Crank machine

Cell, with Prisoner at Crank-Labour, In the Surrey House of Correction, 1851, illustration from *London Labour and the London Poor* by Henry Mayhew source ↗

The crank machine was a penal labour device used in England in the 19th century. It consisted of a hand-turned crank which forced four large cups or ladles through sand inside a drum, doing nothing useful.

The prisoner would typically be forced to do 6,000–14,400 revolutions over the period of six hours per day (1.5–3.6 seconds per revolution). The prison warden could make the task harder by tightening an adjusting screw.

In 1895, there were 29 crank machines in use, but by 1901 there were only 5.¹

References

Britannica on the treadmill (13 ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 1926. Retrieved 19 September 2016.

Bibliography

"Inveraray Jail and County Court, Life in Jail". 2016. Archived from the original on 12 February 2015. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
"BBC - A History of the World - The Crank". 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
"Prison Treadmills". No tech. Low-tech magazine. Retrieved 19 September 2016.

[1] Britannica on the treadmill (13 ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 1926. Retrieved 19 September 2016.

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