Qualla: HM Prison Dartmoor

HM Prison Dartmoor: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 3.0. Above the entrance, carved into the granite, are two Latin words from Virgil's Aeneid: Parcere Subiectis. Spare the vanquished. The prison was built in 1809 to hold men taken in a war they had already lost, and the inscription was meant to suggest a certain civilized restraint. For most of the next two centuries, that promise was kept only in pieces. The prisoners on the other side of those granite walls have included thousands of French sailors taken in the Napoleonic Wars, around 6,500 American seamen from the War of 1812, conscientious objectors during the First World War, and a long roll of British convicts. The walls themselves are now made famous by the rocks they were quarried from - the granite of Dartmoor leaks radon, and in 2024 the prison closed for mitigation works that may take years to complete.

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 3.0

HM Prison Dartmoor: Built for Napoleon's Sailors

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Totnesmartin, Public domain. By 1805, the United Kingdom was deep into the Napoleonic Wars and overwhelmed by the prisoners those wars produced. Thousands of French captives were being held on derelict ships - prison hulks - moored in British harbors, including just off the Royal Naval dockyard at Devonport....

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Image: Totnesmartin | Public domain

HM Prison Dartmoor: American Sailors, 1813 to 1815

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. When the United States went to war with Britain in 1812, Dartmoor began receiving a second nationality of captives. Between the spring of 1813 and March 1815, about 6,500 American sailors passed through its gates - some taken in naval engagements, others impressed American seamen...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

HM Prison Dartmoor: The Massacre of 1815

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Baker, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Treaty of Ghent was signed on 24 December 1814, ending the war. The American prisoners remained at Dartmoor anyway. The British government declined to release anyone until the United States Senate ratified the treaty, which it did on 17 February 1815. Then there were no ships...

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Image: John Baker | CC BY-SA 2.0

HM Prison Dartmoor: Convicts and Conscientious Objectors

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the last French and American prisoners went home, Dartmoor stood empty for 35 years. In 1850 work began to rebuild it for British civilian convicts. The first arrived in 1851. For the next sixty years it was one of the toughest prisons in the country. Then in 1917, in the m...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 3.0

HM Prison Dartmoor: Modern Years and the Radon

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit andrewrabbott, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dartmoor returned to civilian convict use and remained so through most of the 20th century. The 2001 Board of Visitors report condemned the sanitation. In 2002 the Prison Reform Trust warned the building might be in breach of the Human Rights Act 1998 because of overcrowding. The...

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Image: andrewrabbott | CC BY-SA 4.0