DISPLAY CASE
People
The book shows annual salaries for the Prison Officers. These include the Governor, Captain Francis George Courthorpe Mansel Morgan, who one of the internees described as ‘always excitable and objectionable’, and the Roman Catholic Priest, Father Francis J. Kernan, who worked at St. James’, the church next to the Prison.
Reading Prison Nominal Register, 1916,
Reference: P/RP1/1/9
The prison’s nominal registers – where they survive – give details of all admissions to Reading gaol up to the date of its first closure in 1919. This register, titled ‘Aliens and Irish’, covers the period 1914-1919.
The register is open on one of the pages recording the committal of the Irish internees in July 1916. Note the range of internees’ occupations. This page includes the author and journalist, Darrell Figgis and political leader, Arthur Griffith. The register notes that their detention was authorised under the Defence of the Realm Regulations.