Borough Compter

the Compter in Southwark is said to be part of the Marshal Sea: So it was, when [Stow] wrote so; Whereas now it is the Prison for the Borough under the City of London; and was lately kept at St. Margarets Hill, next to the Sessions House; and is lately removed by Order of the City to a Place in St. Olaves Parish near Battle-Bridge; as a worthy, knowing Citizen hath observed to me.

Compter (The), St. Margaret's Hill, Southwark, a prison for the Borough of the City of London, wherein debtors and others for misdemeanours were imprisoned. It was so called from Computare, "because," says Minsheu, "whosoever slippeth in there must be sure to account, and pay well too, ere he get out again." It was built on the site of old St. Margaret's Church, opposite the Tabard, and was destroyed in the great Southwark fire of 1676. Counter Street, Counter Row, and Counter Alley, in the locality of St. Margaret's Hill, preserve a street recollection of a place once sufficiently well known. In Letter Book, Z. Guildhall, circa 1584, is this, "Thomas Bates, bridgemaster, to treat with Sir John Gary for the purchase of the court-house in the borough of Southwark for the use of the said city."

A part of this parish church of St. Margaret is now [1596] a Court, wherein the assizes and sessions be kept, and the Court of Admiralty is also there kept. One other part of the same church is now a prison called the Compter in Southwarke.—Stow, p. 153.

In the early part of the last century the City Compter was rebuilt in Mill Lane, Tooley Street. The materials were sold and removed in 1853. After the fire, 1676, the City would not surrender lease of Compter (it had been farmed or leased out), they would not rebuild the prison, but would grant reasonable terms for other buildings. The keeper might surrender his holding if he would surrender his office too.¹ The Counter was formerly kept at St. Margaret's Hill next to the Session-house: But is lately removed by order of the City to a place in St. Olave's parish, near Battle Bridge, called, I think, Eglin's Gate.—Strype, Second Appendix, p. 12.

Felons were in 1548 ordered to be committed to this prison instead of to Newgate.

Five jayles or prisons are in Southwarke placed,
The Counter once St. Margaret's Church defaced,
The Marshalsea, the King's Bench and White Lyon;
Then there's the Clinke, where handsome lodgings be,
And much good may it do them all for me.
Taylor, the Water Poet, 1630.

[See Giltspur Street, Poultry, and Wood Street.]

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¹ Fire Decrees, 1677, Guildhall.

The Borough Compter, formerly situated in this [Mill] lane, was one of the prisons visited and described by John Howard. He pictures it as in a deplorable condition, "out of repair and ruinous, without an infirmary and even without bedding; while most of the inmates were poor creatures from the 'Court of Conscience,' who lay there till their debts were paid." The Compter was removed hither from St. Margaret's Hill, as stated in a previous chapter. (fn. 1) Till a comparatively recent period (1806), prisoners accused of felonies were here detained, and debtors were imprisoned here. If they could pay sixpence a day, they could have the luxury of a room eight feet square. They were allowed a twopenny loaf a day, but neither straw for bedding, fire, medical or religious attention; and a man might be imprisoned on this regimen for a debt of a guinea for forty days without being able to change his clothes or wash his face or hands during the period of his imprisonment. This miserable state of things was strongly represented to the Lord Mayor in 1804, but no answer was received to the expostulation.

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1. See ante, p. 58.

The Counter or Compter

Stow, writing in 1598, states that St. Margaret's Church was turned into a court house and that part of it became the Counter Prison or Compter. (fn. 26) In 1608, however, the Court of Aldermen ordered (fn. 20) that one of Emerson's houses should be turned into "a Compter for receipt and keeping of prisoners within the sayd borough." In 1649 Samuel Cartwright, citizen and stationer of London, bought (fn. 27) the Counter (then described as a messuage 36 feet wide on the N. side) and the adjoining houses for £575. All this property was destroyed in the fire of 1676 and a new prison was built in 1685.

The Borough Compter remained in existence until in December 1855 the Grand Committee of the Bridge House Estates ordered that it should be taken down "and the materials disposed of." (fn. 28) In the following year Mr. Alderman Humphrey was granted a lease of the site. Counter Court behind the Old Town Hall Chambers preserves in its name the memory of the old Borough prison.

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27. P.R.O., C 54/3467.
28. City of London Records: Minutes of the Grand Committee of Bridge House Estates.