Debtors’ prisons: Dickensian horrors or economic successes?
How did locking up debtors force them to pay their creditors? Alexander Wakelam reveals how the debtors’ prisons of Georgian society operated
Published: November 30, 2022 at 9:41 AM
Debtors’ prisons were a major feature of Georgian society in England and Wales. But how did the idea of locking up debtors to make them pay their creditors actually work in reality? Dr Alexander Wakelam explains to David Musgrove why, and how, the system worked.
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Authors
Dr David MusgroveContent director, HistoryExtra.com
David Musgrove is content director of the HistoryExtra.com website and podcast, plus its sister print magazines BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed. He has a PhD in medieval landscape archaeology and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Alexander Wakelam is a research associate at the University of Cambridge
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