The Prison Cookbook

By the start of the nineteenth century, the majority of prisoners were being provided with at least some food by their prison. However, up to the formation of the national prison system in 1877, the food that a particular prisoner might receive often depended on an elaborate and often almost impenetrable combination of factors. These included the nature of the institution and its management, the prisoner’s offence, the stage of his progress through the legal process, his state of health, whether he was performing certain types of labour within the prison, and the governor’s interpretation of phrases such as ‘coarse but wholesome food’ which appeared in national prison legislation. Even in the same prison, inmates in apparently similar situations could receive very different rations – something that often led to great discontent.

A good example of these dietary intricacies was provided in 1800 by a Royal Commission investigating the recently rebuilt Coldbath Fields prison at Clerkenwell. The prison’s dietary then comprised:

on One Day about Eight Ounces of meat, which, by boiling, is reduced to about Six Ounces; and the Day following, the Prisoners have the Broth produced by that Meat; and so alternately from Day to Day, One Pound of Bread Daily. Besides this Allowance, there are about Fifty Prisoners who have Water Gruel, by Order of the Doctor.¹⁴⁷

However, the majority of Coldbath prisoners did not actually receive this supposedly standard allowance. More than half the inmates were being held under the 1779 Transportation Act which demanded that they be ‘fed and sustained with Bread, and any coarse Meat, or other inferior Food, and Water, or small Beer’, at public expense and were not to have ‘any other Food [or] Drink’. Those at the prison in its role as a house of correction, and given hard labour, were required ‘to be sustained with Bread, and any coarse, but wholesome Food and Water’; those not doing hard labour were to be maintained by the county with up to half of any of their earnings taken as a contribution towards their food. Inmates awaiting trial and those held as ‘idle apprentices’ received only the basic bread ration of 1lb per day, although one apprentice who had been further convicted on a charge of aggravated assault was then eligible to the full meat allowance. Two convicted women in the ‘disorderly’ section received the full allowance while a third, yet to be tried, was given just bread. Women working in the prison laundry received a double allowance of bread and a pint of porter (dark beer) each day.

The best-fed inmates at Coldbath Fields turned out to be a group of sailors imprisoned after joining a mutiny at the Nore (an anchorage on the Thames estuary) in 1797. The mutineers had a daily ration of 1½lb of bread, 6oz of meat, rice soup on alternate days, a ‘warm breakfast’ and a pint of porter with permission to buy a further pint if they had money. This generous treatment was at the direction of the prison surgeon who saw it as a protection against the scurvy to which seamen were well known to be disposed.

Not surprisingly, many Coldbath Fields prisoners complained about their food. A common grievance was of portions being underweight. Enquiries by the commissioners revealed that loaves were sometimes underweight, but also often overweight. The inconsistency appeared to be due to loaves sticking together during baking and then being unevenly separated. An unpleasant taste in the bread was also reported by some prisoners. The baker said this arose from the present necessity of using a proportion of imported wheat which sometimes acquired a disagreeable flavour when it became too warm during its sea voyage. Another prisoner stated that he had occasionally been served with tainted meat during hot weather. The prison’s butcher explained that this was probably because he was obliged to slaughter meat on Friday but not send it to the prison until the following Monday. The timing of the prison meals caused objection from some prisoners. Being served their bread at 8 a.m. and their meat or soup at noon, they were effectively forced to fast for up to eighteen hours. The commissioners suggested that ‘as the lower classes accustom themselves to eat frequently’, a later hour for serving the dinner meal would benefit the health of those serving long sentences. One ‘very healthy looking’ young inmate protested about a lack of food. This, it transpired, was because he had opted to have his food supplied by his mother who brought him provisions twice a week. However, he always ended up eating his three days’ supply on the day that it was delivered and then had to rely on the daily 1lb ration of the ‘prison loaf ’ until his mother’s next appearance.

