Until the end of the Peninsula Campaign, there were three main punishments in the British Army: death by hanging, death by firing squad, and the lash. A cat o’ nine tails was used, and a man could receive up to 2,000 lashes. The number of lashes dropped after Waterloo. During this time, more soldiers were sent to prison, but to civilian gaols. It was decided in the late 1840s to build military prisons; by 1850 there were nine, still focused on punishment. It wasn’t until the founding of the Military Prison Staff Corps (later Military Provost Staff Corps or MPSC) in 1901 that imprisonment became about rehabilitation and retraining. Any sentence under 28 days was kept in the unit guardroom, and any over would be sent to a Military Corrective Establishment. 

During the First World War, the need to expand the MPSC and their establishments came with the expansion of the Army, especially when conscription came in. The first military prisons in France were ships, and later Field Punishment Centres were built behind the lines. Prisoners were made to do hard labour in the form of loading and unloading of supplies, with none of the extras provided at the front such as tea, jam, and chocolate. In 1915 the Suspension of Sentence Act returned men to the front who had committed minor offences. However, if they committed another offence, they would be imprisoned at the end of hostilities. At the end of the war, many prisons and detention barracks closed as they were no longer needed. The large cuts made to the Army in the 1920s, called the Geddes Axe, reduced the numbers of the Corps and the establishments. By 1939 only Aldershot was left in the UK, with detention barracks in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tientsin, Gibraltar, Cairo, Jamaica, Malta and Singapore, and small establishments in Khartoum, Kandy and Mauritius abroad.