No.1060: Broadway, Barking
Saint Margaret’s Churchyard, Broadway, Barking. Photo ©RogerDean 2014
Dickens’ London – Francis Miltoun, 1903:
At Newgate, the women usually numbered from a hundred to one hundred and thirty, and each had only eighteen inches breadth of sleeping-room, and all were “packed like slaves in the hold of a slave-ship.”
[The photograph above is of a detail on the tomb of Captain John Bennett in the churchyard of Saint Margaret’s, Barking. John Bennett was born in Poole, Dorset in 1670. At the age of 25 he was made a Captain in the Royal Navy and sailed extensively. He was also an elected Burgess of Poole. However, there is mystery surrounding the Captain. When he died in 1717 his will benefited friends, a haberdasher and also Poole, but only as long as certain secrets went to the grave with him.
The above information comes from Michael Wand’s website. Wand spent 15 years researching the Captain and what he discovered makes fascinating reading. You can read the full account by clicking here. R.D.]
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