malefactors. It was in the year 1785 that the Association of the Marlborough division, under the guidance of Robert Griffiths, solicitor, was first formed for the prosecution of felons, the earliest, we believe, in the county of Wilts. Meanwhile the gaols were crowded with victims; and it occasionally happened that convicts lay in irons at Fisherton for nearly a year before they were removed to the hulks or transported, that is to say, before the legal term of their sentence commenced. In 1783 a resolution was passed by the county magistrates to re-build Fisherton gaol, and to send the prisoners, during the process, to Devizes; but this determination seems to have been set aside by a vote in the following year to re-construct the Old Bridewell at Devizes [also a county prison] at a cost of £800. The step was greatly needed; for in 1785, an epidemic breaking out at Fisherton, rendered the transfer to Devizes at once imperative. Howard the philanthropist had in his history of the Lazarettos of Europe already exposed the unhealthy character of the prisons both at Devizes and at Marlborough; but his admonitions remained unheeded, till the gaol-fever at Marlborough proved fatal in 1784 to a most worthy and humane gentleman, Mr. Warner the medical attendant on that establishment, as also to the keeper, Mr. Jones. From that period the system was subjected to progressive ameliorations, Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, of Gloucestershire, aiding the movement by the welltimed publication of a treatise on prison discipline. The rebuilding of Fisherton gaol was eventually undertaken in 1818 and completed in 1822, at a cost of £28,000. In 1785, an Act was obtained for a new gaol within the city of Salisbury, but this was not a county affair. The new prison at Devizes, on the other hand, built in 1810 just within the limits of the Old Park, is a county establishment; the old Bridewell within

1 It was in 1783 that Townsend, the Bow-street runner, said he remembered a session, during the Re

cordership of Sergeant Adair, at the close of which, forty criminals were hanged at two executions.

the borough also continuing as heretofore, to belong to the county. How long this old Bridewell had belonged to the county, and under what circumstances it first became removed from the control of the municipal body, is involved in some uncertainty. Had it been part of the castle, it might, as such, have appertained to the county or the Crown, though the borough was independent, as in so many other instances: but the old Bridewell of Devizes is far enough from the castle and does not appear to have been ever associated with it. All we can say of it therefore is, that the fact of its being the only or the principal county establishment of the kind in Wiltshire, far into the 17th century, is suggestive of the metropolitan character which Devizes bore in the medieval ages. The following letter, being a mandate issued by the Lord Lieutenant of the county to six of his deputies in South Wilts in the time of James I., will illustrate this, and shew at the same time on what occasion the necessity for a second gaol was first entertained. [The preamble is abridged.]

"To my loving friends, Sir Walter Vaughan, Sir Richard Mompesson, Sir Richard Grubham, Knights; Giles Tooker, Henry Sherville [Sherfield,] and Thomas Sadler.

"After my hearty commendations" &c. "Whereas I understand that the southern division of the County of Wilts, is infested with vagrants, &c. &c. I have thought fit earnestly to desire the Justices and whomsoever shall be able to lend a helping hand to the reformation of these disorders, to resolve upon some convenient place within the said Division, to erect a house of correction; that the inconvenience of carrying such malefactors so far as the Devizes may not be a means to weaken the hands of justice, but that your cares therein may be such as may give his Majesty content in the due execution of his laws, and give ease unto the country, which is now oppressed with the number and insolencies of these vagabond and licentious multitudes.... So, I rest, Your loving friend.

"From the house at Baynard's Castle, 15 May, 1623."

"PEMBROKE.

[Endorsed in another hand as follows]"The desire is that the Lieutenants would shew their letters to the Justices of peace within the county of Wilts, for erecting a house of correction in the southern Division, near Salisbury; for that the house already erected at the Devizes is so far off

that the country is much troubled with vagrant persons in these parts, because the trouble and charge is so great of sending them thither."

In 1435, during the Shrievalty of Edmund Hungerford, we read that on the 10th of August, a royal commission was issued to William Westbury, Sir Robert Hungerford, John Whyte the Mayor of Salisbury, and John Westbury, "to deliver the gaol of Old Sarum:" a circumstance which Mr. Hatcher (the historian of Salisbury) regards as something unusual. Now, at first sight, this document, coupled with subsequent events, might seem to suggest that Devizes, as a place of security for county felons, was selected at the time when the castle of Old Sarum fell into decay: but inasmuch as county Sheriffs had no power or jurisdiction in boroughs, it seems a more likely conjecture to assign the establishment of a county prison within the walls of Devizes to the period of the creation of Lords Lieutenant in the reign of Edward VI., when, as Strype tells us, they "were appointed to suppress the routs and uproars in most counties." The matter then stands thus:-The castle of Devizes was a State prison till the time of its destruction, near the close of the 15th century: and from and after the 3rd of Edward VI. the borough contained the county prison, which county prison being rendered unnecessary by recent enlarged buildings, is now a station for the county police. [Note. Before the erection of the new prisons, the keepers' salaries were as follows:-Devizes old Bridewell £100;-Fisherton £150;-Marlborough £70.]

