Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Preface: A Good and Useful Life
Family Tree

PART I - THE YOUNG IDEALIST: 1884-1914
1. Early Years and Influences: 1884-1902
2. Alma Mater: 1902-1906
3. Across the Bridges: 1906-1910
4. Bridging the Gap: 1911-1914

PART II - THE HAPPY WARRIOR: 1914-1922
5. Reading, Digging and Singing: 1914-1915
6. Waste of Muscle, Waste of Brain: 1916-1919
7. A Labour of Love: 1919-1922

PART III - PRISON COMMISSIONER: 1922-1945
8. Paterson's Light Horse: 1922-1934
9. Solvitur Perambulando: 1922-1924
10. The 'Paterson Era': 1922-1939
11. Prison Wallah: 1925-1926
12. Expert Witness: 1925-1933
13. The Transformation of Borstals: 1922-1930
14. Long March to Lowdham: 1930-1939
15. The Enigma of Harold Jones: 1921-1941
16. Voyage of Discovery: 1931
17. From Dartmoor to Berlin: 1932-1935
18. Strange New World: 1937
19. Policy, Progress and the Onset of War: 1938-1939
20. War Work: 1939-1943
21. West Africa and Malta: 1943-1944

PART IV - CROSSING THE BRIDGE: 1945-1947
22. Picking up the Pieces: 1945-1946
23. Death, Commemoration, Legacy: 1947-

Bibliography
Index

About the Author

HARRY POTTER is a criminal barrister and the author of Hanging in Judgment: Religion and the Death penalty in England form the Bloody Code to Abolition (1993); Blood Feud: The Stewarts and Gordons at War in the Age of Mary Queen of Scots (2002); and Edinburgh Under Siege (2003). With Boydell & Brewer, he has authored Law, Liberty and the Constitution: A Short History of the Common Law (2015) and Shades of the Prison House: A History of Incarceration in the British Isles (2019).

Reviews

[This] biography is an excellent portrait of a fascinating man.
*The Western Front Association*

Potter's book of the life and work of Alexander Paterson is an outstanding contribution to understanding the values that were held by a historic figure in the history of prisons in England and Wales.
*Prison Service Journal*