WORMWOOD SCRUBS, HM PRISON

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0074 LMA/4417
Held at	: London Metropolitan Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma ›
Full title	: WORMWOOD SCRUBS, HM PRISON
Date(s)	: 1917-1967
Level of description	: Collection
Extent	: 2.33 linear metres
Name of creator(s)	: HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Wormwood Scrubs prison was designed in 1870s by Major-General Edmund Du Cane, chairman of the Directors of Convict Prisons, as a national long-term penitentiary, built on a site in East Acton with convict labour. By the time the prison was completed, its entire purpose had, however, changed, and it became a local prison for short-term petty offenders. Today Wormwood Scrubbs provides lower security accommodation for remand and short-term prisoners.

From 1904, the prison also became part of the Borstal system for young offenders, and in 1929 it was made an allocation centre from which newly-sentenced trainees were assessed before being sent to a suitable Borstal. In addition Wormwood Scrubbs came to specialise in holding first time offenders, or 'star' prisoners as they were known. It has more recently become a prison in which life-sentence prisoners are assessed in the early years of their terms.

During the Second World War, part of the prison was evacuated for the use of MI5 and the War Department, and by the end of the war, a section of the hospital wing was being used as condemned quarters for prisoners from Wandsworth and Pentonville prisons.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Records of HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs consisting of nominal registers of prisoners 1917-1967, are arranged chronologically within three groups, namely, youth registers, adult registers and Borstal training registers. Indexes have been deposited for each group. In addition a number of unidentified pages of photographs were deposited with the registers.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

The collection has been arranged into one series: LMA/4417/01 REGISTERS OF PRISONERS.

Conditions governing access:

These records are open to public inspection, although records containing personal information may be subject to closure periods.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Statutory transfer under section 4(1) of the Public Records Act, 1958.

Finding aids:

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Records deposited in 2001.

Allied Materials

Related material:

See also the records of HM Prison, Wandsworth: ACC/3444 See also records of HM Young Offender Institute and Remand Centre, Feltham: LMA/4465 Memoirs of a warder at HMP Wormwood Scrubs: ACC/3588.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
June to August 2010.