HM Prison Dartmoor

In 1805, the United Kingdom was at war with Napoleonic France, a conflict during which thousands of prisoners were taken and confined in prison "hulks" or derelict ships. This was considered unsafe, partially due to the proximity of the Royal Naval dockyard at Devonport (then called Plymouth Dock), and as living conditions were appalling in the extreme, a prisoner of war depot was planned in the remote isolation of Dartmoor. Construction started in 1806, taking three years to complete. In 1809, the first French prisoners arrived and were joined by American POWs taken in the War of 1812. At one time, the prison population numbered almost 6,000. By July 1815 at least 270 Americans and 1,200 French prisoners had died. [2] Both French and North American wars were concluded in 1815, and repatriations began. The prison then lay empty until 1850, when it was largely rebuilt and commissioned as a convict gaol. After originally being buried on the moor, due to the establishment of the prison farm in about 1852, all the prisoners' remains were exhumed and re-interred in two cemeteries behind the prison.

Dartmoor mutiny

Main gates of Dartmoor Prison. The inscription, taken from Virgil's Aeneid, reads Parcere Subiectis (Trans: Spare the Vanquished)

On 24 January 1932, there was a major disturbance at the prison. The cause of the riots is generally attributed to prisoners' perceptions of poor quality of the food, not generally but on specific days prior to the disturbance when it was suspected it had been tampered with.[5] There had also been other instances of disobedience prior to this, according to the official du Parcq report into the incident, such as a model prisoner attacking a popular guard with a razor blade and rough treatment by prisoners of a prisoner being removed to solitary.[6] At the parade later that day, 50 prisoners refused orders, and the rest were marched back to their cells but refused to enter. At this point, the prison governor and his staff fled to an unused part of the prison and secured themselves there. The prisoners then released those held in solitary. There was extensive damage to property, and a prisoner was shot by one of the staff, but no prison staff were injured.[7] According to Fitzgerald (1977), "Reinforcements arrived, and within fifteen minutes these 'vicious brutes', who for some two hours had terrorized well-armed prison staff, and effectively controlled the prison, had surrendered and been locked up again".[8]

The prison in 2017

Dartmoor still has a misplaced reputation as being a high-security prison that is escape-proof. Now a Category C prison, Dartmoor houses mainly non-violent offenders and white-collar criminals. It also holds sex offenders and offers sex offender treatment programmes intended to make the offender realise their behaviour is unacceptable.[14] Some subsequently volunteer for behaviour-changing treatment with medication under a scheme being piloted at HMP Whatton, which has had encouraging results.[14]

Dartmoor offers cell accommodation on six wings. Education is available at the prison (full and part-time), and ranges from basic educational skills to Open University courses. Vocational training includes electronics, brickwork and carpentry courses up to City & Guilds and NVQ level, Painting and Decorating courses, industrial cleaning and desktop publishing. Full-time employment is also available in catering, farming, gardening, laundry, textiles, Braille, contract services, furniture manufacturing and polishing. Employment is supported with NVQ or City & Guilds vocational qualifications. All courses and qualifications at Dartmoor are operated by South Gloucestershire and Stroud College and Cornwall College.

The "Dartmoor Jailbreak" is a yearly event, in which members of the public "escape" from the prison and must travel as far as possible in four days, without directly paying for transport. By doing so they raise money for charity.[15]

In September 2013, it was announced that discussions would commence with the Duchy of Cornwall about the long-term future of HMP Dartmoor.[16] In January 2014 it was stated on the BBC news website that the notice period with the Duchy for closing is 10 years.[17] In November 2015 the Ministry of Justice confirmed that, as part of a major programme to replace older prisons, it would not renew its lease on the prison.[18]

It was announced on 25 October 2019 that HMP Dartmoor will close in 2023.[19]

The Dartmoor Prison Museum, located in the old dairy buildings, focuses on the history of HMP Dartmoor. Exhibits include the prison's role in housing prisoners of war from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, manacles and weapons, memorabilia, clothing and uniforms, famous prisoners, and the changed focus of the prison. It also sells (2015) garden ornaments and other items made in the prison concrete and carpentry shops by prisoners engaged in educational courses.

There are also displays and information on less well known aspects of the prison such as the incarceration of conscientious objectors during world war one.

