Chapter Two : The Fort becomes a Hospital and then an Army Prison

In February 1819, with the Napoleonic threat gone with Napoleon in exile on the island of St Helena, it was recorded that a total of 4,500 barrels of gunpowder were removed from Fort Clarence and redundant as a fort, Clarence now became a home for : 'Unfortunate persons belonging to the Army who were afflicted with insanity'. In June, a number of men were referred to Clarence from the already existing, Army Hospital at its sister fort now Fort Pitt Army Hospital. Fort Clarence was officially ‘occupied as an Hospital for Insane Persons, of the Army Medical Boards’ by order of 18th September 1818’. 

 A French engineer, Charles Dupin, composing his ‘A View of the History and Actual State of the military Forces of Great Britain’ in 1822, who had commented on Fort Pitt's conversion into an army hospital had said : ‘The casemates are fine and perfectly well-constructed. No moisture penetrates into them and they are at present inhabited by invalids who compose the only garrison of this fortress'. There is no reason to believe that the accommodation provided for patients at Fort Clarence was no less satisfactory. However, although Clarence Tower, the Guardhouses and Casemates were considered ideal for confinement of the mentally ill, it is not clear as to how far they were conducive to recovery, when the main concern at that time was security rather than treatment. 

By 1830, there had been little or no new building at Fort Clarence but the Army Medical Board rented a cottage to provide quarters for its officers, just north of the former Governor’s House which had now been converted as hospital residence for officers with mental illness. The open areas of the old defensive line of the Fort owned by the Board of Ordnance were now let to tenant graziers, from whom the Chief Royal Engineer, based at Chatham, enjoyed ‘the Benefit for the grass...as is customary'. One of the tenants was George Pratt the Deputy Governor who rented it ‘for the employment of Insane Patients’. At the same time the former Main Magazine of the Fort was used as a ‘Bathing Room for insane patients’. 

When the Asylum at Fort Clarence closed in 1844 its inmates were sent to Shorncliffe and then Yarmouth, while at Fort Pitt Military Hospital had a new asylum built and opened in 1847. It accommodated 32 men and 2 officers and its humane approach to its patients no doubt stood in stark contrast to that at Fort Clarence as is indicated by the fact that it was described at the time as : ‘More a house of detention or observation than an asylum. The fence surrounding the building is only four and a half feet high and has frequently been cleared by patients at a bound’. In addition the building had its own garden and the portico in the front allowed the patients to get out for fresh air in inclement weather.

Clarence was now about to undergo its next reincarnation, this time as a military prison and in 1845 it was confirmed that the Fort was ready to receive 200 prisoners. In the first instance, the existing fort and hospital buildings were now converted for use by the prisoners, but in order to satisfy their spiritual needs building tenders were invited for a chapel which would stand to the north and adjacent to the central tower. 

In 1846 Fort Clarence Military Prison had a governor and staff comprising 21 warders and servants, with accommodation for 22 prisoners in cells and a further 84 ‘in association’. In 1851 there was provision for the Governor, 8 warders and 184 prisoners and furnished with ‘the necessary Mess Rooms, Cooking Houses, Storehouses and buildings for accommodation of the Officers and Men’. A year later, in 1852, the Army, anticipating changes expected with a review of the Mutiny Act, ordered that additional cells should be added in order to bring the prison population up to an expected 300. It is not clear from reports if additional cells were built and it seems more likely that the prisoners were confined in some of the underground chambers associated with the central tower. 

One draconian punishment, in these years, used to keep order and punish transgressions by the prisoner, was the Army lash. In January 1861 there was a report of a prisoner at Fort Clarence being sentenced to 50 lashes. The report stated that the doctor, who always had to be in attendance at such punishments, needed to intervene after 25 lashes as the prisoner had fainted. Fortunately the doctor intervened which was not universal, and the remainder of his punishment was remitted. In the years before this the punishment would have continued when the prisoner was deemed fit enough to receive the rest of his punishment.

It was reported that soldiers being helped back to their cells were carried back after their floggings with their tunics draped over their shoulders, so bad were their injuries that they couldn’t do them up. In 1880, the longtime advocate for the abolition of the Army lash and MP for Rochester from 1878-85, Arthur Otway, finally achieved his ambition and years of lobbying and the barbaric punishment came to an end. Geoff Rambler's article on the website, 'Rochester MP’s campaign ends flogging in the British Army' provides details of Otway's campaign. (link)

As the years passed the numbers of prisoners accommodated in the Fort began to fall, to the extent that when it received the order to close as a prison in 1873 it was reported to be 'Almost tenantless'. The writing had been on the wall in 1869, when the Royal Commission on Courts Martial recommended the establishment of a central military prison and the closure of the district prisons like Fort Clarence and financial provision for such prisons occurred for the last time in army estimates for 1869-70. Nevertheless, although there were no units stationed here after1870, a plan of the prison dating to 1879 indicated its continuing use for military punishment. In fact considerable expansion had taken place, with numerous buildings established on the parade and along the rear of the Defensive Line of the Fort. 

One of the commanding officers who served in the Fort at the end of the 19th century was Lieutenant-Gen George Wentworth Forbes of the Royal Marines who became something of a local figure. His is death in 1907 was recorded with due solemnity in the Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham News. Forbes, a city magistrate, also became known as a fine orator in his role as chairman of New Brompton Conservative Association. His funeral was reported as 'of a simple character, in deference to the expressed wish of the gallant officer'. Later, another officer who served at the Fort was Captain Francis Emberton, who fromthe Royal Army Ordnance Corps, had served in the Zulu War of 1879, the Egyptian campaign of 1882-6, the relief of General Gordon and in the South African War.

Very few records exist as to the use of Fort Clarence during this period 1870 -1913. It seems to have provided limited and periodic barrack accommodation for ‘miscellaneous details’ while at the same time maintaining cells for 22 prisoners. The end was in sight for the prison when, in 1901, the cells were described as ‘awaiting condemnation' and today no prison buildings have survived above ground. Finally, in 1913, it was transferred to the County Association for use by the Territorial Force and another chapter of the remarkable History of Fort Clarence was about to begin. 

John Cooper

Chapter Three : Fort Clarence in the 20th and 21st centuries