The Ballad of Reading Gaol The Ballad of Reading Gaol The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol () on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison. During his imprisonment, on Tuesday, 7 July 1896, a hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura Ellen, earlier that year at Clewer, near Windsor. He was
New Gaol, Bristol New Gaol, Bristol The New Gaol (also sometimes known as The Old City Gaol) is in Cumberland Road, Spike Island, Bristol, England, near Bristol Harbour. The original New Gaol was designed by Henry Hake Seward and opened in 1820. In 1831, it was destroyed during the Bristol Riots and was rebuilt to designs by Richard Shackleton Pope, but was never properly completed until 1872. The gaol was closed in 1883 due to poor conditions and was largely demolished in 1898. In 1884, Horfield Prison was built to replace it. In 1821, three days after his eighteenth birthday, John Horwood was