Introduction

Summary

No full study of the problems of law and order in Georgian times in Bedfordshire has yet appeared, and the writer hastens to add that he makes no claim that the present work amounts to such a study. Rather, it is a collection of five essays touching on some of the matters which such a study would have to consider in depth. The explanation for the present limited work goes back to 1977, when the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society (jointly with Phillimore & Co. Ltd.) published the writer’s A Study of Bedford Prison 1660-1877. During the course of his research for that work the writer came across many interesting incidents and characters connected with the prison, or involved with other links in the law and order chain which has prison as its final, or penultimate link. He was obliged to resist the temptation to pursue every single item which interested him, but he resolved to follow up some of the more fascinating ones in due course. The essays contained in the present volume are a part of the result of that follow-up and may accordingly be regarded in the nature of an appendix to the prison history. Three other essays by the writer on allied topics have already appeared elsewhere, and may be of interest to the reader concerned with the history of the prison and the lives of those involved with it.

The first was a biographical sketch of Sir John Kelyng, which was included in the Society’s miscellaneous volume in 1980. Kelyng, who presided at John Bunyan’s trial in Bedford in January 1661, turned out on a fuller investigation to have been even more odious than one had suspected. Bunyan had given a vivid thumbnail sketch of his own judge in Pilgrim’s Progress when he portrayed Lord Hategood presiding at the trial of Faithful. Kelyng’s behaviour at Bunyan’s trial was typical of the man, who bullied prisoners and others throughout his career. He died in 1671 whilst Bunyan was still in custody, and according to Lord Campbell, a later Chief Justice and lx)rd Chancellor, ‘he expired, to the great relief of all who had any regard for the due administration of justice’. Strong words, but amply justified. Unfortunately Bunyan did not live to read them.