Thomas Whittam, Chief Constable of the town and district of Douglas, and gaoler of the Fort there.

He was examined by the Commissioners of Inquiry at Douglas on 3 October 1791, and had then held both offices for between three and four years. His examination is the sixty-first in Appendix C of their report, printed between the Water-Bailiff George Savage's and that of Daniel Quark, a Coroner of Garff Sheading.

What he had to say was about the state of the prison. The Fort at Douglas was for the confinement of persons guilty of felony or breach of the peace, and had formerly been used for that purpose, but he told the Commissioners it was at present in a very ruinous condition and insufficient for confining offenders without having a guard set over them.

The building he was describing was an old one. The Manx antiquaries identified the Fort with the tower that stood at the bight of the Pollock Rock, at what had been the entrance to Douglas harbour, built of hard stone with a small round tower rising above the rest of the building in the centre. They thought it one of the most interesting remains on the Island, and they cite Whittam's evidence of 1791 when they describe it.