Originally published in 1968, English Prisons Under Local Government gives a detailed account of the evolution of the English Prison System from the common gaol and the house of correction of the sixteenth century down to the statutory changes of the twentieth century, and survey the successive efforts at reform of John Howard and Elizabeth Fry, Jeremy Bentham and James Neild, Sir T. Fowell Buxton and J. J.Gurney. The origin and development of the cellular system, the treadwheel and the crank, the penal dietary and the 'system of progressive stages' all come under review, together with the administrative changes made by Sir Edmund Du Cane and Sir Evelyn Ruggles, and the reforms during the first part of the 20th century.
