Crime, Protest, Community, and Police in Nineteenth-Century Britain 9781138943285, 9781138945524, 9781315671314, 9781315671383, 0710090080

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Original Title
Original Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Setting the scene: contemporary views and historical perspectives
2 Arson and the rural community: East Anglia in the mid nineteenth century
3 The poacher: a study in Victorian crime and protest
4 The conquering of 'China': crime in an industrial community, 1842-64
5 Crime in London: the evidence of the Metropolitan Police, 1831-92
6 Crime and police in Manchester in the nineteenth century
7 The vagrant and crime in Victorian Britain: problems of definition and attitude
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

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CRIME, PROTEST, COMMUNITY AND POLICE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

David Jones

ISBN 978-1-138-94328-5

CRIME, PROTEST, COMMUNITY AND POLICE IN NINETEENTHCENTURY BRITAIN David Jones

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: THE HISTORY OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: THE HISTORY OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Volume 5

CRIME, PROTEST, COMMUNITY AND POLICE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

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CRIME, PROTEST, COMMUNITY AND POLICE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

DAVID JONES

First published in 1982 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd This edition first published in 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1982 David Jones All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: ISBN: ISBN: ISBN:

978-1-138-94552-4 978-1-315-67131-4 978-1-138-94328-5 978-1-315-67138-3

(Set) (Set) (ebk) (Volume 5) (hbk) (Volume 5) (ebk)

Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

CRIME, PROTEST, COMMUNITY AND POLICE IN NINETEENTH -CENTURY BRITAIN David Jones

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL

London, Boston and Henley

First published in 1982 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd 39 Store Street, London WC lE 7DD 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA and Broadway House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 lEN Printed in Great Britain by St. Edmundsbury Press, Suffolk ©David Jones 1982 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Jones, David J. V. Crime, protest, community and police in nine teen th -century Britain. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Crime and criminals - Great Britain History - 19th century -Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Rural crimes - Great Britain History - 19th century -Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Police - Great Britain - History 19th century -Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Title. HV6943.J66 364'.941 81-13955 ISBN 0-7100-9008-0

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FOR CERI

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CONTENTS

Preface

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

1 Setting the scene: contemporary views and historical perspectives 2 Arson and the rural community: East Anglia in the mid nineteenth century 3 The poacher: a study in Victorian crime and protest 4 The conquering of 'China': crime in an industrial community, 1842-64 5 Crime in London: the evidence of the Metropolitan Police, 1831-92 6 Crime and police in Manchester in the nineteenth century 7 The vagrant and crime in Victorian Britain: problems of definition and attitude

1 33 62 85 117 144 178

Notes

210

Bibliography

236

Index

243

vii

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PREFACE

The present interest in crime and protest has produced a variety of articles and papers. I have included some of my own in this book. It is essentially a book of essays. Some of the essays arose naturally out of my long-term interest in protest movements, some emerged from a research project in Welsh social history, and others began life as lectures and discussion papers. To a considerable degree, the character of each chapter was dictated by the nature of the sources and their accessibility to a scholar on the Celtic fringe. The purpose of the first chapter is to set the scene; it describes the views of contemporaries and recent historians. The next two chapters investigate popular forms of rural crime and protest, namely arson and poaching. Both of these have been neglected subjects, at" least for the nineteenth century. These are followed by chapters on crime in industrial and urban communities. The one on Merthyr is based on information gathered over many years, most recently with the assistance of Mr Alan Bainbridge. The others grew out of a study of important and largely unused collections of records at New Scotland Yard Library and at the Central Library in Manchester. The last chapter is a close view of that common though enigmatic character, the vagrant. I have also added a select bibliography. My researches for this book have been assisted by the Nuffield Foundation, the Social Science Research Council and the University College of Swansea. Further, I wish to express my gratitude to Mr R. W.E. Wadman of the Statistics Department at Swansea and to Mrs A. Frey and Mrs K. Lewis who typed much of the manuscript. Finally, I should say that many footnotes, tables and graphs have been excised for reasons of economy. David Jones

ix

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank the editors of the 'Historical Journal', 'Social History', and 'Llafur', in whose journals parts of some of the chapters first appeared.

