I’ve always found Newgate Prison to be a fascinating place.
That said, since it was actually demolished between 1902 and 1904, I have to admit that I’ve never really known Newgate Prison, nor have I ever got to see it in the stone, as it were.
However, I’ve seen numerous photographs of it – both inside and out – and I’ve even made a video about one its most chilling legends The Black Dog Of Newgate – so I would say that I am somewhat acquainted with said place of incarceration.
INSIDE NEWGATE PRISON
I have recently been buying first edition books of Victorian photographs that show, in wonderful – though black and white or sepia – detail the streets of London as they were at the time of the Jack the Ripper crimes.
One of these books was The Queen’s London, published in 1897.
Among the rare views of the Victorian metropolis, are six views of Newgate Prison, that show the old gaol both inside and out, and I used these to create my lates YouTube Video “A Rare Look Inside Newgate Prison – London’s Hell On Earth.”
A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE GAOL
The video uses these six, as well as other images that I have collected, to give the viewer a Virtual tour of both the history and the interior of a prison that dominate the landscape around St Paul’s Cathedral for the best part of one thousand years, and, I have to say, I made some intriguing discoveries whilst I was researching it.
I hadn’t realised, for example, that for much of the 19th century, Newgate wasn’t actually used as a prison as such, but rather it was where those who were going to be executed were held, until sentence was carried out – originally in public in the square outside, and then, from 1868, in a specially constructed shed, inside the prison.
JACK THE RIPPER CONNECTIONS
It was here that Jack the Ripper suspect Mary Pearcey was hanged – and it was here that, in 1887, that Israel Lipski was executed.
So the prison has several associations with the Whitechapel murders case itself, and who’s to day that Jack the Ripper wasn’t hanged for a separate crime, and the connection simply wasn’t made?
I mean, we don’t know who the perpetrator of the infamous crimes was, so anything his possible, right?
GIVE THE VIDEO A WATCH
So if you, like me, are fascinated by Newgate Prison, then be sure to give my latest video a watch – and, if you do enjoy it, be sure to like it as well as subscribe to my channel!