Prisoner 4100
Description : George Davey was sentenced to one month's hard labour in Wandsworth Prison in 1872 for stealing two rabbits. He was ten years old.
Date: 1872
Our Catalogue Reference: PCOM 2/290
This image is from the collections of The National Archives. Feel free to share it within the spirit of the Commons.
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Comments and faves
annie_mo_ashley, John McNab, pantufla, Harley Kuyck-Cohen, and 142 other people added this photo to their favorites.
Lydia Pinkham [deleted] (33 months ago | reply)
wow.. poor kid.
SandyEm (28 months ago | reply)
:-( hungryyyyy
PhotonPirate (27 months ago | reply)
Like something from Dickens.
sam2cents (27 months ago | reply)
Extremely sad to read the circumstances of this image. Terrible!
turgidson (27 months ago | reply)
Hanging's too good for 'em ;-)
Feltbug (27 months ago | reply)
I have blogged this picture with a link back to your flickr page - hope that is ok. This is a wonderful collection. I shall look forward to seeing more.
Julie Lyn (27 months ago | reply)
Hunger really ages you--he looks at least 20. Poor kid.
bookish in north park (27 months ago | reply)
How sad is that? Life is hard. Life was even harder then.
Preston Digital Archive (26 months ago | reply)
Surely the inspiration for the 'Artful Dodger'
[B a m b i] (26 months ago | reply)
Woou
jentizzle (26 months ago | reply)
Great selection based on not only on the image but also the back story.
JeramieOK (26 months ago | reply)
Times were different. Powerful image.
Joseph Michael Photography - Carbon Decay (26 months ago | reply)
thats not sad!!! That what discipline is!!!
Kids these days need even ONE DAY of hard labour and they would cry!!!!
fractalznet (26 months ago | reply)
These days, of course, it would be against his human rights and a breach of health and safety regulations to hang that sign round his neck
__
Seen on my Flickr home page. (?)
wiggiewormdog (26 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called sad world, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
wiggiewormdog (26 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called soulful group, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
A Mazuna (25 months ago | reply)
Too young...
CσvORiSђ (25 months ago | reply)
poor ='(
Juan Camilo Castaño (25 months ago | reply)
:(
Urbanimage (24 months ago | reply)
The picture pre-dates the Daily Mail but if it had been around it's readers would no doubt have complained that he'd gotten off to lightly.
photo-geek (24 months ago | reply)
so sad&haunting
potet_jp (24 months ago | reply)
Typical of 19th-century British justice. It would be interesting to know if there was less delinquency then than today.
potet_jp (24 months ago | reply)
In a French TV program on prisons for teenage delinquents before WWII, it was said the inmates were locked up at night in individual cages that were about the shape and size of morgue drawers for fear the kids might have sex among themselves. I wonder in what sort of hell the man who devised them now is.
Nickillass (23 months ago | reply)
Awww.
Island-Life (23 months ago | reply)
When I was 14 I stole two rabbits from a small town, mom and pop zoo - for food! I'm sure this young man did the same... Wish I was there for him.... :(
This photo was invited and added to the Vintage pics group.
eilyshaw (19 months ago | reply)
George Davey??? No surely George Davis is Innocent OK!!!
Faith 197 (14 months ago | reply)
My heart goes out to all of those who had hardship like that in their lives. We will never truly understand their hardships. When people nowadays say "They are hard up", they really don't know the meaning of the word.
My Dad was born in 1932 in Wandsworth and told me there were streets in his child life that he would not have gone down for fear of people stealing for a crust of bread. How many people steal for a crust of bread in our day.
Trying to find out as much as I can about Wandsworth if anyone has any old photo's
Faith