xi

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1 SETTING THE SCENE: contemporary views and historical perspectives

BACKGROUND One of the more intriguing developments in modern social history has been the explosion of interest in the history of crime. During the 1970s a score of articles, books and theses have been written on the subject. Three major books, including Edward Thompson's remarkable 'Whigs and Hunters', have dealt with crime in Britain between 1550 and 1800, and a fourth, by David Philips, is a statistical survey of crime in one region of Victorian England. Several other publications are in the pipeline, and new research projects are being launched. On a lesser scale, Alan Bainbridge and the present writer have completed a survey of Welsh criminal records, and Michael Beames has compiled a fascinating story of Irish resistance and crime between 1798 and 1852. 1 Some of this work has found its way to conferences in various parts of western Europe and America. In January 1977, John Styles, Geoffrey Parker and others presented papers on crime to the Social History Society at Birmingham. In the same year the American North-east Victorian Studies Association sponsored a conference on 'Crime and Punishment in Victorian England', and in the following autumn the seventh International Economic History Conference at Edinburgh devoted a section to 'Economic and social aspects of criminality in the past'. 2 Since then there have been many regional conferences on the subject, and various links have been established between scholars here and elsewhere. It can be argued, therefore, that among social historians crime has become something of a boom industry. This new interest in the history of crime is not as surprising or indeed as retrogressive as some historians of the right and left would suggest. First, it is a fairly logical extension of trends in modern British social history. Much of this history has been concerned with conflict, and often violent conflict other than unionism and political disaffection. Thus George Rude, David Williams, and many others have been preoccupied with 'primitive' forms of social behaviour: the role of the mob, the significance of Luddism, and various aspects of illegal protest in the countryside. Much of the recent work on the history of crime is a natural development from these pioneering studies, and has been considerably influenced by them. In Britain, Douglas Hay, Victor Bailey and others have brought to the study of crime not the dismissive reductionism of a Paul Hirst, nor the obsession with statistical curves which characterises some Scandinavian analyses, 1

2

Setting the scene

but a determination to place crime as precisely as possible within the changing economic, social and political context. This contextual approach to crime is important, for it marks a break with the old histories of crime and punishment, with their recitals of Acts of Parliament and state trials, and it contributes something to the contemporary debate within criminology. The second reason for this new interest in the history of crime lies in the slowly blossoming relationship between the social scientist and the historian. Writers like Peter Linebaugh, David Philips and John Beattie are able to move comfortably across disciplines and can bring to their work a wide variety of sources and techniques. All of them use, to a greater or lesser extent, standard sociological works such as those by D. Matza, H. S. Becker and S. Cohen on labelling and the new criminology, D. R. Cressey and E. H. Sutherland on white-collar crime, M. Banton on the police, and T. Sellin and others on measuring delinquency. These studies have helped historians to define crime or violence, and have encouraged them to think more deeply about the relationship between control and crime in the state. 3 For example, many historians find the labelling theory a useful device, though they are careful not to explain away all criminal behaviour and statistics by one simple formula. Where historians and criminologists still have much to teach one another is in the area of criminal records. We do not yet fully appreciate that the great majority of records extant for the years before 1860 cover indictable crimes only, and that some of the debates over fluctuations in the rate of crime at a later period have also been based on inadequate evidence. In general, there are two important questions which have to be asked of eighteenthand nineteenth-century sources. First, how reliable and accurate are the opinions and statistic:s which they contain? Second, do government records, in particular, reflect, faithfully or consistently, the level of crime in society? It is known, for instance, that it was some time before the population of Britain accepted or used the official legal system and even at a late date there were certain offences, like sexual crimes, infanticide and family violence, which remained largely hidden from the forces of law and order. 4 It seems, therefore, that the most profitable approach is to use the widest range of sources and to doubt them all. In recent years historians have made some informed guesses as to the size of the dark figure of unrecorded crime and the proportion of known cases which never came to trial. Professor J. M. Beattie believes that this dark figure rose during the late eighteenth century, especially in rural society. Indeed, at the turn of the century Patrick Colquhoun stated that only about one in ten offences actually came before the courts, a view which throws doubt on Professor Mingay's suggestion that there was only a small amount of serious crime in Hanoverian Britain. 5 In the next century contemporaries still remained anxious about the level of unknown crimes, especially in backward rural communities and the most densely populated urban districts. Judges in mid and