Compared to Coldbath Fields, the dietary for crown prisoners at Lancaster County Gaol in 1812 was relatively straightforward. It consisted of 1lb of bread and a penny’s worth of butter per day, supplemented by a weekly ration of 2½lb of oatmeal and 10lb of potatoes. On Sundays there was an extra ration of ½lb of boiled beef and a quart of broth. Debtors received a county allowance of a shilling’s worth of bread, although when bread prices were high this was supplemented by potatoes. As was the usual practice at this time, those who were able could buy extras to add to the prison issue. The purchase of tea and coffee, however, was denied to female inmates – a matter that caused some complaint. The women, it appeared, were so partial to a daily brew that they had been selling their bread allowance in order to buy supplies and had consequently fallen into a bad state of health. ¹⁴⁸

For prisoners at the Fleet, the quality of their beer was a regular concern. One inmate, Philip Maine, described it as ‘flat, thick, and weak, and bad in general’. Another prisoner, James Newham, was deputed by the other Fleet prisoners to complain about ‘the unwholesomeness of the beer’ which he said produced ‘a violent fermentation in my bowels and other injurious effects’. The suppliers, a local brewery company Messrs Barclay, Perkins & Co., were baffled by the complaints and implied that the fault lay with the prison’s keeper of the cellar-head who supervised the storage of the beer.

By 1818, Newgate had decided that prisoners cooking their own food resulted in too much filth and had ended the practice, although inmates could still use the prison’s own potato steamer. ¹⁴⁹ The prison dietary allowance, formerly a daily pound of bread plus a twice-weekly pound of beef, was revised, with the food now being prepared by an employed cook in the prison kitchen. The new dietary comprised a pint of gruel for breakfast and a dinner which alternated between 6oz (cooked weight) of beef and a quart of soup prepared from the previous day’s meat liquor with barley and vegetables added. Members of a Parliamentary Select Committee tasted the bread, soup and gruel and pronounced them good. The bread, baked at the Giltspur Street Compter, was held to be particularly good and wholesome. Nonetheless, complaints from prisoners about the bread led the Select Committee to interview the baker, George Anderson.¹⁵⁰ One particularly leaden batch had, claimed Anderson, been due to substandard yeast supplied by a brewer. Other problems were blamed on defective flour, some of which had been ‘damaged’ while being ground in the prison’s own mill. He also revealed that the bread had formerly been baked in large tin pans, sixteen loaves to a pan, but since his oven’s brick bottom had been replaced by proper baker’s tiles he could now place the bread there directly.

One of the most progressive local prison dietaries recorded by the 1818 Select Committee was that in use at the Maidstone House of Correction. It had resulted from experiments in adjusting the diet and ventilation in the prison following an outbreak of typhus fever there. It included variations for prisoners with and without hard labour, the former receiving a weekly serving of suet pudding – an early appearance of what was later to become a staple of prison menus:

After 1835, the new prison inspectorate discovered that diets varied widely, even for similar types of establishment. At Grantham’s House of Correction in 1836, the weekly rations comprised just 48½oz of bread and 16oz of meat, while at Haverfordwest the inmates received a massive 288oz of bread, 24½oz of cheese, 21 pints of gruel and 21 pints of milk pottage.¹⁵¹

Even plainer than Grantham’s was the dietary at Derby County Gaol. Here, the inmates’ breakfast and supper each day consisted of a quart of gruel, made with a meagre 2oz of oatmeal, plus a portion of bread. Dinner, every day, comprised 1lb of boiled potatoes and a portion of bread. The total bread allowance each day was 24oz of ‘good wheaten bread’ and there was a daily ration of ¼oz salt. Those imprisoned for more than three months received an additional 2oz of onions a day (or, when onions could not be procured, a red herring was substituted every second day). The prison’s surgeon justified the absence of meat from the diet by his view that ‘the agricultural labourer in Derbyshire has cheese and a little bacon, but butcher’s meat seldom forms a portion of his food’. ¹⁵²

At York County Gaol prisoners received a weekly ration of 10lb of bread plus an allowance of a shilling to spend as each inmate wished. The inspectors’ criticism of this ‘improper and inconvenient’ practice resulted, by the time of their next report in 1839, in the introduction of a new dietary (below). Seventeen of the week’s twenty-one meals comprised oatmeal pottage and bread, with meat featuring in the remaining four:

Across the Pennines, at Lancaster County Gaol, prisoners on hard labour received the same breakfast and supper as at York, but enjoyed a somewhat more varied dinner menu with around five times the allowance of beef, and potatoes served almost every day.

