After all the French and American prisoners of war had been repatriated or paroled (see Pt 2), the prison was left empty. For the next 30 years, the Duchy of Cornwall kept up its maintenance in the hope that a use could be found for it, and after a brief unsuccessful attempt at producing gas and oils from Dartmoor peat, the complex was brought back into use as a prison again, but not for prisoners of war this time, but for convicted criminals.

England’s exploration had, for many years, led to colonisation of other parts of the world, and these colonies became a convenient dumping ground for criminals. Felons who committed crimes that were deemed to be serious, but not serious enough for capital punishment, were transported on ships to places like America and Australia where they would be used as a source of labour.

The American War of Independence started to put a stop to the practice of Transportation, and by the mid-19^th century it was falling out of favour with other colonies – and even Britain too, which meant that penal establishments closer to home had to be found. Dartmoor might not have been as far away as New South Wales, but it was still well out of sight for most people, and in 1850 Dartmoor Prison was once again back open for business.

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Originally posted 2023-05-12 14:27:43.

If you read Part 1, you may recall how Thomas Tyrwhitt hoped to change Dartmoor’s inhospitable landscape into profitable farmland, but in the end, was left with just a small uninspiring settlement he called Prince’s Town.

At the end of the post I also mentioned that Tyrwhitt was given an economic boost when an unexpected opportunity arose which he couldn’t have foreseen, and you wouldn’t have to be Albert Einstein to guess what that opportunity was, but what might not be quite so obvious is why a prison was needed here in the first place, especially as it wasn’t even going to be built for English miscreants – but for French prisoners of war.

In 1803 the war with Napoleonic France resumed after a brief respite, and although Napoleon’s army were a force to be reckoned with on land, his fleet was no match for the British Navy at sea, and ever since the war began, the Royal Navy had captured many ships and their crews, so much so, that the old war prisons had become full to the point of bursting.

The sticking plaster solution was to bring back some of the old derelict hulks that had been left rotting in creeks around the coast – and Plymouth Dock (now Devonport Dockyard) had plenty of them. Needless to say, even in those days, it was hardly the ideal solution, not just from a security point of view, but also from a humane one. Conditions on board were appalling, with meagre rations, unhygienic sanitary conditions and hardly enough space for a family of mice:  something had to be done about it, and a shore-based ‘Depot’ was the answer.

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Originally posted 2023-01-21 14:42:26.

On a beautiful summer’s day, Dartmoor can be the perfect place to come: Big skies look down upon open moorland where streams and rivers trickle down through valleys that are crossed by old clapper bridges: It’s a place where ponies roam free, and skylarks flutter between the granite tors and prehistoric remains. You could say, that at times like this, Dartmoor is the perfect antidote to modern life. The problem is that it’s not always a beautiful summer’s day.

Dartmoor can also be a desolate and unforgiving place too. When south-westerly winds bring stormy weather across the Atlantic, the moisture-laden clouds unleash their contents onto the wilderness below turning everything into a quagmire – and that’s not all. The renowned Dartmoor fog can descend in minutes, and when you take into account that this is ‘hairy hands’ country with tales about wild dogs and ghostly paranormal activity, the moor becomes an altogether different place, and can seem more like hell on earth than paradise. It’s understandable therefore that this inhospitable place was deemed a good location to build a prison – and there’s nowhere more inhospitable than Princetown.

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Originally posted 2023-01-08 11:27:03.