Informally known as “The Ville,” Pentonville Prison opened in 1816, to deal with the rapid increase in prisoner numbers that came with the closing of several London Prisons.
15 – Charles Peace
Born in Sheffield in 1832, this prolific burglar committed his first notable offence in Blackheath, London, on October 10th, 1878, and was caught by a police officer, PC Edward Robinson.
Peace, who was using the name John Ward, shot and wounded PC Robinson but was overpowered. For this crime, Peace was convicted of attempted murder and burglary and was sentenced to penal servitude for life.
Following his conviction, Peace was taken to Pentonville Prison where his true identity as Charles Peace, a wanted man for the murder of Arthur Dyson in Sheffield, was revealed by his mistress, Susan Grey.
He was then transferred from Pentonville to Sheffield to stand trial for Dyson’s murder. During the train journey, Peace attempted a daring escape by jumping from the moving train, but was recaptured.
He was subsequently found guilty of the murder of Arthur Dyson and was hanged at Armley Prison on February 25th, 1879.
14 – Oscar Wilde
Convicted of gross indecency with other men in 1895 and sentenced to two years of hard labour, this celebrated Irish playwright and poet served a short but brutal; sentence at Pentonville.
Wilde’s imprisonment was the culmination of a public scandal. It began when he sued the Marquess of Queensberry for libel.
The Marquess, who was the father of Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, had left a calling card for Wilde with the inscription: “For Oscar Wilde posing as a sodomite.” Wilde’s friends urged him to drop the lawsuit and flee to France, but he refused.
During the libel trial, Queensberry’s lawyers presented evidence of Wilde’s homosexual relationships, effectively proving their client’s accusation was true.
The case against Queensberry was dismissed, and Wilde was immediately arrested on charges of “gross indecency” under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885.
This was the law used to criminalize all male-on-male sexual acts. After a second trial, Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to the maximum possible penalty: two years of hard labour.
Wilde was initially held at Newgate Prison before being transferred to Pentonville Prison in London. His time there was marked by isolation and harsh conditions.
The Victorian prison system was designed to break the spirit of inmates through a regimen of solitary confinement, silence, and relentless, monotonous tasks.
In Pentonville, Wilde was forced to pick oakum, a painful and tedious task of unravelling old rope to be used for shipbuilding. He was also subjected to the strict “silent system,” which prohibited prisoners from speaking to one another.
The harsh environment and intense physical labour severely affected his health. His decline was so noticeable that, after several months, he was transferred to Wandsworth Prison and then, in November 1895, to Reading.
13 – Éamon de Valera
De Valera was a commandant of the Irish Volunteers and commanded the garrison at Boland’s Mill during the Easter Rising. After the rebellion was suppressed by the British, he was court-martialled and sentenced to death.
However, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The reasons for this commutation are debated, but it’s often attributed to his American citizenship and the public backlash in Ireland against the British executions of other rebel leaders.
After his death sentence was commuted, de Valera was imprisoned at various locations, including Pentonville Prison. He was released from Pentonville in June 1917 as part of a general amnesty.
His time in prison, including his stay in Pentonville, significantly raised his political standing among Irish nationalists. While imprisoned, he led acts of defiance among the Irish prisoners and emerged as a leader.
Following his release, de Valera was elected as a Sinn Féin deputy for East Clare and became a central figure in the Irish independence movement.
12 – Dr. Hawley Crippen
In 1910, Cora Crippen disappeared and Dr. Crippen initially told friends that she had gone to the United States to visit relatives, and then later, that she had died there.
After his secretary and lover, Ethel Le Neve, moved into his house, Cora’s friends became suspicious and alerted the police. When police searched his London home, they found human remains buried in the cellar.
Crippen and Le Neve fled to Canada by ship, but the ship’s captain became suspicious and used a new technology, wireless telegraphy, to alert authorities. They were arrested and returned to England.
At his trial, a jury found him guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to death.
After his conviction, Dr. Crippen was taken to Pentonville Prison.
On the day of his execution, he attempted suicide, but the attempt was unsuccessful and he was hanged at Pentonville on November 23th, 1910.
11 – Frederick Seddon
Frederick Seddon was a property speculator and businessman who, along with his wife, took in a lodger named Eliza Mary Barrow.
Barrow was a wealthy, eccentric spinster who was easily manipulated.