Of the 153 dietaries examined by the prison inspectors in 1836, just over half served meat, usually in the form of beef, with occasional instances of mutton or bacon. Ox heads were often used in soup recipes. Cheese was included in twenty-eight dietaries, mostly in agricultural areas in northern England and the south Midlands. Beer appeared on the regular menu at only five prisons, although at some of the others it could be bought or was provided as a perk to wardsmen. Tea and coffee featured rarely, usually at prisons where they were given to very short term prisoners. Inmates at the Gloucester County Gaol and Penitentiary were unique in receiving a daily pint-and-a-half of mint infused in (presumably hot) water. ¹⁵³

At the other end of the country, the Exeter Gaol and House of Correction prescribed three dietaries in their 1841 regulations. Dietary No 1, the most generous, was given to prisoners awaiting trial, to those who were condemned, sentenced to transportation or hard labour, or to females nursing their children. The smaller rations of Dietary No 2 were given to those serving a sentence without hard labour. Dietary No 3, the lowest scale, was reserved for vagrants. The allowances for each of the Exeter dietaries are shown below:

Most prisons by now had separate arrangements for debtors, who either maintained themselves or, if they could not afford to do so, lived on the daily ‘county allowance’ – typically 1lb of bread and 1½lb of potatoes. This was sometimes supplemented by charitably funded contribution – at Lancaster it included a weekly provision of four red herrings and 1lb of rice. Lancaster’s debtor inmates, as elsewhere, were noted as being a particular nuisance. Despite rules to the contrary, they invariably demanded garnish from new arrivals. They were also each allowed to introduce up to a quart of beer a day into the prison, which was often ‘sold’ at twice its value on an internal black market conducted in one of the prison rooms which acted as an informal tavern. It was observed that the allowance of those not requiring or unable to pay for beer was always taken up by those involved in this enterprise.¹⁵⁴

More shady dealings were revealed by the prison inspectors’ 1837 report on London’s Giltspur Street. Here, it was discovered that wardsmen – convicted prisoners appointed in each ward to help maintain order and cleanliness – were making an income by illicitly selling goods such as coffee, sugar, butter, raw bacon, eggs, flour and beer. One wardsman’s account book recorded that he had sold one prisoner 12½ pints of beer in a single day.

As well as the dietaries, official reports sometimes included recipes, or at least ingredient lists, for dishes on prison menus. At Maidstone in 1818, soup and suet pudding were on offer:

Receipt for soup for eighty persons:— 2 bullock’s heads, 14 bushels of potatoes, 6lbs of whole rice, 1½ gallons of pea-flour, onions, leeks, pepper, and salt.

Suet-pudding for eighty persons:—8 gallons of flour, 8lbs of suet.

At Wakefield House of Correction in 1842, the gruel was enlivened by a pinch of spice while the dinner menu included scouse and onion porridge.¹⁵⁵

Gruel — four ounces of oatmeal to each quart, seasoned with ground ginger or allspice.

Scouse — one pint and a half made from four ounces of beef, cut off from the bone, one pound and a half of potatoes, and a proportionate quantity of pepper, salt, onions and vegetables.

Broth — to be made from the bones of the preceding day’s beef, together with one ox-head, to every fifty prisoners, thickened with one ounce of oatmeal to each pint, and a proportionate amount of salt, herbs, and pepper.

Soup — stewed from the preceding day’s bones, broken small, along with four ounces of peas, pearl or Scotch barley, to each pint, seasoned with herbs, salt and pepper.

Onion porridge — two ounces of oatmeal and a proportionate quantity of onions to each pint and a half.

The prison inspectors’ investigations of the nation’s local prisons soon made it apparent that reforms were urgently needed. In 1842, under the direction of Home Secretary Sir James Graham, a comprehensive review was launched. One particular focus for the inspectors’ inquiry was the subject of prison dietaries and how these varied in relation to the prisoners’ age, sex, length of sentence, imposition of hard labour and so on.

