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During the 19th century Newry had two bridewells. This article will focus on the bridewell that served the County Down part of the town. The name bridewell comes from the first house of correction, or prison, which was opened at Bridewell Palace in London in 1553. A former residence of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, gifted to King Henry VIII, it was named after a nearby holy well of St. Bride’s (St. Bridget’s) church. As time went on it became customary to name prisons as bridewells.
After the opening of the new Custom House on Merchants’ Quay in 1806, the previous Custom House on Kilmorey Street/Boat Street, originally built between 1750-52, was partially converted into a bridewell. A lease in the Museum’s collection, dated the 15th day of November 1820, from Francis, Lord Viscount Kilmorey, to Thomas Waring, Trevor Corry and William Needham Thompson (Trustees of Grand Jury of County Down) declares that the tenement 'formally used as the Custom House and Stores of the Port of Newry' is to be used as a bridewell at a yearly rent of £30 sterling for a period of ninety-nine years.
At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, prisons were set up to hold people before and until their trial rather than as places to hold or punish criminals. Prisoners in Newry were confined in the bridewell until they were sent to the County Gaol in Downpatrick for trial in Downpatrick Court House. In 1815 there were two known cells for the confinement of prisoners, located under the Market House in the top of the building. At the County Down Assizes, held at Downpatrick in March 1823, Lord Gerawley called attention to a report of the Inspector General, stating that Newry had the groundwork of a good bridewell, but it had also been much neglected. Major Palmer’s 1832 Report gives us some idea of the composition of the building.
‘It was the Old Custom House, and though sufficiently large, has never had the alterations made necessary to convert it into a prison. There are in it, two dayrooms and four large sleeping rooms, two yards, and Keeper’s apartments. It is not kept as clean as it should, and the yards are used by the Keeper for his own purposes.’
The lack of alterations during the early 19th century probably contributed to the numerous escapes from its walls during this time. James McKeown escaped on the night of the 5th of February 1824, but was apprehended in Tandragee Market by a Mr. Wilson on the 11th of February. John Sinamon, who on having been apprehended in February 1831, on a charge of horse stealing, made his escape the following Monday, the 28th, by breaking a hole through the yard wall, where the prisoners were allowed to be kept in daylight, into the Bridewell Lane. Michael Woods, also committed for horse stealing in 1839, escaped by making a hole in the roof of his cell, and afterwards another in the roof of the prison, and then letting himself down on the inner yard wall, by means of his blankets being twisted into a rope. From the wall, he got down into the yard and scaled the wall in front of the prison, making good his escape.
In the next article, we will look at the repairs made to the bridewell, the conditions of the prisoners and information on the various Keepers of the institution.
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