Setting the scene

3

late Victorian Wales, for example, grew increasingly suspicious of the empty calendars. Even when crimes were known it has been estimated that in London and other parts of Britain at this time, up to 70 per cent of the indictable offences did not result in a trial. No doubt the police occurrence books, as yet largely untapped, will tell us more about ttk proportions and nature of non-indictable crime which was not 'proceeded with'. 6 In view of these and other problems of evidence and interpretation, the relationship between the social scientist and the historian can be productive, and it already promises a significant advance on the traditional historical approach to crime. Perhaps one can see this best by comparing Professor Beattie, writing in the 1970s on the eighteenth century, with Dr Tobias, writing in the 1960s on the nineteenth century. Whereas Beattie uses a crosssection of evidence, Tobias rejects the 'pseudo science' of statistics for the intuitive safety of literary evidence. The result of Tobias's decision is less than satisfactory, for literary evidence, good as it is, suffers from common drawbacks in the field of crime. As it is often upper- and middle-class in character, such evidence tends to portray offenders as members of a lowly and distinct criminal class. Moreover, writers like Thomas Beggs or Edwin Chadwick could be highly selective, for they were seeking to establish their own views of crime and protest. 7 And, finally, it is worth remembering that contemporary criminal literature was often based on statistics anyway. CRIME AND STATISTICS There is a major difference between eighteenth- and nineteenth-

century studies. For the years prior to 1805, we have to rely on assize and quarter session papers, together with exceptional finds in manorial and urban records. Some of the problems in using such material have been outlined by Alfred Soman and John Styles, but the more local studies that are made and the greater the intersection of evidence, the more sure we can be of the general pattern. 8 In the nineteenth century, national criminal statistics began in the first decade, were extended in 1833-4, and were greatly improved in 1856-7 when the government at last began to document offences known to the police. Moreover, an increasing number of petty sessions and police records survive for this period, including some excellent and unused returns of crime in London and Manchester. 9 In this area of historical statistics the key works are those by Professors Beattie and Gurr, and Doctors Gatrell, Hadden and Peirce. All of these writers claim that the criminal records can be used with some confidence to denote long-term trends. Briefly, their findings indicate a fairly gentle rise in the eighteenthcentury crime rate, with particularly significant increases in the early Hanoverian period and a more sudden upward movement in property offences in the last three decades. This last rise became

