Pentonville Prison in London begins to function…
1842 CE
The first modern prison in London, Millbank, which also opens in 1842, has separate cells for eight hundred and sixty prisoners and has proved satisfactory to the authorities, who have started building prisons to deal with the rapid increase in numbers occasioned by the ending of capital punishment for many crimes and a steady reduction in transportation.
Two Acts of Parliament allowed for the building of Pentonville prison, designed by Captain Joshua Jebb, Royal Engineers, for the detention of convicts sentenced to imprisonment or awaiting transportation.
Construction started on April 10, 1840 and is completed in 1842. The cost is £84,186 12s 2d.
It has a central hall with five radiating wings, all visible to staff at the center.
This design, intended to keep prisoners isolated—the "separate system" first used at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia—is not, as is often thought, a panopticon.
Guards have no view into individual cells from their central position.
Pentonville is designed to hold five hundred and twenty prisoners under the separate system, each having his own cell, thirteen feet (four meters) long, seven feet (two meters) wide and nine feet (three meters) high with little windows on the outside walls and opening on to narrow landings in the galleries.