HM Prison Reading

Reading (HM Prison)

HM Prison & YOI Reading is a British prison.

It was built in 1844 as the Berkshire County jail in the heart of Reading, Berkshire on the site of the former county prison, alongside the site of Reading Abbey and beside the River Kennet. Designed by Giles Gilbert Scott it was based on London's New Model Prison at Pentonville with a cruciform shape based on the panopticon theory and is a good example of early Victorian prison architecture. It was designed to carry out what was the very latest penal technique of the time, what was known as the separate system. As a county jail it also served as the site for executions, the first one in 1845 before a crowd of 10,000, the last one being carried out in 1913. From 1916 it was used to hold Irish prisoners involved in the Easter Rising. It closed as jail in 1920 and has also been used as internment site in both world wars, a borstal and for a variety of other purposes.

In 1973 Reading was redesignated as a local prison and around that time its old castle wall was removed. In 1992 it became a Remand Centre and Young Offenders Institution, holding prisoners between the ages of 18 and 21 years. It now has about 270 inmates. The Remand centre Library service is run by Reading Borough Libraries.

Famous Inmates

Roderick Maclean who was the sixth person to attempte to assassinate Queen Victoria.

It is most famous for imprisoning Irish poet Oscar Wilde from November 1895 to May 1897. He wrote De Profundis whilst in the jail, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol is based on his experience of imprisonment there. He spent part of his time in the prison helping run the prison library.

Charles Thomas Wooldridge, Trooper of Royal Horse Guards. Executed on July 7th 1896 for the murder of his wife. He was the subject of Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Irish revolutionaries William Thomas Cosgrave, later President of the Irish Republic, and Ernest Blythe were held there because of their involvement in the Easter Rising.

Sources

Peter Southerton: Reading Gaol by Reading Town (Berkshire Books, Gloucs., 1993).

External links