4

Setting the scene

spectacular in the years 1815-17, and continued to cause alarm until the critical turning-point of the mid century. Just how much this statistical pattern was due to actual changes in criminal behaviour is still being debated, for clearly there was a new sensitivity to crime in this period and an improving machinery for dealing with offenders. What does seem certain, however, is that in the second half of the century, especially after the 1860s, there was a national decline in the number of offences against persons and property until the end of the century, and beyond. Of London, David Peirce 10 has written: In the 1830s and 1840s there was much more thievery and assault ... than there was in the 1920s, perhaps five times as much relative to population, while in the 1970s the incidence of indictable crimes is some five times the recorded level of 50 years ago and rising fast. These historians also indicate that there was a positive correlation between prices, wages, job prospects, war, and property offences in the eighteenth century, and between the trade cycle and property offences for much of the nineteenth. During the worst depressions of this period, such as 1740-1, 1815-17 and 1842-3, the level of crimes and protest was sufficiently high to produce a feeling of general crisis amongst informed observers. The following chapters, however, reveal the complexity of this relationship between economic conditions and crime rates, especially in urban areas, a point which becomes more obvious after the late 1850s. 'It will be a sad reflection to find that an increase in crime is a consequence of increased prosperity,' said Lord Chief Justice Campbell in 1855, 'and that crime must follow in the train of affluence.' In subsequent years the incidence of assaults and drunkenness was often high in comparatively prosperous times, and in the 1880s there were, so we are told, signs of a general shift from poverty-based to prosperity-based crime . 11 This picture of major long-term changes in criminal behaviour is complemented by much recent research in Germany, France, Sweden and other parts of the western world. What remains unclear, however, is how the rates and character of crime varied from one type of community to another. Did the urban and rural crime rates in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries rise and fall together? How did crime in an established town compare with that in a district experiencing the trauma of the industrial revolution? And what of crime in Bristol, Liverpool, Hull, and the other great seaports of this period? Unfortunately, apart from the contemporary investigations of Joseph Kay, Joseph Fletcher, Thomas Plint and John Glyde, very little comparative research has been completed on the subject. In a sense, of course, true comparisons are difficult if not impossible for, amongst other reasons, there were different levels of sensitivity to certain offences in different communities. It was claimed that a considerable amount of violence in the countryside

Setting the scene

5

was ignored or not reported. Even so, as the urban apologists never tired of stressing, crime rates in the highly commercialised agricultural areas of Suffolk and Dorset were often higher than in selected manufacturing towns, and violence against persons and property formed an important element (up to 25 per cent) of the rural crime rate until the 1860s. Assaults in the countryside were of three main kinds: family conflicts, clashes between neighbours, and attacks on excise officers, policemen, poor-law officials, farmers, agents and keepers. Running parallel to this was the destruction of property, the common and under-researched practice of tearing down walls, fences, hedges, gates, and trees, and the spectacular outbreaks of arson and animal maiming which affected southern and eastern England from the late eighteenth century until 1868-9. The other important categories of rural crime were non-malicious property crimes (notably the theft of farm produce, livestock, and prodigious quantities of rabbits, game and fish), 'moral offences' such as drunkenness, vagrancy crimes, bastardy, desertion and sex crimes, and 'technical offences', including breaches of Public Health, High ways and Education Acts .12 British historians, studying the comparisons between rural and urban crime, have much to learn from their counterparts overseas. Professors Tilly, Monkkonen and Zehr have shown the complex nature of the relationship between population size, the rate of urbanisation, crime and disorder. In early nineteenth-century Britain, towns undergoing both rapid expansion and important changes in economic structure frequently experienced social tension, a greater sensitivity to working-class delinquency, and a high crime rate. For example, the emerging boom towns of West Bromwich, Bolton, Merthyr Tydfil and the like were characterised by much popular violence, sometimes of a pre-industrial variety. But at an early stage modern urban life settled down to a reasonably peaceful existence. 'There was', says David Philips, who may exaggerate the pace of the change because of his reliance on assize and quarter session records, 'relatively little danger of criminal violence and death for the inhabitants' of the Black Country in the early Victorian years . 13 G. R. Porter, Leon Faucher and others were making similar claims at this time for London, Manchester and the great cities, but, as we shall see in later chapters, common assault and disorderly conduct remained a prominent concern of urban life, at least until the 1870s. The other dominant characteristic of urban crime rates over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the high proportion of property offences, notably larceny, which accounted for up to a third of summary proceedings and two-thirds or more of indictable. The typical urban offence was petty theft, and what worried the authorities was the involvement of women and juveniles, sometimes on an organised basis. It seems probable that the highest known incidence of property crimes was in the early Victorian years, though in London and Manchester the number of recorded felonies held up well until the 1860s. Thereafter, except in the