Their report, in 1843, proposed a scheme in which prisoners were allocated to one of ten dietary classes according to the length of their sentence, whether it included hard labour, etc. The guiding principle behind the dietaries was that the quantity of food provided should be ‘sufficient, and not more than sufficient, to maintain health and strength, at the least possible cost’. The inspectors were clear, however, that ‘diet ought not to be made an instrument of punishment’. ¹⁵⁶ Within these constraints, it was recommended that prisoners should always receive three meals a day, of which at least two should be hot, that a considerable portion of the food should be solid, and there should be occasional variety. For prisoners employed at hard labour, ‘animal food’ (i.e. meat) was required to form part of the diet. The proposed minimum rations for each dietary class are listed in the tables below:

The soup to contain, per pint, 3oz of cooked meat without bone, 3oz of potatoes, 1 ounce of barley, rice, or oatmeal and 1 ounce of onions or leeks, with pepper and salt. The gruel, when made in quantities exceeding fifty pints, to contain 1½ ounce of oatmeal per pint, and 2oz per pint when made in less quantities. The gruel, on alternate days, to be sweetened with ¾ ounce of molasses or sugar, and seasoned with salt.

One somewhat unexpected item that appeared in the new scheme was the cocoa provided to Class 5 prisoners – those serving long sentences with hard labour. Its introduction, without apparent comment, in three of the weekly breakfasts was perhaps intended to add both variety to the menu and also extra nutrient through its fat content.

Although the new dietaries were not imposed on prisons, magistrates were strongly encouraged by Sir James Graham to adopt them in their local establishments.

In the 1850s, the science of nutrition was still in its infancy. Diets were largely judged in terms of the weights of the solid food they provided, even though the widely differing water content of, say, potatoes (around 75 per cent) and bread (35 per cent) made such comparisons misleading. The body’s use of different types of food was also little comprehended. However, the study of prison diets was to lead to some of the most significant advances in nutritional understanding.

The problem of scurvy, which frequently afflicted long-term prisoners as well as seafarers, was still not understood. Although the remedial effects of lime and lemon juice had been known since the sixteenth century, exactly why these were effective was still a mystery. It was also not widely appreciated that protection against scurvy was provided by the inclusion of other fruit or vegetables in the diet, as the disastrous effect of removing potatoes from the Millbank dietary had shown in 1822. That eating raw potatoes could protect against scurvy just as well as citrus fruits had been recognised by the 1780s ¹⁵⁷ but was apparently little known outside nautical circles. In 1842, physician William Dalton recalled a sea voyage he had taken in the 1820s where the sailors had been provided with ‘scurvy grass’ – raw potatoes, peeled and sliced like cucumber, and served with vinegar. Not a single case of scurvy was reported on the expedition which lasted almost three years. ¹⁵⁸ The fact that cooked potatoes could be equally effective was reported in 1843 by William Baly, medical officer at Millbank, who noted that scurvy only occurred amongst military prisoners and never amongst the convict population. The only significant difference between the two groups was that the military prisoners did not receive cooked potatoes in their diet – once this was changed, no further cases of scurvy developed. Baly also analysed data from local prisons and found that an absence of potatoes or other vegetables from the diet was linked with the appearance of scurvy. ¹⁵⁹

Even when the value of other vegetables in preventing scurvy came to be realised, their addition to the diet was not always appreciated by the prisoners. An attempt to introduce onions and lettuces onto the menu at Portland had to be abandoned after some of the men threw them from their cells into the corridor in disgust.¹⁶⁰

One area where prison studies significantly contributed to nutritional knowledge was in the roles played by carbohydrates and proteins in the diet. In 1842, Baron Justus von Liebig – a German-born chemist of some repute – published his influential work Animal Chemistry. The book claimed that protein was the only true nutrient and the primary source of the body’s energy, while fats and carbohydrates had a fairly minor role, for example in maintaining the body’s temperature. Disciples of Liebig’s theory interpreted any dietary-related disorder as being caused by a lack of protein. An outbreak of scurvy at a prison in Perth in 1846 was thus diagnosed – despite William Baly’s results – as resulting from a protein deficiency.¹⁶¹