go

RAPID CHANGES OF MINISTRY. 1782-1784. In order to give an aspect of continuity to public affairs, we should now back as far as Lord Shelburne's advent to power, an event coincident with Lord North's retirement in March 1782. In the new Ministry, that of Lord Rockingham, Earl Shelburne and Mr. Fox became the two Secretaries of State; and various measures of reform, long in abeyance, were at last successfully introduced. Now also it was that William Pitt agitated the first of his three motions for re-adjusting the Representation

(which he proposed to effect by transferring about 100 of the borough members to the counties). On Lord Rockingham's death during the same year, Lord Shelburne took his place as Premier, and had the honour of signing the peace with America. William Pitt, hitherto one of the Bowood coterie, was his Chancellor of the Exchequer, though only 23 years of age. Fox, who had been displaced from the Secretaryship when Shelburne became Premier, now formed that alliance with the Tory Lord North, known as "the Fox and North coalition," which, though it succeeded for a few months in unseating Shelburne, so disgusted the country, as to pave the way for Pitt's immediate return to power, who thereupon assumed the post of Prime Minister by holding the two offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, December 1783.

At the general election which followed, a county meeting was, according to accustomed practice, convened at Devizes, on the 7th of April 1784, when Charles Penruddocke and Ambrose Goddard, Esquires, were again put in successful nomination. WILLIAM CHAFIN GROVE of Zeals, Sheriff. In the borough of Devizes, where the candidates were Sir James Long, Henry Addington and John Lubbock, the two former were elected. Bnt inasmuch as the name of one of these gentlemen marks an era of considerable moment to the borough, we must stop for awhile to notice more particularly the origin of

HENRY ADDINGTON, AFTERWARDS LORD VISCOUNT SIDMOUTH.

On the 1st of August 1771, a marriage had occurred, productive of many important results to this town and neighbourhood. James Sutton of New Park, Esq., M.P. for the borough, married Eleanor second daughter of Dr. Anthony Addington, an alliance which proved the means of introducing to his constituency Mrs. Sutton's eldest brother, Henry Addington Esq., who for a long course of years afterwards,

occupied the position of Representative and Recorder of the borough; till his elevation to the peerage in 1805 terminated a connexion of twenty-one years as Member of Parliament, leaving untouched his lordship's other function of Recorder of the borough for another period of almost equal duration. This latter office Mr. Addington accepted in 1784, on the death of Charles Garth Esq. (See page 406.)

The family of Addington came originally from Frinkford near Banbury in Oxfordshire. Dr. Addington, the father of the bride, was a physician of some eminence in the town and neighbourhood of Reading: his name figures in the remarkable trial, in 1752, of Miss Mary Blandy for the murder of her father, on which occasion his evidence was required to determine the presence of poison. At the period of his daughter's marriage he was the family physician of William Pitt first Earl of Chatham; and the following letter, written in reference to that event, will exhibit the cordial intimacy which existed between them. It is dated from Burton-Pynsent, the seat which had recently been left to the Earl by the eccentric Sir William Pynsent of Erchfont, and was penned four days after the aforesaid marriage.

To Anthony Addington Esq., M.D.

"Burton-Pynsent, 5th Aug. 1771. "SIR,―The share I take, together with Lady Chatham, in every event which materially interests the happiness of you and yours is too sincere to allow me to remain silent with regard to the marriage of Miss Addington. Accept, dear Sir, the united felicitations of all your friends here on the occasion, and the truest wishes that all happiness and lasting health may be the portion of the new-joined pair, as well as of all your family. You will be so good as to present in our names a large share of these compliments and good wishes to Mrs. Addington. We begin now,—this happy business being completed,-to look out wistfully for you in the West, and hope to have the satisfaction of embracing you here as you pass, in perfect health and with all your joy about you. I say nothing more of the article of health of this place, than that mine is better than it has been these twenty years. I wish I could say of my dear William that he has mended since you saw him; but he is wan and extremely lean,-in other respects, not ill. Lady Chatham and all the rest, per