Sir George Paul, 2nd Baronet

Born at Woodchester, Gloucestershire, he was the son of Sir Onesiphorus Paul, textile manufacturer, by his first wife, Jane, daughter of Francis Blackburne of St. Nicholas, Yorkshire.

He spent several years travelling on the continent of Europe, living in 1767–8 at the courts of Brunswick and Vienna, and then visiting Hungary, Poland, and Italy, and returning through France.

At the spring assizes held at Gloucester in 1783, as foreman of the grand jury, he addressed the jurors on the subject of the prevalence of gaol fever, and suggested means of treating it, and of preventing it in the future.

[1] Paul obtained a special Act of Parliament, and himself designed a county gaol at Gloucester, with a penitentiary annexed.

It had a chapel, a dispensary, two infirmaries, and a foul-ward (for venereal disease) in the upper storey; workrooms were provided for debtors, and those who were unable to obtain work from outside were given it on application to a manufacturer, and were allowed to retain two-thirds of what they earned.

Gloucester Castle and Gaol in the 18th century. (A later work said to be based on an 1819 original)