A challenge to Liebig’s views eventually came from Edward Smith, a London hospital physician who was not afraid of getting his hands dirty in his quest for scientific data. His early researches, carried out on himself and convicts at Coldbath Fields prison, measured the carbon dioxide produced during exercise and rest. Later, for a period of more than two years – even during his seaside holidays – Smith collected and measured his own daily faeces and urine production, the latter being analysed with particular respect to its content of nitrogen-containing urea. Another study involved a three-week long investigation of the waste products of four Coldbath Fields convicts who worked the tread-wheel three days a week. From his experiments, Smith concluded that exercise led to increased production of carbon dioxide, but not to any change in the excretion of urea. Contrary to Liebig’s theory, Smith found that urea production was related to the amount of protein in the diet. Thus, it was carbohydrates rather than proteins that that were the body’s primary source of muscular energy.¹⁶²

Smith also questioned the whole rationale for standard dietaries, as the labour given to convicts in different establishments was so varied. His analysis of the 1843 recommended dietaries led him to conclude that the food was seriously inadequate, with a carbon content for Class 1 prisoners amounting to as little as one third of what was nutritionally required to perform tread-wheel labour. Even the diet given to Class 5 prisoners provided only three fifths of the daily requirements for the tread-wheel. ¹⁶³ In Class 2, the concession to those performing hard labour of a single pint of soup per week he described as ‘manifestly ridiculous’.¹⁶⁴

A contrary view – that prisoners were generally overfed – was voiced by William Guy, Medical Superintendent at Millbank from 1859. In a comparison of the food served in workhouses and prisons, Guy noted that even Millbank’s Penal Class dietary (280oz of solid food and 10½ pints of liquid per week) compared favourably with the most generous workhouse dietary (187½oz solids and 12 pints liquid) provided to able-bodied male paupers. ¹⁶⁵ A Royal Commission on Penal Servitude in 1863 noted that paupers in some workhouses received only 4oz of meat per week, while a convict on public works received 39oz as well as a daily ration of 27oz of bread and 16oz of vegetables.

Vegetarians and vegans may appreciate one further contribution from the prison system to nutritional knowledge. Based on reports from the Devizes House of Correction and Stafford Gaol, where prisoners had been given only bread, potatoes and gruel for up to eighteen months with no ill effects, William Guy concluded that neither meat, nor any other animal-derived nutrient, was essential to a healthy diet.¹⁶⁶

The exercise yard and tread-wheel at the Coldbath Fields House of Correction. The tread-wheel was invented in 1819 by engineer William Cubitt. Odd and even-numbered slots alternated fifteen minutes of wheel exercise with fifteen minutes of rest or reading. In the course of a day, the distance climbed by a prisoner could be equivalent to the height of Mount Kilimanjaro. From 1843, use of the tread-wheel was restricted to males over the age of 14, with a maximum ascent of 12,000 feet.

Prisoners engaged in labour	Sunday and Wednesday: 1lb bread, ½lb beef, 1lb potatoes. Monday: 1lb bread, 1 pint ox-head soup, 1lb potatoes. Tuesday and Thursday: 1lb bread, ½lb oatmeal, 2lbs potatoes. Friday: 1lb bread, 1 pint of soup. Saturday: 1lb bread, 1lb of suet pudding.
For prisoners not engaged in labour	Sunday: 1lb bread, ½lb beef, 1 pound of potatoes. Wednesday: 1 pint of soup. Other days: 1½lbs of bread per day.

	Breakfast and Supper	Dinner
Sunday, Tuesday	1 quart oatmeal pottage, ½lb bread	1 quart stew of heads and shins, &c., with ½lb potatoes, ½lb bread.
Monday, Wednesday, Saturday	Same	1 quart oatmeal pottage, ½lb bread; or occasionally, ½lb boiled rice, made from 4oz in a raw state, seasoned with a small quantity of allspice, and ½lb bread.
Thursday	Same	5oz beef without bone, after boiling, 1lb potatoes, ½lb bread.
Friday	Same	1 quart broth from the beef of yesterday, &c.; ½lb bread, with leeks or onions, and ¼oz oatmeal for each prisoner.
	1oz salt per week for each prisoner.

