£400
4to, pp. [ii], 16, [2, the first numbered ’15’] + 4 folding plates, one highlighted in yellow. Extracted from a volume. A little light spotting. Title page and plates detached. Final leaf completed in manuscript listing bankers for the work’s subscription.
A scarce pamphlet detailing the need for a new prison and bridewell in Edinburgh, a site able to accommodate men, women and children of all offences, and to correct the then-current mismanagement of the House of Correction which, the authors note, are 'repugnant to the law of the land, and to the feelings of humanity'. Descriptions of a new, suitable place of incarceration is illustrated in the folding plates. The authors indicate in a postcript that they had intended to publish the report in summer 1782 but the ongoing American Revolution made delay prudent; the postscript is dated November 1783.
In the mid-18th century Edinburgh's prison population was housed in a dilapidated former Tolbooth on the High Street, and the need for replacement was obvious even before the prison reform movement grew. Several schemes were proposed in the 1780s, including this one, but it took until 1790 for Parliamentary approval of construction of a new building, to be designed by Robert Adam. Funding restrictions resulted in a new bridewell only, on Calton Hill, which a few decades later was replaced by Calton Jail.
The final leaf prints that subscriptions will be received by David Steuart, 'and also by' - with the rest blank. In this copy it has been completed in manuscript to read 'all the Bankers in Edinburgh. By Mssrs Drummond & Co., Coutts & Co., Sir Robt Herries & Co. } Bankers in London. And by the agents of the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland in the different County Towns'.
