Marshalsea was a debtor's prison in Southwark, London best known for being the central location in Charles Dickens' book Little Dorrit.

It is not known when the original prison was built but it must have been before 1381 as it is known that it was attacked during the Peasants' Revolt. In the 18th century the prison was in disrepair and was demolished to be rebuilt near by. It was eventually permanently demolished in 1849.

Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London was locked up there for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to Elizabeth I and later died there in 1569. Another notable inmate was George Wither one of Oliver Cromwell's officers who wrote the satirical poem Abuses Stript and Whipt. The poem was enough to have him incarcerated in 1613 and while in the Marshalsea he wrote The Shepherd's Hunting, amongst his best work.

Perhaps the most famous person to be locked up in the Marshalsea was John Dickens who was just one of the many thousands of unimportant people imprisoned there. His fame lies in the fact that he was the father of Charles Dickens and the event had a great influence on Charles' entire life. John was locked up in 1824 for failure to pay his debts owing to his poor financial skills. Charles who was 12 at the time was old enough to work and so did not live in the prison. He stayed in lodgings not far from the prison and worked in a boot-blacking factory, a humiliating fall for a middle class boy which affected his later writing.

Marshalsea Inmates

• Edmund Bonner
• Richard Cox
• John Dickens - Father of Charles Dickens
• John Eliot
• Nicholas Grimald
• Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles
• John Selden
• Ralph Sherwin
• George Wither