Drawing of Pentonville Prison. 1842. The Illustrated London News.
The 1842 construction of Pentonville Model Prison in north London coincided with an era of prison reform in the United States that favored both silent and separate penal institutions[1]. Designed in the exact style of American silent prisons, Pentonville was meant to model the enforcement of silence for numerous other English prisons.[2] The Penitentiary Act of 1779 in England sought to usher in an era of uniformity among prisons by standardizing cell size and lodging prisoners in separate spaces, creating an overall “sterile and silent environment” that would stamp out the spread of vice. Pentonville is an example of an English prison that, among others, was part of an exchange during which American and English prison reform and architectural movements informed one another. It can be understood as one of the prime English counterparts to American silent prisons that promoted architectural change to make their inmates virtuous; it is thus a valuable tool for comparison with American silent prisons such as Eastern, Auburn, and Sing Sing.