Wandsworth (HM Prison)
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HM Prison Wandsworth is a British prison in Wandsworth in south London. It was built in 1851 when it was known as the Surrey House of Correction. It was designed according to the humane Panopticon principle with a number of corridors radiating from a central control point and each prisoner having toilet facilities. Subsequently, the toilets were removed to increase prison capacity and the prisoners had to engage in the purposefully humiliating process of 'slopping-out' until 1996. Wandsworth contains eight wings on two units. The smaller one, containing three wings, was originally designed for women but now houses the Vulnerable Prisoners Unit - primarily those convicted of sex offences.
It was the site of 135 executions, from 1878 to 1961. Notable people executed include traitors Duncan Scott-Ford, William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) and John Amery and murderers George Chapman and John George Haigh.
Derek Bentley was also executed here. The gallows were dismantled in 1998. The execution chamber is now used as a tea room for the prison officers.
In 1951, it was chosen as the site for a national stock of two types of implement for serious corporal punishment inflicted in prison under Magistrate's orders, either as part of the original sentence or as disciplinary punishment under the prison rules : birch and cat o' nine tails
Ronnie Biggs, Great Train Robber, escaped from Wandsworth in 1965.
As of June 2005, the operational capacity of Wandsworth Prison was 1416, making it the largest prison in London, and the second largest in Britain, after Liverpool.