Seddon quickly persuaded her to sign over all of her assets and savings, including a substantial amount of India Stock, in exchange for him providing for her for the rest of her life.
Barrow’s health then deteriorated rapidly, and she died. Seddon claimed her death was due to “epidemic diarrhoea” and quickly arranged for her burial.
However, her relatives became suspicious about the sudden death and the disappearance of her property.
They went to the police, and Barrow’s body was exhumed. A post-mortem examination found a lethal amount of arsenic in her remains. Seddon and his wife, Margaret, were arrested and tried for murder.
The prosecution’s case was that Seddon had poisoned Barrow with arsenic obtained from flypaper.
During the trial, Seddon insisted on testifying in his own defense, which is said to have been a major mistake.
His arrogant and condescending demeanor reportedly turned the jury against him. Although his wife was acquitted, Frederick Seddon was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Following his conviction, Seddon was sent to Pentonville Prison. He was executed by hanging on April 18, 1912. Seddon’s execution was carried out by the notable hangmen John Ellis and Thomas Pierrepoint.
10 – Fenner Brockway
During the First World War, Brockway was the editor of the Labour Leader, the newspaper of the Independent Labour Party. He was a vocal opponent of conscription.
He co-founded the No-Conscription Fellowship, an organization that provided assistance to those who, like him, refused military service on grounds of conscience.
In 1916, he was prosecuted for distributing a leaflet that opposed conscription. He was ordered to pay a fine, but he refused, leading to his imprisonment.
Shortly after his release, he was arrested again for refusing conscription after he had been denied recognition as a conscientious objector.
He was handed over to the Army, court-martialled, and spent more time in prison. In total, he served four terms of imprisonment for his beliefs.
Brockway’s first term of imprisonment was at Pentonville Prison, where he was sentenced to two months.
The first week was spent in solitary confinement, and after that, prisoners were made to sew mailbags.
During his time there, he saw Sir Roger Casement, who was also a prisoner in Pentonville at the time, before Casement’s execution.
Brockway was released in June 1917 as part of a general amnesty. He was later imprisoned in other prisons, including Wormwood Scrubs, Walton, and Lincoln.
9 – Arthur Koestler
After escaping France in 1940, Hungarian-born author and journalist Koestler arrived in England without proper papers.
Because he was a foreign national from an enemy state, he was classified as an “enemy alien” and was refused permission to land. He was subsequently detained and imprisoned.
Koestler spent six weeks in Pentonville. His novel Darkness at Noon was published in England while he was still in the prison.
After his release, he volunteered to join an aliens company of the Pioneer Corps and later worked for the Ministry of Information. His experiences in prison and his personal hardships influenced his later writing.
8 – Neville Heath
Heath was found guilty of murdering Margery Gardner. He was also charged with a second murder, that of Doreen Marshall, but was only tried for the first.
Following his conviction and death sentence, he was taken to Pentonville Prison.
He was executed by hanging on October 16, 1946. Before his execution, he was offered a drink, and according to reports, he replied, “While you’re about it, sir, you might make that a double.
There is limited information available about his time in Pentonville prison where he was under a day-and-night guard in the condemned cell. His stay was brief, as his execution took place shortly after his conviction.
7 – George Best
Legendary Northern Irish footballer Best did spent time inside Pentonville Prison after being arrested for drink driving, and during the arrest, he also assaulted a police officer.
He was later sentenced to three months in prison for the assault and the driving offenses, including driving while intoxicated and without a license.
Best’s time in prison was a consequence of his long struggle with alcoholism and he spent Christmas 1984 and New Year’s Day 1985 in Pentonville Prison.
His imprisonment attracted significant media attention and highlighted his personal problems.
During his time inside, he reportedly trained with the prison football team, showcasing flashes of his former brilliance. However, the experience was a difficult one for him, and it marked a low point in his life.
6 – Timothy Evans
Evans and his wife lived in a flat at 10 Rillington Place in London. In 1949, Evans reported to police that his wife had died.
He initially confessed to murdering both his wife and daughter.
However, he later withdrew his confession and accused his downstairs neighbor, John Christie, of the murders.
Christie was the chief prosecution witness at Evans’s trial. The jury found Evans guilty of his daughter’s murder, and he was sentenced to death.
