compter

{{Short description|Type of small English prison}}

A compter, sometimes referred to as a counter, was a type of small English prison controlled by a sheriff.Phillip Shaw (1947). The Position of Thomas Dekker in Jacobean Prison Literature. PMLA 62 (2): 366–391 {{jstor|459268}} The inmates were usually civil prisoners, for example dissenters and debtors. Examples of compters include London's Wood Street Compter, Poultry Compter, Giltspur Street Compter and Borough Compter and the lock-up over the Abbey Gateway, next to St Laurence's church, in Reading, Berkshire (this was the Compter Gate and the lock-up was known as the Compter).

The Compter's Commonwealth (1617), by William Fennor, was a work written from the author's experience of imprisonment at London's Wood Street Compter,[http://www.bartleby.com/214/1623.html The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton. XVI. London and the Development of Popular Literature. § 23. Discoverie of the Knights of the Poste.] and is regarded by many historians as one of the principal primary sources for assessment of English 16th-century prison conditions.{{cn|date=October 2023}}