FLEET PRISON, an historic London prison, formerly sit uated on the east side of Farringdon street, and deriving its name from the Fleet stream. It became prominent from being used as a place of reception for persons committed by the Star Chamber, and, afterwards, for debtors, and persons imprisoned for con tempt of court by the court of chancery. It was burnt down in the great fire of 1666 ; rebuilt, destroyed in the Gordon riots of I78o and again rebuilt in 1781-82. In pursuance of an act of 1842 by which the Marshalsea, Fleet and Queen's Bench prisons were consolidated under the name of Queen's prison, it was finally closed, and in 1844 sold to the corporation of the City and pulled down. The head of the prison was termed "the warden," who was appointed by patent. It became a frequent practice of the holder of the patent to "farm out" the prison to the highest bidder. It was this custom which made the Fleet prison long no torious for the cruelties inflicted on prisoners. The liberties or rules of the Fleet were the limits within which particular prisoners were allowed to reside outside the prison walls subject to certain conditions.
By the common law a marriage was valid if the ceremony was conducted by a person in holy orders, even if those orders were not of the Church of England. Neither banns nor licence were necessary, and the time and place were alike immaterial. Thus, in the period of laxness which succeeded the Commonwealth, resulted innumerable clandestine marriages. They were contracted at first to avoid expense, but an act of 1696, which imposed a penalty of f 1 oo on any clergyman who cele brated, or permitted another to celebrate, a marriage otherwise than by banns or licence, acted as a considerable check. To clergymen imprisoned for debt in the Fleet, however, such a penalty had no terrors, for they had "neither liberty, money nor credit to lose by any proceedings the bishop might institute against them." The earliest recorded date of a Fleet marriage is 1613, while the earliest recorded in a Fleet register took place in 1674, but it was only on the prohibition of marriage without banns or licence that they began to be clandestine. Then arose keen competition, and "many of the Fleet parsons and tavern-keepers in the neighbourhood fitted up a room in their respective lodgings or houses as a chapel," and employed touts to solicit custom for them. The scandal and abuses brought about by these clandestine marriages became so great that they became the object of special legislation. Lord Hardwicke's Act, 1753, required, under pain of nullity, that banns should be published according to the rubric, or a licence obtained, and that, in either case, the marriage should be solemnized in church; and that in the case of minors, marriage by licence must be by the consent of parent or guardian. This act put a stop to clandestine marriages in England, and henceforth couples had to fare to Gretna Green (q.v.).
The Fleet Registers eventually came into private hands, but were purchased by the Government in 1821, and are now deposited in the office of the registrar-general, Somerset House. Their dates range from 1686 to 1754. In 184o they were declared not ad missible as evidence to prove a marriage.
See J. S. Burn, The Fleet Registers; comprising the History of Fleet Marriages, and some Account of the Parsons and Marriage house Keepers, etc. (1833) ; J. Ashton, The Fleet: its River, Prison and Marriages (1888) .