6

Setting the scene

case of break-ins, burglaries and some white-collar crimes, the rate of reported property offences in urban Britain declined sharply. Precisely why this happened remains a mystery. The prominence of simple larceny, assault and older forms of crime in the police returns was now being challenged by new commercial crimes, offences such as drunkenness and gambling, and breaches of Education, Highways and Police Acts. For example, about one-third of the people taken to court in London and Cardiff in the mid 1880s were charged with being drunk and disorderly and with not sending their children to school, being sufficient proof, in A. C. Hall's view, of the triumphant march of 'industrial civilization' in Britain . 14 The other information gleaned from the statistics has been concerned with the character of the criminals. Such information, much of which was provided by the criminals themselves, must be used with care, but the pattern which emerges in both Britain and America in the nineteenth century is of a change from a young towards an older criminal population. In the 1830s and 1840s up to 50 per cent of prisoners were in the 15-25 age group; by 1890 some 60 per cent were over 30 years and these were more clearly representatives of the least literate and poorest sections of society. Moreover, much to the delight of those who posited a growing differentiation between the respectable working class and the residuum, there was just enough in the statistical evidence to support the view that in the second half of the century an increasing proportion of offenders (especially female) were already on the police files. Even so, the immensely popular notion of a well defined, and even hereditary, criminal class only made historical sense in special circumstances. Small communities of criminals did exist in some eighteenth-century towns, in small enclaves of Merthyr Tydfil or Ipswich, and within certain fraternities of vagrants, and there were some notorious poaching gangs and a few famous criminal families in the great cities who made small fortunes. But most crimes were committed by people in casual or full-time employment. An analysis of neglected charge and petty session lists in mid-Victorian south-west Wales, for instance, reveals that criminals and non-criminals were usually indistinguishable, and a large proportion of the persons actually proceeded against in Britain between 1857 and 1892 were returned as 'of previous good character' . The concept of a large hereditary criminal class remained important, however, for it deflected enquiries into the causes of crime and seriously affected the policing and treatment of offenders . 15 Contemporaries and historians have paid special attention to three groups of offenders: females, juveniles and middle-class criminals. According to Professor Beattie the number of known female criminals was very low in rural southern England during the eighteenth century, but in the towns women were responsible for a quarter of the offences . 16 In the next century between one-fifth and one-third of all prisoners in England and Wales

Setting the scene

7

were females, the proportion being even higher in places like Liverpool and Merthyr Tydfil during the 1840s and 1850s. Doctors Gatrell and Hadden claim that the peak of female crime in Britain was reached in the years 1857-65, and of those committed to gaol at this time 25.6 per cent (males 30.5) were aged under 20 years. Female criminality is, as modern criminologists indicate, a difficult subject; women at this time had fewer opportunities to commit offences and those that did often received preferential treatment at every stage of the legal process. The character of their crime is a good index of the kind of pressures to which women, especially single, deserted and widowed persons, were subjected in the years before the Welfare State. Infanticide, a common female crime in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was almost certainly on the decline by the second half of the nineteenth. In our period the great majority of female offences were theft (notably from the person, from shops and employers) , drunkenness and disorderly conduct, and a key element in this story was the prostitute Y The mid- Victorian years witnessed a concerted campaign against the crime and violence associated with 'women of the streets', and a sustained fall in reported female attacks on property and persons, especially by the very young. The extent of juvenile crime in the nineteenth century is a major problem. There was undoubtedly a changing perception of, and sensitivity towards, delinquent behaviour by young people. New legislation, alterations in the compilation of statistics, a more efficient legal and police system, and many other factors also had a bearing on the changing rate of juvenile crime. Moreover, the national statistics of committals and prisoners give us a poor indication of the actual number of young people cautioned or apprehended. What is obvious and well documented is that a very large proportion of the juveniles who were charged with an offence were located in the major cities, notably London and Liverpool. From a wide variety of histcrical evidence it appears that there was a high level of illegal activity by juveniles in such places well before the flowering of periodical literature on the plight of the urban young. By the mid century much of the recorded crime was being committed by persons in the age-range 18-25 years. It is worth noting, however, that in London at least the growing confidence of the authorities with regard to juvenile delinquency partly disguised significant increases in the number of known male offences in the mid 1850s, late 1860s and early 1880s. The Chief Constable of Liverpool was also bemoaning the high level of juvenile crime in his city in 1898, and in England and Wales the proportion of young people committed for trial at quarter sessions and assizes at that time differed little from that of sixty years before . 18 In general, though, historians remain convinced that there was a decline in the total number of juvenile offences in the second half of the century, and contemporaries were equally certain that the main reasons for this were better

