Fleet Prison - Notable Inmates

Notable Inmates

(See "Category:Prisoners in the Fleet" below)
In 1601, poet John Donne was imprisoned along with the priest who married him and the man who witnessed the match until it was proven that his wedding to Anne Donne was legal and valid.

One notable inmate was Samuel Byrom, son of writer and poet, John Byrom. Samuel Byrom was imprisoned for debt in 1725, and in 1729 he sent a petition to his old school friend, The Duke of Dorset, in which raged against the injustices of the system:

What barbarity can be greater than for gaolers (without provocation) to load prisoners with irons, and thrust them into dungeons, and manacle them, and deny their friends to visit them, and force them to pay excessive fines for their chamber rent, their victuals and drinks; to open their letters and seize the charity that is sent to them! And when debtors have succedd in arranging with their creditors, hundreds are detained in prison for chamber-rent and other unjust demands put forward by their gaolers, so that at last, in their despair, many are driven to commit suicide...gaolers should be paid a fixed salary and forbidden, under pain of instant dismissal, to accept bribe, fee or reward of any kind...law of imprisonment for debts influicts a greater loss on the country, in the way of wasted power and energies, than do monasteries and nunneries in foreign lands, and among Roman-Catholic peoples...Holland, the most unpolite country in the world, uses debors with mildness and malefactors with rigour; England, on the other hand, shows mercy to murderers and robbers, but of poor debtors impossibilities are demanded...

Other notable inmates include:

• Francis Tregian the Younger. He is reputed to have used his time in prison to carry out work copying musical manuscripts.
• George Thomson (physician) (c. 1619 - 1676). Physician and medical writer, fought for the royalists under Prince Maurice during the English Civil War. He was captured by the parliamentary forces at Newbury in 1644, and imprisoned for a time here.
• Edmund Dummer (1651–1713) Surveyor of the Navy, founder of the Royal Navy docks at Devonport, Plymouth, Member of Parliament for Arundel and founder of the first packet service between Falmouth, Cornwall and the West Indies, died a bankrupt in Fleet debtors' prison.
• John Jones of Gellilyfdy, a Welsh antiquary and calligrapher who, repeatedly imprisoned between 1617 and the 1650s, used his time in prison to carry out work copying manuscripts.
• Moses Pitt - publisher who, in 1691, published The Cry of the Oppressed, a moving appeal on behalf of himself and all prisoners for debt across the nation.
• John Cleland - 18th century fighter for the freedom of speech in Great Britain
• Charles Clerke - 18th century Captain in the Royal Navy who sailed on four voyages of exploration. The last three of these voyages were all under the command of Captain James Cook.
• William "Strata" Smith - who in 1815 created his famous geological map of England, Wales and Southern Scotland.
• Charles Hall - a notable economic thinker, and early socialist.
• William Penn - early champion of democracy and religious freedom, was imprisoned for debt in 1707.