The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement 1776-1857 [Paperback]

Charles Campbell (Author), Esther Heffernan (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1587360683 | ISBN-13: 978-1587360688 | Publication Date: September 1, 2001 | Edition: 3

This second, updated edition details the history of British shipboard confinement from its beginning in 1776 to its end in 1857. Illustrations include contemporary sketches of the hulks.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

With twenty illustrations, a bibliography, detailed notes, appendices, index, and with a foreword by Esther Heffernan, this 3rd edition of The Intolerable Hulks will prove to be a valuabe addition to the library of the student of British penal history.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Fenestra Books; 3 edition (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587360683
• ISBN-13: 978-1587360688
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #887,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Former Warden Charles Campbell chronicles the birth of for-profit prisons, August 30, 2006

By 

Frank Smith (Bluff City, KS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement 1776-1857 (Paperback)

Before the internet facilitated such an endeavor, Charles Campbell exhaustively researched archives, newspapers and books to tease out the essence of, causes and conditions on British prison ships, post-American revolution. When the American Colonies were no longer available a safety valve for those who were systematically excluded from British society because of class, poverty, status as orphans or abandoned children and personal behavior, the government contracted for thousands of convicts to be held in abominable conditions for a set price.
Much in the manner of for-profit prisons today, this foray into short sighted expediency created a horrendous system that dragged on for many decades before the Australian colonies were able to absorb society's outcasts. An epilogue recounts how New York Mayor Ed Koch engaged in the same untenable "solution" to crime and prison overcrowding by commissioning the City's own prison ships in what became an unmitigated economic disaster: Using them cost an average of one million dollars per prisoner.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Important link in history, January 3, 2007

By 

Christine Woods (Tasmania, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement 1776-1857 (Paperback)

This is a well researched book that provides a link in the time between convicts being sentenced to transportation from England and their actual transportation. Many of these men were held on the hulks at various ports in England for months and years before being sent to Australia. This book details the names of the hulks, the previous history of the ships and the conditions under which the convicts were held.