8

Setting the scene

economic opportunities and the removal of potential or actual delinquents from the streets to schools and reformatories . 19 Interest in the middle--class criminal came rather late. In the last decades of the nineteenth century there was a good deal of embarrassment and. concern at the trail of solicitors, clerks, agents and tradesmen passing through the courts, but it was only with the publications of A. C. Hall ( 1901) , J. W. Horsley (1913) and Charles Goring (1913) that the scope of the problem was realised. Goring, who completed a prodigious survey of criminal statistics, showed that the criminality of rich and professional people had been underestimated. Miss Sindall, in a recent study of four thousand such offenders, suggests that the graph of recorded 'middle-class crime' was falling less fast, notably after 1870, than that of 'working-class crime'. By 1900, when cases of middle-class larceny, embezzlement, forgery and especially fraud were becoming a staple diet for novelists and journalists, the statistics can be used (says Miss Sindall) to indicate that the middle class was more criminal than those below them on the social scale. 20 It is especially difficult , however, as we shall see later, to interpret changes in the number of white-collar offences reported and persons arrested. So, to summarise the analyses of the statistics, historians propose a rising crime rate to the mid century and a more significant fall thereafter, together with some interesting shifts in the character of recorded crime and criminals. One can also detect a national peculiarity: in Wales the crime rate was well below that of England until after the Second World War, and at least 40 per cent of prisoners in Welsh gaols were nonWelshmen. 21 CRIME, PERSONALITY AND PLACE The interpretation of the above has always been a matter of some debate. One popular theme, more neglected by social historians than criminologists, was that the explanation of criminal behaviour should be sought within a man's and a woman's personality and intelligence. This view had several strands. In early times men or women had been regarded as fallen, sinful and selfish creatures, and T. C. Curtis and J. Samaha have shown how anxious Elizabethan governments were to surround them with rules and controls. 22 Later, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this notion that all men and women were potentially criminal was given a secular dimension by certain philosophical, anthropological and physiological studies. At the heart of such studies was the dichotomy of natural versus social man. Henry Mayhew, for example, related crime closely to the survival of primitive instincts in an industrial civilisation. Yet whilst some writers (including Mayhew) held firm to the view that everyone, especially the 'unformed' child, had the capacity for criminality, others encouraged by government reports

