We are delighted to make available the Past Time Toolkit: A Learning Resource about Victorian Prisons, a toolkit of information and activities created particularly with History GCSEs in mind, but equally useful to anyone exploring themes around crime and punishment or just generally interested in history e.g. other school or FE students, writing or drama groups, or organisations working in the criminal justice system.

The Toolkit contains information about:

• the Pentonville experiment and the separate system
• the prison cell
• hard labour
• governors, chaplains and doctors
• prison reformers
• prison food

Alongside informative articles we have provided discussion points and activities to help bring the topics to life and prompt reflections on the contemporary criminal justice system.

The Toolkit is available free of charge to Non-Commercial Organisations. For terms and conditions and to register to use the Toolkit click here. On submission of the form, you will be taken to a page when you can download the Toolkit as a PDF document.

If you are a Commercial Organisation, and would like to use the Toolkit please contact us at ventures at warwick dot ac dot uk. We are very happy to work with you to enable this.

The separate system was a prison regime that started in Pentonville in 1842 and then spread across Britain and Ireland. Prisoners were kept in solitary confinement and silence for 18 months. The aim was to encourage repentance, but it more often led to mental illness.

Register to use Toolkit here