unwin (1898).

He stated in his memoir:

‘Imagine a blind man denied human intercourse, with power of motion only in a space 14 feet by 7, whose only contact with a limited outside world comes through ceiling, walls and iron door, and you can form a faint idea of what life in prison must be.’

Frederick Brocklehurst, I Was in Prison (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1898)

This embodied voice puts the reader into the cell that so often was depicted without inhabitants. As Frederick Brocklehurst was clearly a political individual, hence his ‘crime’, it seems to me that the purpose of this memoir could be to promote a prison reform. Brocklehurst invites the reader to ‘imagine’ the prison, attempting to engage and persuasively encourage them to disagree with the new regime.

Prior to the 1850s, moral reform and rehabilitation was the method of dealing with crime, however moving on from this there was a backlash and a move towards punishment and deterrence. This new method was unfavourable by many and the emphasis on the lack of cleanliness in these prisons could be seen as a desperate attempt for reform.

Under the Hard Bed, Hard Fare, Hard Labour regime (1865), hammocks were replaced with much less comfortable wooden board beds. Prisoners were also given a “deliberately monotonous diet, with exactly the same food on the same day of each week” (National Archives). Frederick Brocklehurst’s descriptive account of his time in prison seems to show his disapproval of the new regime, as it seemed inhumane and unhygienic. Perhaps he was almost preaching for a return to the more humane, and arguably more effective treatment of criminals.