Welcome to my website about Caffyn and Caffin family history. I am a keen family historian - some even say obsessed with Caffyn and Caffins! - having begun my research when I was 12 years old. I would like to hear from any one else with an interest in the Caffyn/Caffin family and from members of the Caffyn/Caffin family.
Newgate Prison - Hell on Earth
Newgate was one of the six original gates into London and dates from Roman times but by 1419 it was being used as a prison. Prisoners were being transferred from the more comfortable prison at Ludgate to Newgate but the harsher conditions there led very quickly to the death of 60 prisoners and led to it being condemned by the Mayor of London – Whittington. When Whittington died he left money for the rebuilding of the prison although no records remain of this version of the prison which was destroyed in the fire of London in 1666.
It is this lost prison that Matthew Caffyn would have been sent to sometime around 1650. He was sent without trial and without sentence for nonconformist preaching. It was his first and only experience of Newgate although he was to be imprisoned many times.
The conditions in which he was kept were unbelievably bad; overcrowded, filthy and under the control of gaolers who had bought their jobs and wanted to recoup their outlay – consequently they charged for everything, Matthew would have had to pay to have shackles removed, for accommodation (such as it was), for food (unless the gaolers sold it elsewhere), for visitors and for release (once their sentence was complete). Matthew would have had little money and when his release was obtained a year later by Lord Onslow he was described as a shadow of his former self.
Not much is known of Matthew Caffyns time at Newgate but he was followed in 1667 by William Penn – like Matthew he had been expelled from Oxford for showing too much interest in dissenting religions and was then arrested for attending a Quaker meeting. He was charged with sedition at the Old Bailey but impressed the jury at his trial who found him not guilty. This did not go down well with the judge who sent the entire jury to Newgate prison. A year later Penn was tried again and this time the jury found him guilty and he was sent back to Newgate.
