Penal Servitude: Convicts and long-term imprisonment, 1853-1948

Penal Servitude is the first comprehensive study to examine the convict prison system that housed all those sentenced to penal servitude during this time. The research details the administration and evolution of the system, from its creation in the 1850s and the building of the prison estate to the classification of prisoners within it. Exploring life in the convict prison through the experiences of the people who were subjected to it, the authors shed light on various details such as prison diet, education, and labour. what they find reveals the internal regimes, the everyday endurances, conformity, resistance, and rule breaking of convicts, and the interactions with the warders, medical officers, and governors that shaped daily life in the system. Reconstructing the life histories of hundreds of convict prisoners from detailed prison records, criminal registers, census data and personal correspondence, Penal Servitude illuminates the lives of those who experienced long-term imprisonment in the 19th and 20th centuries