prisoner list / Lewes Jail, 1916-17

"Lewes Jail. Names, sentences and registers of Irish prisoners". A list of signatures of prisoners sentenced after 1916 Rising, with their sentences and prison numbers. With accompanying information - In 1917 while the men sentenced to penal servitude by the Courts Martial in Dublin in 1916 were in Lewes Prison the Governor made an order that letters to the prisoners should be limited to four pages. Following this, Joseph M. Crofts, brother of Gerard B. Crofts, one of the prisoners, wrote to the latter on the largest four-page sheet of paper he could get. So large was it that he could only fill three of the pages. When this letter arrived at Lewes the Governor sent for Gerard and protested at this evasion of his orders but gave the letter to him on the condition that he did not show it to the other prisoners. The last page being blank Gerard decided to collect on this page the signatures of all the penal servitude prisoners. He reserved the first page for the name of Constance de Markievicz who was in another prison. All the names on the roll were signed in Lewes Prison except that of Madam de Markievicz and that of William Partridge, who a short time previously had been released from Lewes on the grounds of ill-health. These two signatures were added after the releases. When the roll was completed Gerard presented it to Thomas Jackson of Stillorgan, Co. Dublin.;