Presteigne
Crime and punishment
  In prison for owing money  
  The idea of being sent to prison for owing someone quite a small sum of money seems hard to believe today, but it was still happening well into Victorian times.
The treatment of people who were locked up for small debts was getting better, though. The extracts shown here are from the Radnorshire records of the Quarter Sessions at Presteigne for the year of 1847, which was the tenth year of Queen Victoria's reign.		  
Quarter
Sessions
document
1847
 Quarter Sessions entry
 

This entry refers to new regulations which were meant to apply to all prisons in Britain, and it reads:
"That the regulations for the treatment of persons committed under the small debts Act submitted to the Court by the direction of Secretary Sir George Grey be adopted in the County Gaol and House of Correction and that they be entered on the minutes of this court."

If new rules are "adopted" it means they are to be carried out in place of the old rules.
Sir George Grey was a Government Minister, and "the minutes of this Court" means the official record of the rules.

More about prison for debtors...

 
Link to sources
RDR