The Bloody Code applied death sentences to a growing number of crimes, while others attracted cruel penalties of mutilation, burning and whipping.

Following public concern over an increase in prostitution and venereal disease, reflecting the rapid rise in population, urban living and increased mobility, Parliament passed the Contagious Diseases Act in 1864

A part of Kent’s penal legacy is its role in the domestic convict system that replaced transportation.

Chatham convict prison opened in 1856. It was a ‘public works’ prison, built to accommodate convicts who would hitherto have been sentenced to transportation.

Maidstone convict prison opened in 1909, built alongside the town’s nineteenth-century local jail.