Éamon de Valera (1920s)

• Michael Davitt
• Peter Hammond, founder of Hammond, Louisiana, USA
• Fred Longden
• John Rodker
• Moondyne Joe
• Thomas William Jones, Baron Maelor
• John Boyle O'Reilly
• Arthur Owens
• Éamon de Valera
• F. Digby Hardy
• John Williams
• Frank Mitchell
• Reginald Horace Blyth
• Darkie Hutton
• John George Haigh
• Bruno Tolentino, who eventually was deported to Brazil where the major part of his oeuvre was published. "A Balada do Cárcere" (1996) is a poetic recollection of the time spent in Dartmoor.[20]
• Fahad Mihyi, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist behind the 1978 London bus attack[21]

• In the 1963 James Bond movie From Russia with Love, the main villainous henchman, SPECTRE assassin Red Grant (played by Robert Shaw) is described as a psychopathic paranoid and a convicted murderer, who once escaped from Dartmoor Prison.
• The adventure story A Rogue by Compulsion. An Affair of the Secret Service (1915) by Victor Bridges begins with a dramatic escape from Dartmoor.[22]
• In Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Mr. Christian states to Captain Bligh that Seaman Burkitt chose service in the Royal Navy as an alternative to imprisonment at Dartmoor.
• In the John Galsworthy play, Escape, Dartmoor is the prison whence the hero, Captain Denman escapes. The stage production in 1927 starred Leslie Howard and the 1930 film version starred Sir Gerald du Maurier.
• The 1929 movie A Cottage on Dartmoor begins with an escapee from Dartmoor prison, and proceeds to a flashback as to how he came to be incarcerated.
• An escaped convict from Dartmoor figures in Nevil Shute's first novel Marazan, published in 1926.
• Decline and Fall, a novel by Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1928 makes thinly disguised references to Dartmoor Prison.
• Dartmoor Prison is mentioned in The Thirteen Problems, a short story collection written by Agatha Christie, and first published in 1932. Christie's The Sittaford Mystery (1931) is set on Dartmoor and features an escaped prisoner.
• Arthur Conan Doyle made reference to 'Princetown Prison' in four stories that he wrote between 1890 and 1903. In The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), an escaped prisoner from Princetown serves as a red herring for Holmes and Watson.
• Dressed to Kill, a 1946 Sherlock Holmes film uses Dartmoor Prison in the plot as the supposed location where three music boxes were made that contain a secret code for a criminal gang.[23]
• Referenced in Bob Miller's song, Twenty-One Years.
• In the Tales of Old Dartmoor episode (recorded in 1956) of The Goons radio comedy series, Grytpype-Thynne arranges for the prison to put to sea to visit the Château d'If in France as part of a plan to find the treasure of the Count of Monte Cristo hid there. A cardboard replica is left in its place, which is left standing after the original Dartmoor Prison sinks with all hands at the end of the episode.
• In an episode of The Saint television series entitled "Escape Route" (1966), Simon Templar (Roger Moore) is sent to Dartmoor to uncover a planned escape.
• Comedy band The Barron Knights' 1978 UK No. 3 hit single "A Taste of Aggro", a medley of parodies, included a version of "The Smurf Song" featuring, in place of the Smurfs, a group of bank robbers from Catford who have escaped from Dartmoor Prison.[24]
• In 1988, the prison played host to a storyline in EastEnders, where Den Watts (played by Leslie Grantham) was being held on remand for arson. He was also joined for some of the storyline by Nick Cotton (played by John Altman), who was imprisoned for a different offence. The prison was called Dickens Hill.
• Dartmoor is frequently mentioned in the Agent Z series of comical children's books written by Mark Haddon.
• Dartmoor prison is implicated in the local Dartmoor 'Hairy hands' ghost story/legend.
• Dartmoor prison plays a central role in The Lively Lady, American author Kenneth Roberts' 1931 historical novel taking place during The War of 1812
• In the first episode of the second series of James May's Man Lab, James May and Oz Clarke were demonstrating map-reading skills by pretending to escape from Dartmoor prison and cross Dartmoor to their escape car[25] (although they had to start their escape from outside the prison grounds as they were not allowed permission inside the prison).
• One of the intersecting story lines in Edward Marston's novel, Shadow of the Hangman (2013) involves two American seamen who escape during the 1815 riot.
• The prison and the American sailors imprisoned towards the end of the War of 1812 are central to Simon Mayo's 2018 novel Mad Blood Stirring.
• In The Voice of Terror (1942), Sherlock Holmes is angrily confronted in a tavern by an ex-convict who says he’d been sent to Dartmoor Prison by Holmes.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dartmoor Prison.

• Ministry of Justice pages on Dartmoor
• Dartmoor Prison Museum
• HMP Dartmoor - HM Inspectorate of Prisons Reports