Iron cast keys from the Victorian period are not particularly uncommon artefacts and can be fairly easily acquired by collectors interested in the locksmith’s craft. They are collectable items because each key is unique and very often we find on them the decorative flourishes so typical of the age.
However, because of their abundance it is generally only specialist design museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum which would actively collect them.
So why would Reading Museum this week decide to acquire this, by Victorian standards, rather plain looking key? Well, like most museum artefacts it is an association with people, events and places which transforms this key from being an ordinary everyday item into something special and out of the ordinary.
This was the key that during the nineteenth century was used to unlock the safe containing the keys to all areas of Reading Prison.
In effect this is the key which kept Charles Woodridge incarcerated awaiting his execution as immortalised in Oscar Wilde’s ‘Ballad of Reading Gaol’. With this knowledge the key suddenly takes on a whole new connotation and can be used by Reading Museum to relate the story of Reading Prison in the future.
With the permission of the Ministry of Justice, Matthew Wall, a senior manager at Reading Prison responsible for its de-commissioning, was able to assist the museum in a process of collecting artefacts. He kindly donated this key together with the safe itself containing a set of drawers, including one eerily labelled ‘Execution Shed’.
Mr Wall also arranged for a prisoner’s ID badge to be made up featuring the prison’s most famous inmate. It carries a date of issue after the closure of Reading Prison was announced. As such it is one of the last ID badges to be issued by the Reading Prison authorities.