It's a warm early May evening in 1824. In South London, a 12-year-old boy tramps down the street after a 10 hour shift labeling bottles at a factory a mile or two

along the river Thames. The streets here throng with life. A cart rattles down the

road, its horse, whinier, as the driver cracks the whip.

Outside a public house, a group of men descending to a fist fight over some drunken sleight.

The boy keeps his gaze low, not breaking stride.

Before long, he turns a corner and sees his destination,

a building with high brick walls stretching imposingly into the sky. He has come to visit his parents and five siblings

here, to have tea with them as he does every evening before he returns to his own lodgings

a few minutes away.

He walks up to the heavy wooden door and hammers upon it until a face appears at the grill.

It is a stern looking warder or a turn key as they are known, responsible for

regulating exactly who comes in and out of this building.

Recognizing the boy, he selects a heavy key from a ring and unlocks the door which creaks open.

He nods the boy through with a grunt.

This is the marshal sea, London's infamous debtors prison.

The boy despises this place.

His father has been here these last three months on account of a debt he owes to a local merchant. And a few weeks

ago when they finally ran out of things to pawn for rent money, most of the family

joined him. Only the boy's job at the factory prevents him from being locked up

too. His older sister, a talented musician, is also free, but his other siblings are all

too young to earn a living.

Now he passes through a narrow courtyard, its walls topped with spikes.

...