HISTORY hangs heavily in the Clerkenwell House of Detention - London's latest museum. Clerkenwell is significant in Irish history as the scene of the first republican bombing atrocity in Britain. Its most distinguished Irish detainee was Michael Davitt, the future Land; League leader.
While there had been a prison on the site since 1615, in 1845 it was decided to rebuild the area "on a more commodious plan". Representing a model of Victorian efficiency, the central hall with its radiating wings formed part of a plan of ventilation, heating and separation of sexes. Clerkenwell soon became London's busiest jail, detaining 10,000 prisoners a year, ranging from the innocent to the villainlous. In 1865, police estimated there were 6,515 prostitutes in London.
At first the new model penal system enforced a silent regime and the wearing of masks to prevent prisoner association. Later, when the impact on prisoners sanity was realised, conditions were relaxed. While frightening and formidable, Clerkenwell was a step forward in prison reform.
Until the American Revolution, British and Irish convicts had been dumped on the colonies. The period of hulks and transportation to Australia (1787-1868) followed. Hulks, ships anchored offshore, were verminous, overcrowded floating dungeons.
Although demolished in 1890, cells in the basement area of Clerkenwell prison were preserved. This section, restored as a tourism attraction, provides a fascinating insight into Victorian London (Farringdon is the nearest tube station).
Clerkenwell explosion
In 1867, it housed Ricard O'Sullivan Burke, who was arrested shortly after organising the rescue of a leading Fenian, Thomas Kelly, from police custody in Manchester. During that escape, a sergeant was accidentally shot dead - for which the "Manchester Martyrs" were executed in November.
Clerkenwell Green was then the centre of a district notorious for its, slums, immigrant communities - including Famine refugees - and radical ideas; 25,000 people had attended a torchlight meeting there calling for the commutation of the death sentences on Allen, Larkin and O'Brien.
The Clerkenwell bombing smashed that solidarity. It was a bungled, amateur attempt to rescue the Irish American Burke. On the eve of the planned escape, the Home Office received an urgent message from the Dublin Metropolitan Police's G Division: "The plan to blow up the exercise walls by means of gunpowder, the hour between 3 and 4 p.m. and the signal for the alright, a white ball thrown up outside; when he is at exercise."
The governor of Clerkenwell was notified and prison guards were armed. The prisoners were exercised next morning, while Burke was moved, to a double locked cell. At 3.45 that afternoon - December 13th, a barrel of gunpowder was placed against the prison walls and a white ball was thrown over the 25-ft wall into the now, deserted exercise yard. Moments later, the gunpowder exploded in this the second attempt.
A 60 ft section of the wall was demolished, along with the houses on the opposite side of the street. This working class district was devastated: six people were killed outright, six died later from the effects of the explosion, and 120 were maimed. Had Burke been in the prearranged spot, he and many prisoners would in all likelihood have been killed too.
The authorities appear to have made no attempt to avert this outrage; the priority was to prevent another Fenian rescue.
The Clerkenwell explosion, coming so soon after the Manchester shooting, incensed British public opinion. Karl Marx, who had settled in London, observed that the masses there, "who have shown great sympathy for Ireland, will be made wild ... and driven into the arms of the government party. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of the Fenian emissaries."
In the ensuing panic, thousands of special constables were enrolled. The ground floor of Scotland Yard was fitted with bullet proof glass as a precaution against, Fenian attack. Queen Victoria remarked that in future, instead of being brought to trial, Irish suspects should be "lynch lawed and on the spot".
The Times commented: "A crime of unexampled atrocity has been committed in the midst of London... the slaughter of a number of innocent people; the burning and mangling of women and helpless infants, the destruction of poor men's homes and poor men's property. As to the Fenian conspiracy itself, it must be evident that the time is past for clemency and forbearance ... We are confronted by a gang of reckless criminals, who respect no laws, human or divine. Web must crush them at any cost."
Undeflected, Gladstone urged Britain to look beyond the outrages to the grievances of the Irish people, so that "web may be able to look our fellow Europeans in the face".
One of the bombers declared: "There was no person concerned in the affair who was not horror stricken by the unfortunate occurrence.
Davitt's detention
Michael Davitt was remanded to the Clerkenwell House of Detention during the Fenian phase of his career in 1870. He: was "identified" there by J.J. Corydon. The informer was supposed to find him by looking through the inspection hole of each cell in the wing where he was held. Corydon did so, but only after he had seen him being marched from one cell to another. In all probability he had never set eyes on Davitt before.
On May 30th, 1870, the Times carried rumours of a plot to re enact the Clerkenwell explosion. Scotland Yard had received an anonymous letter threatening that if Davitt and another Fenian were not released, instead of a wall being blown down, the greater part of the prison would be blown up.
Armed police cordoned off the prison and on this occasion patrolled the neighbouring streets.
After this scare, Davitt began the probation stage of his sentence in Millbank Prison, where the Tate Gallery is situated today.
In 1868 Michael Barrett was hanged for the Clerkenwell explosion - the last public execution in Britain. Barrett went to the scaffolding protesting his innocence. He was hanged outside Newgate Prison, where the Old Bailey now stands.
With supreme historical irony, the Birmingham Six held their victory press conference opposite this spot on March 14th, 1991.