Newgate Chapel

Thomas Rowlandson|Auguste Charles Pugin|Rudolph Ackermann, London|Joseph Constantine Stadler

1809 · Hand-colored etching and aquatint · Drawings and Prints

Operating under the jurisdiction of the City of London, Newgate Prison stood next to the Old Bailey courthouse and was built just outside the former city wall. Designed by George Dance, the forbidding prison opened in 1778 and was demolished in 1902. In addition to housing debtors, it served as a holding pen for those awaiting trial, and for condemned prisoners. This view of the chapel records how, on the Sunday before a hanging, condemned prisoners would sit around a coffin to listen to their last sermon. They did not need the tipstaffs, sitting upstairs, to keep them awake.

Artist

Thomas Rowlandson|Auguste Charles Pugin|Rudolph Ackermann, London|Joseph Constantine Stadler

Date

1809

Medium

Hand-colored etching and aquatint

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959