Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the King’s Bench prison; used for debtors.

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 60: Jacko at Longs, and Captain in the bench.
1827		J. Wight More Mornings in Bow St. 3: ‘You are the gentleman just out of the Bench, who went down to Margate a fortune hunting, and married a she Methusaleh!!’.
1835		‘Cock-Eyed Sukey’ in Cove in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 219: The grubbiest codger in the Bench or Fleet, / Might envey William’s maw, the scran he eat!
1860		R. Nicholson Rogue’s Progress (1966) 115: ‘The Bench!’ that vale of tears and world of wit [...] a commonwealth made up of errant and fugitive talent of all sorts, from the cunning of the fraudulent beer-shop person [...] right up to the nefarious banker or swindling speculator.