Author’s NoteThe conditions at Newgate Prison with its debauchery, foul discomfort, filth, squalor, evil and moral deterioration continued until Elizabeth Fry started her reforms in 1815.
The prison was the worst source of gaol fever in the country, with a high mortality rate for many years.
The whipping of females was not abolished until 1817.
The Prince of Wales’s friends are all historical characters. The Prince was a keen supporter of boxing until the summer of 1790, two months after the story opens, when he saw a man killed in the ring at Brighton and never again attended a fight.