Setting the scene

9

became obsessed with the picture of a separate and hereditary criminal class. A great deal of time was spent in identifying the physical traits, 'bad habits' and location of this 'class' or 'race' .23 Although this personality-centred interpretation of criminal behaviour was undermined by a number of factors in the modern period, not least by the appearance and analysis of criminal statistics, nevertheless it retained considerable popularity. In 1868 J. H. Elliott concluded that in an age of improving education and living standards only character defects could explain the infamous trinity of pauperism, drunkenness and crime. Many contemporaries, influenced by Darwinism, set up models of human degeneracy and inadequacy. W.D. Morrison, chaplain of Wands worth prison, and Goring, the philosopher and psychiatrist, claimed that the typical criminal was of 'inferior stature' and 'defective intelligence'. C .E .B. Russell and L .M. Rigby, writing in 1906, found some comfort in this. 'Granted that there must be a criminal element in Society, let it at least consist only of those who, by heredity, mental weakness, and general constitution are predisposed to crime.' 24 This readiness to relate delinquent behaviour to the physical and mental capacity of offenders was complemented by a tendency to locate crime within certain districts. Some contemporaries claimed a direct connection between population size, structure (notably sex and age ratios) and crime. 'All over the civilised world', wrote W. D. Morrison, 'most crime is committed in districts which are most thickly populated. '25 'Whether we look at the criminal returns of France, Germany, or the United States, we find that, as in England, a high rate of crime is always the result of a densely aggregated population.' At first there was a feeling that the influence of the denser population was rather 'to assemble the demoralized' than 'to breed an excess of demoralization'. 26 Towns were not evil in themselves, but there were simply more delinquents with more temptations, opportunities and immunity to commit offences. Greater selfcontrol and policing were necessary. Gradually, however, the idea grew that the process of rapid urbanisation was itself responsible for anomie, stress and crime. This part of H. A. Bruce's address to the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science in 1875 contains an element of both views: Narrow streets, close courts, ill-ventilated and crowded houses generate disease, disease poverty, and poverty but too often produces crime. Evil communication corrupts good manners; and evil associations are inevitable in these resorts of the miserable, the vicious, the drunkard, and the criminal. Foul air depresses; depression craves for stimulants, and stimulants beget drunkenness and its long train of curses. Crime is promoted by security from detection and punishment, and the difficulties of detection and the facilities for escape are multiplied in these Alsatias which are found in all

10

Setting the scene our larger towns. It is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to prove how large a part of our national crime is due to the bad housing of our poorer classes; it is assuredly very great.

In the second half of the nineteenth century social scientists showed great interest in these urban districts, especially during years of economic strife. Some of them were convinced that London, for example, the home of the sweated trades, casual employment and bad housing, had become the most dangerous city in western Europe. A series of enquiries were made into the environment and population of its slum areas. From these emerged the picture of working- 'Classes A and B '; classes with an incomplete family life, depressed in mind and body, holding values at variance with those of respectable society, and transmitting anti-social patterns of behaviour from one generation to the next . 27 Such views often did little more than reinforce traditional prejudices and analyses of property owners, magistrates and police chiefs. In the eighteenth century Patrick Colquhoun and others had begun to map out the criminal areas of the largest towns, and their work was carried on in the nineteenth century by persons like the Reverend A. Hume and Thomas Beggs . 28 As we shall see in chapter 6, large numbers of the new police were stationed in or near such places, and were required to keep a close watch on commercial property and on 'known thieves' and 'suspicious characters'. Here then was the 'home of the criminal class', and it became a central tenet of many social scientists and policemen that these 'delinquency areas' should be broken apart and their occupants rehoused and reformed. Indeed, Glasgow, Manchester and London claimed some spectacular reductions in crime rates consequent upon police invasions of old criminal haunts and slum clearances. In Merthyr Tydfil this civic battle was labelled appropriately 'the conquering of China'. CRIME AND CAPITALISM: ALIENATION AND ACCOMMODATION There were many contemporaries, especially during the economic crises of the late nineteenth century, who mocked all such ecological and psychological explanations of delinquent behaviour. 29 An alternative interpretation of delinquency, which waxed and waned in popularity, was that which related long-term changes in crime rates to major shifts in the structure and values of society. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed the growth of capitalism, the primacy of class or sectional interests, and the triumph of the individualist ethic. Joseph Fletcher tried to evaluate the impact of this socio-economic transformation on 'the moral aspects of society' and concluded that next to education it had 'a most powerful influence' . 30 'Crimes have increased

