Swansea Jail

Swansea Prison is located in the Sandfields area of Swansea, Wales. Built between 1845 and 1861 to replace former prison accommodation at Swansea Castle. Both male and female inmates were incarcerated there until 1922, at which point all females were transferred to Cardiff Prison.

Lowry refers to the jail in his short story "On Board the West Hardaway'; The bird was a gray carrier pigeon, tired and hungry. It had round its leg a message from a Swansea jail, of a reprieve. In 1927, Lowry may have heard  of some members of the Theosophical Society in Wales joined a campaign to secure signatures for the reprieve of Doris Williams who was sentenced to death after being convicted of killing her illegitimate child after a second trial. The reprieve was eventually granted.