White Candlewick Bedspread
DimensionsOverall: 205.8 x 255.3 cm
Credit LineGift of Mrs. W. H. Pike, 1962
Object number1962.063.002
Label TextMuseum London records note that women prisoners in the Middlesex County Gaol made this candlewick bedspread. Although undated, its connection to Londoner J. H. Griffiths (1826-1898) who came to London in 1855, suggests it dates from the last third of the 19th century. At that time, women imprisoned in this gaol were largely convicted of crimes of immorality, including drunkenness, idleness, profanity, and prostitution. At the same time, some women inmates were elderly and/or destitute. For them, the gaol was a kind of welfare institution. Because at this time, women were held to a higher standard of morality, women inmates who had violated expected standards of feminine conduct experienced a greater loss of respectability.
Implementing the ideas of Elizabeth Fry and other prison reformers, women in the Middlesex County Gaol undertook work, which was to make them into “true” women. Through education and employment in the gaol, women inmates were to gain skills and modes of thought that would result in desirable behaviours once released from prison.
NameBedspread
c. 1835
c. 1920
Newcombe, Mrs, Kent County
c. 1863
