MARSHALSEA

a prison formerly existing in Southwark, London, on the south bank of the Thames and attached to the court of that name held by the steward and marshal of the English (later British) king. It existed as early as the reign of Edward III. It was consolidated in 1842 with the Queen's Bench and Fleet prisons and was then described as a prison for debtors and for persons charged with contempt of Her Majesty's courts of the Marshalsea, the court of the queen's palace of Westminster, and the high court of admiralty, also for admiralty prisoners under sentence of courts martial. The Marshalsea prison was abolished in 1849. The prison is described in Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit.