Waist belt, hand cuffs

This wrought iron waist belt and hand cuffs would probably have been worn by a prisoner during transportation to or from Newgate Prison in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Typically such a belt would also have had a harness with a neck ring attached. This heavy, painful device would restrict the prisoner's movements and prevent them from escaping easily.

A picture of the 'Chain Cupboard' at Newgate Prison appeared in the Illustrated London News on 29 December 1888. By this time restraints of this type were no longer in general use in the prison system. The social reformer Henry Mayhew also described the 'Fetter Room' at Newgate Prison in his book, 'The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of Prison Life' (1862). He wrote that by the 1860s, the use of such 'fetters' had been abandoned everywhere except in Scotland.