James Oglethorpe Essay Example

jail for not being able to pay their debts. Prison Reforms After he was elected into the parliament, James Oglethorpe had a friend named Robert Castel die in those hideous tarnished jails because he was put in a cell with someone who had small poxs and sought out a solution to end the overcrowding of the English jails.

His friend had been put in that cell because at the time inmates had to pay for proper room and board and staff services, when Castel could no longer pay for those luxuries he was thrown in to a cell with the sick man. So John Oglethorpe came up with the idea of starting a colony of debtors to solve the problem with the disgusting jails and P. D. C was created. The P. D. C or Prison Discipline Committee was tasked with finding solutions to end the unsanitary conditions in jail.

People like Admiral Edward Vernon and Field Marshal George Wade had witnessed the atrocities in Fleet and Marshalsea Debtors Prisons and joined the cause for the end of the vile conditions of those jails. They went to the king of England and proposed that a settlement of debtors be created. The plan was that debtors get a chance to start a new life while paying off their debts. After intensive pleading to King George II, John Oglethorpe was granted a charter for twenty-one trustees. But despite getting the charter, None of the jailed debtors were allowed.