Millbank Prison stood for nearly a century upon the banks of the Thames between Westminster and Vauxhall, a well-known gloomy pile by the river side, with its dull exterior, black portals, and curious towers. This once famous prison no longer attracts the wide attention of former days but the very name contains in itself almost an epitome of British penal legislation. With it one intimately associates such men as John Howard and Jeremy Bentham; an architect of eminence superintended its erection; while statesmen and high dignitaries, dukes, bishops, and members of Parliament were to be found upon its committee of management, exercising a control that was far from nominal or perfunctory, not disdaining a close consideration of the minutest details, and coming into intimate personal communion with the criminal inmates, whom, by praise or admonition, they sought to reward or reprove. Its origin and the causes that brought it into being; its object, and the success or failure of those who ruled it; its annals, and the curious incidents with which they are filled,—these are topics of much interest to the general reader.

At this distant time it is indeed interesting to observe how thoroughly John Howard understood the subject to which he had devoted his life. In his prepared plan for the erection of the prison he anticipates exactly the method we are pursuing to-day, after more than a century of experience. “The Penitentiary Houses,” he says, “I would have built in a great measure by the convicts. I will suppose that a power is obtained from Parliament to employ such of them as are now at work on the Thames, or some of those who are in the county gaols, under sentence of transportation, as may be thought most expedient. In the first place, let the surrounding wall, intended for full security against escapes, be completed, and proper lodges for the gatekeepers. Let temporary buildings of the nature of barracks be erected in some part of this enclosure which will be wanted the least, till the whole is finished. Let one or two hundred men, with their proper keepers, and under the direction of the builder, be employed in levelling the ground, digging out the foundation, serving the masons, sawing the timber and stone; and as I have found several convicts who were carpenters, masons, and smiths, these may be employed in their own branches of trade, since such work is as necessary and proper as any other in which they can be engaged. Let the people thus employed chiefly consist of those whose term is nearly expired, or who are committed for a short term; and as the ground is suitably prepared for the builders, the garden made, the wells dug, and the building finished, let those who are to be dismissed go off gradually, as it would be very improper to send them back to the hulks or gaols again.”

Suggestions such as these may have seemed impossible to those to whom they were propounded; but that the plan of action was simple and feasible, is now most satisfactorily proved. Elam Lynds, the celebrated governor of Sing-Sing prison, in the State of New York, acted precisely in this manner, encamping out in the open with his hundreds of prisoners, and compelling them in this way to build their own prison-house, cell by cell, as bees would build a hive. De Tocqueville, commenting on this seemingly strange episode of prison history, observes that “the manner in which Mr. Elam Lynds built Sing-Sing would no doubt raise incredulity, were not the fact quite recent, and publicly known in the United States. To understand it we have only to realize what resources the new prison discipline of America placed at the disposal of an energetic man.”

Plans for the new penitentiary buildings were actually prepared, and operations about to commence, when the Government suddenly decided to suspend further proceedings. The principle of transportation had never been entirely abandoned. Western Africa had indeed been selected for a penal settlement, and a few convicts sent there in spite of the deadly character of the climate. But the statesmen of the day had fully recognized that they had no right to increase the punishment of imprisonment by making it also capital; and the Government, despairing of finding a suitable place of exile, was about to commit itself entirely to the plan of home penitentiaries, when the discoveries of Captain Cook in the South Seas drew attention to the vast territories of Australasia. Embarking hotly on the new project, the Government could not well afford to continue steadfast to the principle of penitentiaries, and the latter might have fallen to the ground altogether, but for the interposition of Jeremy Bentham. This remarkable man published, in 1791, his “Panopticon, or the Inspection House,” a valuable work on prison discipline, and followed it, in 1792, by a formal proposal to erect a prison on the plan he advocated.

The outlines on which this model prison was to be constructed were also indicated in a memorandum by Mr. Bentham: “A circular building, an iron cage, glazed, a glass lantern as large as Ranelagh, with the cells on the outer circumference,”—such was his main idea. Within, in the very centre, an inspection station was so fixed that every cell and every part of a cell could be at all times closely observed; but, by means of blinds and other contrivances, the inspectors were concealed, unless they saw fit to show themselves, from the view of the prisoners; by which the feeling of a sort of invisible omnipresence was to pervade the whole place. There was to be solitude or limited seclusion ad libitum; but, unless for punishment, limited seclusion in assorted companies was to be preferred. As we have seen, Bentham proposed to throw the place open as a kind of public lounge, and to protect the prisoners from ill-treatment they were to be enabled to hold conversations with the visitors by means of tubes reaching from each cell to the general centre.

Bentham’s project had much to recommend it and it was warmly embraced by Mr. Pitt and Lord Dundas, the Home Secretary. But secret influences were hostile to it. It is believed that King George III opposed it from personal dislike of Bentham who was an advanced radical. Year after year, although taken up by Parliament, the measure hung fire. At last in 1810 active steps were taken to re-open the question, thanks to the vigour with which Sir Samuel Romilly called public attention to the want of penitentiaries. Nothing now would please the House of Commons but immediate action; and this eagerness to begin is in strange contrast with the previous long years of delay.

Negotiations were not re-opened with Bentham, except in so far as he was entitled to remuneration for his trouble and original outlay. Eventually his claims were referred, by Act of Parliament, to arbitration, and so settled. The same Act empowered certain supervisors to be appointed, hereafter to become possessed of the lands in Tothill Fields, which Bentham had originally bought on behalf of the Government. These lands were duly transferred to Lord Farnborough, George Holford, Esq., M. P., and the Rev. Mr. Becher, and under their supervision the Millbank Penitentiary as it now stands was commenced and finished.