Following Evans’s execution, a terrible truth emerged. Three years later, in 1953, John Christie was discovered to be a serial killer. Police found the bodies of several women on his property, including the remains of Evans’s wife.
Christie subsequently confessed to murdering her. This new evidence raised serious doubts about Evans’s conviction, and it is now generally accepted that Christie was the killer of both Evans’s wife and daughter.
After his conviction, Evans was sent to Pentonville Prison to await his execution. He was hanged on March 9, 1950.
The case became a major factor in the public debate surrounding capital punishment in the United Kingdom and is considered a significant miscarriage of justice.
A royal pardon was granted to Timothy Evans in 1966.
5 – John Christie
Christie’s crimes came to light in 1953 when his landlord discovered the bodies of three women hidden in a concealed kitchen alcove at his flat at 10 Rillington Place in London.
Further investigation of the property found the remains of two more victims in the garden and his wife’s body under the floorboards of the front room.
Christie was a key witness at the trial of his former tenant, Timothy Evans, who was convicted and executed for the murder of his daughter.
Following the discovery of the bodies at Christie’s home and his subsequent arrest, Christie confessed to the murder of his wife and several other women.
He was tried and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, Ethel. His plea of insanity was dismissed by the jury.
After his conviction, Christie was taken to Pentonville Prison to await his execution and he was hanged on July 15th, 1953.
4 – Fred Hill
In 1973, a law was introduced in the UK making it compulsory for motorcyclists to wear a helmet.
Fred Hill, a retired mathematics teacher and former World War II dispatch rider, strongly opposed this law, viewing it as an infringement on personal freedom.
He became a prominent protester, riding his motorcycle everywhere while wearing an old beret instead of a helmet.
His refusal to comply with the law led to him being issued with hundreds of tickets.
He refused to pay the fines, which constituted “Contempt of Court,” and for this he was given custodial sentences 31 times.
Fred Hill was imprisoned multiple times for his protests, with sentences ranging from as little as 24 hours to longer terms. His final sentence was for 60 days.
3 – Boy George
In January 2009, Boy George was sentenced to 15 months in prison for an incident that occurred in April 2007.
A court heard that he had handcuffed a male escort to a wall in his London flat and beaten him with a metal chain.
The judge stated that his actions were “premeditated, callous and humiliating.”
Boy George was initially sent to Pentonville Prison to begin his 15-month sentence after being convicted of for false imprisonment and assault. He was later transferred to a different prison in Suffolk. He was released after serving four months of his sentence.
2 – George Michael
George Michael, a famous singer, was sentenced to eight weeks in prison in 2010 for driving while under the influence of drugs.
He was initially sent to Pentonville Prison, but his stay there was brief as he was later transferred to an open prison.
The sentence came after he pleaded guilty to driving while unfit through drugs and possessing two cannabis cigarettes. The incident involved him crashing his Range Rover into a photo shop in London in July 2010.
The judge stated that a prison sentence was inevitable due to a previous conviction for a similar offense.
He spent a month in prison in total, with his stay in Pentonville being the initial part of his sentence. He was then transferred to another prison in Suffolk. He was released after serving four weeks.
1 – Nile Ranger
In January 2017, professional footballer Ranger pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud in a case involving an online banking scam. and he was convicted of online banking fraud.
The court heard that he had been involved in obtaining a vulnerable person’s bank details and transferring over £2,000 from an account.
He was sentenced to eight months in prison. Ranger served just over 10 weeks of his sentence in Pentonville before being released early for “consistently excellent custodial behaviour.”
During his time there, he said the prison was a “terrible” experience and that he was often locked in his cell for 23 hours a day. He stated that he kept to himself and used the time to reflect on his life and focus on his return to football.
Thanks for watching, we have hundreds more true crime videos and you can check out two of them in the boxes above, remember to subscribe with notifications as we have videos publishing every week.
Related posts:
15 Crypto Billionaires And Their Trillionaire Mindset
15 Crypto Billionaires And Their Trillionaire Mindset
15 Beautiful Expensive Things Owned By The Richest Royal Families
The Trillionaire Mindset of Bruce Willis & His Billionaire Lifestyle
15 Expensive Mansions Owned By Billionaire Wall Street Bankers
15 Most Dangerous Inmates Inside US Medium Security Prisons
