Norman Cross: Designing and Operating an Eighteenth-Century British Prisoner of War Camp

Abstract

Norman Cross, near Peterborough, England, was the first PoW camp designed on principles that have since become standard across the globe. Understanding this late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century internment camp can be achieved using a wide range of sources. Surviving craft manufactures and documentary and cartographic evidence create a rich resource that can be augmented by archaeological survey and limited excavation. Both the principles and practices applied by the camp administrators and aspects of the prisoners’ lives can be identified and contrasted from these varied sources.