The Sinister Origin of the Treadmill
There’s a reason why it feels like a torturing device; It was
In the 1800s, the British prison system was badly broken. Convicted criminals were slowly rotting away in isolated cells, spending their days doing nothing. Most prisons did not provide prisoners with necessities such as linens or even much to eat. The dire prison situation led to other methods of punishment, either deportation to the British colonies or execution.
The British public was not content with the situation. Social movements formed by religious groups and human rights activists protested against the treatment offered to prisoners. Calls to rehabilitate offenders and reform the prison system grew.
It’s in this atmosphere that Sir William Cubitt grew up. Born in 1785 in Norfolk, U.K., Cubitt came from a family of millwrights. In 1818, Cubbit, who was by then a respected engineer, introduced a revolutionary machine that would help reform and rehabilitate convicts by assigning them physical labor.
The idea behind Cubbit’s ‘penal tread-wheel’ was simple. Up to 24 prisoners would stand on a giant stepped wheel, each holding a bar at chest height or on either side of their body. Every step the prisoners took would cause the wheel to slightly turn, a routine that will cause an endless cycle of…
