The prison was built in 1197 off what is now Farringdon Street, on the eastern bank of the River Fleet after which it was named.

Prison cells ranged from luxurious private rooms to inmates who slept two in a bed.

He was guilty of the greatest extortions upon prisoners, and, according to a committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the state of English gaols, arbitrarily and unlawfully loaded with irons, put into dungeons, and destroyed prisoners for debt, treating them in the most barbarous and cruel manner, in high violation and contempt of the laws.

The demolition yielded three million bricks, 50 tons of lead and 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) of paving.

The priest who married him (Samuel Brooke) and the man who acted as witness to the wedding were also imprisoned.

In 1729 he sent a petition to his old school friend, the Duke of Dorset, in which he raged against the injustices of the system: Holland, the most unpolite Country in the World, uses Debtors with Mildness, and Malefactors with Rigour; England, on the contrary, shews Mercy to Murtherers and Robbers, but of poor Debtors Impossibilities are demanded ... if the Debtor is able to make up his Affairs with the Creditor, how many Hundreds are afterwards kept in Prison for Chamber-Rent, and other unjust Demands of the Gaolers?

... What Barbarity can be greater, than for Gaolers (without any Provocation) to load Prisoners with Irons, and thrust them into Dungeons, and manacle them, and deny their Friends to visit them, and force them to pay excessive Prices for their Chamber-Rent, their Victuals and Drink; to open their Letters and seize the Charity that is sent them; and, in short, by oppressing them by all the Ways that the worst of Tyrants can invent?

In foreign Countries, where the Romish Religion prevails, what Crowds of People of both Sexes, from the highest Prince to the meanest Peasant, thrust themselves into Religious Houses ... it is an apparent Injury to the Country ... too obvious to be denied, that the many Prisons in England, where so many Thousands of both Sexes are detained, is a greater Loss and Injury to the King and Country ...[7] Other notable inmates include: Media related to Fleet Prison at Wikimedia Commons