Camberwell Prison

[Old_bones]

Hi everyone,

I've just finished Peter Ackroyd's 'Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem'. Camberwell Prison is mentioned a few times, and I'm fascinated! I can't seem to find any info online, I was wondering if anyone knew where it actually was?

[PeckhamRose]

Go into the library or Chener Books. John Beasley is bound to have written about it in one of his books!

[DulwichFox]

Could of been Camberwell House Peckham Rd. A workhouse.

Many of the Workhouses of the time were also Prisons..

http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/camberwellhouse.html

Fox.

[Jah Lush]

Hmmmm..... the workhouse in Camberwell was called The Spike which was also mentioned in George Orwell's Down And Out In Paris And London. A different place altogether I think.

http://briandeer.com/social/london-homeless.htm

[????]

Given that it's a novel I suspect it's just poetic licence innit

[DulwichFox]

Brixton prison was originally built in 1820 and opened as the Surrey House of Correction,

At that time Camberwell was much bigger and may well of covered Brixton..

Most of Peckham came under Camberwell as did part of East Dulwich.

Fox.

[tfwsoll]

Not sure about the prison but Dan Leno features in Sweet Saturday Night by Colin MacInnes, which is an entertaining look at music hall songs. There's a blue plaque to him in Ackerman Road.

[civilservant]

There's a blue plaque to Dan Leno just off Myatt's Fields in Camberwell.

But I think Quids is right. I couldn't find any info about a Camberwell prison either.

You might however be interested in Millbank prison http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millbank_Prison - this stood where the Tate Britain now stands. The Prison Service HQ is still on that site

[ianr]

The novel opens with Lizzie Cree being hanged at Camberwell in 1881. Brixton ceased to house women in 1869 http://www.pbs.plymouth.ac.uk/solon/journal/issue%204.1/Davie%20crimes%20and%20Misdemeanours%20final.pdf (200kByte). Horsemonger Lane Gaol, in Newington, closed in 1878 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsemonger_Lane_Gaol, when Wandsworth took over as the main hanging prison for South London http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=074-acc3444&cid=0#0.

Ackroyd possibly didn't want to introduce any fictional detail for which there ought to be a real historical record.

[Old_bones]

Thanks everyone, you've given me some really interesting new starting points to look at too - I'll go and have a look at the blue plaques! The prison article looks great - thanks for the link ianr.

It does annoy me when authors don't provide notes on which details and historically accurate and which are added for a story purposes - a tad pedantic maybe, but I do love a historical novel!

Thanks everyone.

[steveo]

tfwsoll Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Not sure about the prison but Dan Leno features in

> Sweet Saturday Night by Colin MacInnes, which is

> an entertaining look at music hall songs. There's

> a blue plaque to him in Ackerman Road.

There's a big new health centre on Akerman Road, with AKERMAN in giant letters across the roof. I wondered who Akerman might have been, tried and failed to find out on the internet so asked the forumites on Urban75.

All I got was a load of lip.

So they don't know.

Does anyone here?

[edhistory]

From Anglo-Saxon times Camberwell was part of Brixton Hundred.

All of East Dulwich was within Camberwell.

All except summary justice was dealt from the Brixton Hundred Court and later the Lambeth Court.

This continued until the Courts Act of 1971.

The detail is a little more complicated, but broadly, that's it.

Summary justice was done by local magistrates and latterly Camberwell Green Magistrates Court.

I wouldn't take anything written by Ackroyd as "history" without independent corroboration.

John K

[civilservant]

Who was Akerman? Sorry no idea. However the new Health Centre is on Patmos Road which is probably named because it leads to the church of St John the Divine i.e. St John of Patmos

To help your blue-plaque pilgrimage, here's a guide to plaques commemorating Music Hall and Variety artistes http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Plaques/MusicHallArtistesCommemorativePlaques.htm

See also this about the history of the local area http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/a-z-articles The maps of the local area are fascinating and show how quickly DV and ED transformed from open fields to suburb within a very few decades

[Old_bones]

Hmm ... a lot of Ackroyd's 'history' seems to be suspect, or pure fabrication at the very least. My partner recommended 'London', I put it down after three pages after reading about a Neolithic Age 'alcohol cult' - absolute nonsense, anyone who can read a webpage knows that there was a possible alcohol cult in the Bronze Age with the Beakers. I couldn't bring myself to read on, as I was unsure what was true so it seemed like a waste of time. I thought I'd have a go at his fiction instead. He does seem to be a very good story teller, but sketchy with the facts, which is disappointing!

More great links - thanks!