William Acton

William Acton was a butcher who became deputy keeper and lessee of the Marshalsea prison in Southwark. A lease made in March 1727 allowed him to profit from the prison and the lodging of debtors. Testimony collected by a parliamentary committee described severe confinement, irons, extortionate fees and instruments including thumbscrews.

The investigation of Acton helped expose the lethal incentives created when private keepers profited directly from the confinement and treatment of debtors. William Acton also worked as Deputy Keeper of the Marshalsea.

Antonia Hodgson’s The Devil in the Marshalsea builds its prison world around the documented abuses associated with gaoler William Acton. Thomas Hawkins enters a system where prisoners’ survival depends on fees, patronage and the favour of officials who can profit from confinement, making Acton’s historical regime part of the mystery’s underlying threat. The novel uses that setting to show how debt and private prison management could turn legal custody into extortion, violence and lethal neglect in Georgian London.