Sunday	1 quart stew made from cows’ shins, one shin to every 14 prisoners.
Monday	½lb beef, boiled, and potatoes.
Tuesday	1 quart rice soup, and potatoes.
Wednesday	½lb beef, boiled, and potatoes.
Thursday	1 quart peas soup, and potatoes.
Friday	½lb beef, made into scouce [scouse].
Saturday	Potatoes and cheese.
	3½oz salt per week for each prisoner.

Dietary	Males	Females
No. 1	22oz bread and 1½lb potatoes daily; 1lb bacon per week	16oz bread and 1lb potatoes daily; 1lb bacon per week
No. 2	16oz bread and 1½lb potatoes daily; 1lb bacon per week	Same as No. 1
No. 3 (1st imprisonment)	22oz bread and 1½lb potatoes daily	16oz bread and 1lb potatoes daily
No. 3 (2nd and subsequent imprisonments)	22oz bread daily	16oz bread daily

CLASS 1 — Prisoners confined for any term not exceeding three days.
	Males	Females
Breakfast/Supper	1 pint oatmeal gruel.	1 pint oatmeal gruel.
Dinner	1lb bread.	1lb bread.

CLASS 2 — Convicted prisoners for any term exceeding three days, and not exceeding fourteen days.
	Males	Females
Breakfast/Supper	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner	12oz bread.	6oz bread.
Prisoners of this Class employed at hard labour to have, in addition, one pint of soup per week.

CLASS 3 — Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms between fourteen days and six weeks.
	Males	Females
Breakfast/Supper	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 8oz bread.	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner—
Sun, Thu.	1 pint soup, 8oz bread.	1 pint soup, 6oz bread.
Tue, Sat.	3oz cooked meat without bone, 8oz bread, ½lb potatoes.	3oz cooked meat without bone, 6oz bread, ½lb potatoes.
Mon, Wed, Fri.	8oz bread, 1lb potatoes, or 1 pint gruel when potatoes cannot be obtained.	6oz bread, 1lb potatoes, or 1 pint gruel when potatoes cannot be obtained.

CLASS 4 — Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms between six weeks and three months.
	Males	Females
Breakfast/Supper	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 8oz bread.	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner—
Sun, Tue, Thu, Sat.	3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes, 8oz bread.	3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes, 6oz bread.
Mon, Wed, Fri.	1 pint soup, 8oz bread.	1 pint soup, 6oz bread.

CLASS 5 — Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms exceeding three months.
	Males	Females
Breakfast— Sun, Tue, Thu, Sat.	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner	4oz cooked meat without bone, 1lb potatoes, 6oz bread.	3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes, 6oz bread.
Breakfast— Mon, Wed, Fri.	1 pint cocoa, made of ¾oz flaked cocoa or cocoa nibs, sweetened with ¾oz molasses or sugar. 6oz bread.	1 pint cocoa, made of ¾oz flaked cocoa or cocoa nibs, sweetened with ¾oz molasses or sugar. 6oz bread.
Dinner	1 pint soup, 1lb potatoes, 6oz bread.	1 pint soup, ½lb potatoes, 6oz bread.
Supper, all days.	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.

CLASS 6 — Convicted Prisoners not employed at hard labour for periods exceeding 14 days.
	Males	Females
Breakfast/Supper	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 8oz bread.	1 pint oatmeal gruel, 6oz bread.
Dinner— Sun, Tue, Thu, Sat.	3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes, 8oz bread.	3oz cooked meat without bone, ½lb potatoes, 6oz bread.
Mon, Wed, Fri.	1 pint soup, 8oz bread.	1 pint soup, 6oz bread.

CLASS 10 Prisoners under punishment for Prison Offences, for terms up to three days: 1lb of bread per diem. Prisoners in close confinement for Prison Offences under the 42nd section of the Gaol Act:
	Males	Females
Breakfast/Supper	1 pint of oatmeal gruel, 8oz of bread.	1 pint of oatmeal gruel, 6oz of bread.
Dinner	8oz of bread.	6oz of bread.