Page 7. Also standing within the walls of Lincoln castle is the red-brick Georgian prison, Matthias’ temporary accommodation until he could be sent to a redundant battleship, one of the hulks moored on the Thames or in Portsmouth harbour, before boarding his ship for Australia.

The Surgeon’s Log for Lincoln Prison can be viewed at the Lincolnshire Archives. The entry for 22 February 1839 reads:

• "I have examined Matthias Graham, just admitted, who is in good health and free from infection. (signed) Sam. Hadwell."

Whilst he may have been in good health and free from infection upon arrival at the prison, I don’t imagine that condition prevailed for too long. Those awaiting transportation were held in the basement in small, cramped cells, usually overcrowded and often waterlogged. Gaol fever or typhus was rampant and the food was poor. The Surgeon "protested that the diet of the prisoners was too reliant on liquid gruel that soon brought discomfort to the most hardy digestion".

• Who are these wretches that inhabit this place? Why, for the most part they are bumpkins, plain country folk who have fallen foul of a landowner or his gamekeeper. I believe that they are the victims of unjust, unchristian laws that gave away the common lands to grasping Pharisees. The acts of enclosure took the few poor acres that the cottager could call his own, so that a landlord could buy it as a bargain and then charge a rent that the cottager could never afford. So now the poor man cannot graze his cow or grow a few bushels of corn to feed his family. Farmers now bring in machines to reap and thresh their harvest and this does away with the gangs of men who once worked on the farms with scythes and flails. What is left to save them from starving? (From "A History of Lincoln Castle Prison").

Perhaps Matthias Graham was a hardened criminal, intent on taking what was not his own. I rather think he was one of the men described above, used, injured and discarded by his employers. A man who had seen his children die, suffered a lifetime of living hand-to-mouth in grinding poverty, desperate to feed his family and now to be separated from them forever - Ann, his wife; Henry, 20; Isaac, 15; Caroline, 13; Elizabeth, 10; Ann, 9; and Joseph and Job, 3.

The Lincoln Assizes court

The Georgian prison in Lincoln castle

A typical cell