This Long Confinement

As Brewers’ Company staff approach a one-year anniversary of working from home, the letter pictured in full below is a very apt reflection of how many of us are feeling after such an unprecedented period of restrictions. We hope that soon we too ‘may be enabled to put an end to this long Confinement which is very Burdensome’…

The letter was written by Samuel Sapp to his father in September 1685 from the Kings’ Bench, a famous debtors’ prison in Southwark. The prison was originally constructed from two houses in Angel Place, off Borough High Street, just north of the church of St George the Martyr, before being rebuilt on the other side of Borough High Street in the mid-18^th century. Notorious for being dirty and overcrowded, it was also a profit-making enterprise for the Marshall and gaolers – prisoners had to pay for their keep, for a bed and often release fees at the end of their sentence; if they were unable to pay up they had to stay inside.

The Brewers’ Company scrapbook is a large leatherbound volume containing 800 pages of bills, menus, letters, notes and memoranda of all kinds, mostly from the 17th to 19th centuries, and it is assumed it was compiled by the Clerk in the late 19th century. Items have featured in previous news stories, and this letter is just one of hundreds of items pasted in, generally with no explanation or context, which leaves us with something of a mystery in this case.

Within the confines of our 21st century lockdown, the Archivist has not been able to find any Sapps in the Brewers’ Company membership. Initial online research indicates Samuel may have been the grandson of Thomas Sapp, Merchant Taylor. However the family name crops up a number of times in cases heard at the Court of Chancery, including a 1677 case concerning the personal estate of Sir Samuel Starling (Master of the Brewers’ Company in 1661 and Lord Mayor in 1670), in 1681 Sapp v Edwards and the Brewers’ Company, and, in 1685, the year this letter was written, Sapp (including Samuel) v Brewers’ Company regarding property in Luton, Bedfordshire, Stepney etc.

Until we are released from our confinement and can travel to consult original documents at the National Archives and Guildhall Library, the story behind Samuel’s confinement remains a mystery, but we can certainly empathise with how he felt; at least we won’t have to pay to get out!