WW1 Military Prisons (Glasshouses)

[PhilB]

I never had the pleasure of doing time in a Military Prison but men who had never wanted to go back for more. It was a harsh regime and the prisoner was on the go from dawn to dusk. I`ve not come across any reports of life in WW1 establishments - were they similar to WW2 (& probably current) versions or did they have distinctive features to make life unpleasant?

[David B]

I wouldn't believe that the military prisons would be softer in WW1 rather that WW2. A feature of prison punishment in those days was the harshness of the regime,

and generally an inmate did it tough. I had the pleasure (?) of being the Petty Officer in charge of an escort taking prisoners from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur MCE,

and boy they were worked - doubled everywhere, work was mainly on the rockpile all in the blazing heat of central Malaya. Not fun, even the guards were scared of

the RSM too.

David

[Simon Birch]

"In Glass Houses" by Robert Boyes 1988 has a couple of chapters on this subject - both in the field and at home.

Simon

[Moonraker]

Soldiers of the 3/19th London Regiment (St Pancras Rifles) who had skipped rather too many parades at Chisledon Camp were sentenced to fourteen days' detention in Devizes Prison (which was a military detention barracks from October 1914 to 1920), where they had to do everything on the double with no traditional ten minutes' rest each hour on route marches, when civilian onlookers looked on them as criminals. A big hardship was having only brown paper to smoke and only a chained Bible in the cells to read.

Moonraker

[ander11]

Phil I found this on Glass houses

http://www3.hants.gov.uk/museum/aldershot-museum/local-history-aldershot/glasshouse-aldershot.htm

regards

Ian

[PhilB]

So that`s why it`s called the Glasshouse! Thanks.

[andrew pugh]

Hi Philb.

Thats what our prisons of today should be like.

Regards Andy.

[Janissary]

Hello everyone.

Interesting question and one that I have a reasonably complete answer to, as I am currently carrying out research for a book to be published by the Australian Army History Unit dealing with the history of the Australian Army's detention system, philosophy and facilities 1914-1948. As a consequence I have done some fairly detailed research into the history of British Army detention systems and facilities as background to the general story.

The Boer War had shown that many soldiers had found that the easy way to avoid the rigours of active service was to strike an NCO and be shipped to either Gosport or Malta DB. To avoid this in the new conflict it was widely promulgated that the new rules for military prisons and detention barracks were too enlightened for active service situations and that conditions in imprisonment should always be worse than conditions in the field, so severe in fact that a short period of imprisonment would be enough of a shock to allow for the early return of the delinquent to the front. Prisoners would be employed on work of a useful nature - loading and unloading stores at the ports and railheads, digging entrenchments, stonebreaking and sanitary duties are quoted as examples. In the 1913 Rules for Military Prisons in the Field, a hard days’ work was scientifically defined as equivalent to 450 foot tons, the rules stating that:

This amount should be demanded of any prisoner, particularly as his comrades in the field are probably doing as least as much.

A long table in the Rules showed, for example, that marching a mile with a sixty pound pack equalled 25.93 foot tons, which means that a man would have to carry out an 18 mile march with a sixty pound pack each day in order to discharge "a hard days' work". The prisons were to be located in the theatre of war at locations such as railheads and advanced depots where the prisoners’ labour could best be used. Diet was under no circumstances to be better than that of the troops in the field and all extras and luxuries were to be excluded, including jam, cheese, tobacco, rum, pepper, tea and coffee. No variety was to be allowed and the diet would consist largely of the ordinary field rations - tinned beef and biscuits.

Having said that, the various files for the AIF Detention Barrack at Lewes in Sussex (1917-1920) shows that the entire aim of the facility was to retrain SUS and to return them to the fighting units as well-trained and useful soldiers. The regime at Lewes, which was copied from that of MPSC administered establishments in the UK, was rigid, even severe, and very demanding, however, it was all based around physical and military training. The SUS were not used for any "work of a useful nature" alluded to in the 1913 Rules as their time was taken up entirely either with military training or with industrial work in the barrack (boot making, cooking, baking, manufacture of mail bags, laundry).

On the subject of diet, the record shows clearly that the SUS at Lewes did not receive more than the normal ration scale and in fact, if a prisoner was admitted to the facility suffering from VD he was held in the segregated VD Wing until he was certified cleared by the medical officer and then passed into the General Wing to commence training, however, while held in the VD Wing, SUS were fed at 60% of the authorised ration scale, the carrot on the stick being that the sooner they got cleared of VD (a process which required their full co-operation) the sooner they would go onto a full diet. The records also show that 95% of SUS showed a weight gain at time of discharge from the DB - this is an interested comment on the amount of food that men at the front must (not) have been getting. The only dietary bonus that appears in the records is a quarter of a Christmas pudding issued to each SUS on Christmas Day.

It needs to be understood that the AIF DB at Lewes was for offenders in the UK only. AIF offenders sentenced to periods of detention in excess of 28 days on the Continent served their sentence at one of the five British Army prisons located near Rouen and Le Havre.

"Minor" sentences were carried out at the Anzac Corps Field Punishment Compound. From various references it would appear that the regime at FPC was often harsher than that at DB.

Hope this helps.

Graham W

[daisy7]

Would the abbreviation FP on an AIF service record therefore refer to a Field Punishment Centre?

[Magnumbellum]

Not necessarily, as there was provision for carrying out Field Punishment literally "in the Field". You will find descriptions of Feld Punishment elsewhere on GWF.

[bill24chev]

Something at the back of my mind (a very distant and dark place) makes me think that ANZAC soldiers may have been exempt Field Punishment one and perhaps two.They may have done a type of FP at a Field Punishment Center

I may have been dreaming this though. Can anyone confirm my beleif?

[tony paley]

Bill,

I have also read that Anzac soldiers did not receive field punishment'. I also read an account where it was not uncommon for Australian troops, who came accross British soldiers undergoing such punishment , to cut them free from the carriage wheel.

tony P

[Ron Clifton]

One of the stories in George Macdonald Fraser's collection The Sheikh and the Dustbin refers to the sight of a dustbin in a military prison (albeit after WW2). It had been polished until it gleamed like a piece of regimental silver.

It spoke silent volumes about the harshness of the glasshouse regime!

Ron