[FORGERY].
An Interior View of Cold-Bath Fields Prison,
"DEDICATED WITHOUT PERMISSION"
Very Rare. There are two impressions in the British Museum but we have been unable to locate any others. This - like both of the examples in the BM - has “proof” in the lower left hand corner and a price of “1 shilling” in the right.
A remarkable privately published engraving showing the artist himself imprisoned in London’s Cold Bath Fields prison where he was wrongly accused of forgery by the Bank of England.
This deeply personal engraving designed and engraved by Thomas Ranson (1784-1828), and with his own address on Judd Place West in the imprint, is a defiant attack on the Bank of England after Ranson was arrested and charged in February 1818 for supposedly passing a forged £5 note. Ranson was briefly imprisoned but maintained his innocence and refused to surrender the note. At a later hearing the Bank of England decided not to prosecute him.
The image depicts Ranson sat at a desk in his cell with the light (of justice and innocence?) falling through the bars of the window. Despite Ranson’s use of engraving to highlight the darkness of the cell it is also possible to see that it was fairly comfortable: he has furniture, a fire, books and various pieces of crockery. This is perhaps surprising as Cold Bath Fields had a reputation as a tough prison for prisoners serving short sentences and therefore it is most likely that Ranson (or a supporter) was able to pay to have his conditions improved. Nevertheless, the message of the engraving is defiant and Ranson refers to the Bank of England as the, “Thread Needle Street Paper Establishment.” Beneath the image of the prison is a small vignette showing a lamb being eaten by a lion under the all-seeing eye of God.
Ranson’s case was no doubt a mistaken attempt to crack down on the forgery of paper money which was a big problem for the Bank of England in this period with over 500 convictions for forgery obtained between 1805 and 1818 but at an enormous financial cost to the Bank and a undermining of their reputation as a tender of authentic and stable currency.