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11

among men', wrote John Wade in 1833, because 'property and transactions connected with property have increased'. ~1 New forms of wealth needed the protection of the law. 'With the great development of trade and commerce', said A .C. Hall in 1901, 'increased heinousness naturally attached to fraud, forgery, and other acts injurious to new business methods. Many such acts, not formerly punished as crimes, or regarded as simple misdemeanours only, became capital offences.' 32 The last decades of the eighteenth century saw a rapid extension of the law of theft. 33 There were other contemporaries who saw more insidious connections between capitalism and delinquency. Social critics of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries like Thomas Carlyle presented a picture of community and families torn apart by unrestricted competition, with a greedy capitalist elite confronting an increasingly angry proletarian work-force in town and country. Tension, conflict, depravity and delinquency were the inevitable result, and much emphasis was placed on the rising crime figures, especially of female offences, in the first decades of the industrial revolution. Not all anticapitalists, however, held to a direct conflict theory. Some were more concerned with the quiet dissemination of capitalist ethics amongst the population, and predicted that a general acceptance of an acquisitive morality would undermine respect for property and persons. 34 Ultimately, then, the fear was often of accommodation rather than alienation. Inevitably, perhaps, it is the second theme which has attracted modern social historians. Edward Thompson, Douglas Hay and Peter Linebaup-h have set the story of eighteenthcentury crime against t..e background of emerging capitalism and within the world of the exploited people. 35 In particular, they have examined the attack of the propertied on customary rights, the transformation of the wage to a monetary payment, and the creation of a national home market. All these changes were legitimised through the law, and entailed both an extension and redefinition of property crimes. Thus people who had traditionally benefited from rights of pasture in forest and on commons were now increasingly brought before the courts. The Game Laws were widened and strengthened, and popular wage supplements like gleanings and sweepings were gradually outlawed in the second half of the century. Altogether, then, across rural and urban Britain there was a considerable increase in the range of property offences, and some of these became punishable by death. The number of capital statutes rose from some 50 to over 200 between 1688 and 1820, to give us 'the bloodiest code' in our history. In the nineteenth century the law continued to be used in the countryside to push through certain changes in connection with property, custom, charity and even personal behaviour. Indeed, there was a growing feeling, put most forcibly by the Reverend Henry Worsley and James Kent, that rural crime and protest

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owed much to monopoly capitalism, selfish economic attitudes and neglect in a once-paternalist society. It was said that changes in employer-employee relationships in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced 'a new breed' of workman, 'less honest' than his forefathers. Although such claims of growing demoralisation and alienation are not uncommon in rural history, it is nevertheless significant that in the highly capitalised regions of eastern and southern England major outbreaks of discontent in the era before Joseph Arch's union were usually preceded by sharp increases in the criminal statistics, especially of poaching. Within this region, too, serious crimes like arson and attacks on farmers seem to have been most common in those parishes where a 'rational' approach to farming, class intolerance and poor job prospects coincided. One suspects that further work on the location and seasonality of rural crime will confirm the pattern. 36 Another aspect of the socio-economic revolution in the countryside which caused some discontent was the change in customary rights and charity. The present writer has become increasingly aware of the number of crimes of theft, and, to a lesser extent, of violence which occurred on disputed or newly-enclosed land. Some of the most famous poaching stories of the period fall into this category. At the same time there was much annoyance, and many court cases in mid-nineteenth-century Midland counties, over the attempts to limit the customs of gleaning corn, vegetable tops, fallen wood, berries and mushrooms. Charity was another long-established 'right', and the battles over village 'land and monies' has been greatly neglected by historians. 37 One notes, for example, that, as charity was 'rationalised' and stricter workhouse regimes introduced, there was a sharp rise in poor-law offences in many counties. As Britain entered the era of industrial capitalism new forces operated on the definition, causes and extent of crime. Karl Polanyi points out the complexity of the relationships in this new world. 38 0n the one hand, there was in the industrial regions an obsession with order, a fact which was much applauded by Thomas PHnt and Cooke Taylor. The industrial economy could not afford too much disruption, and this led to a strengthening of attacks on unwelcome pre-industrial forms of behaviour, on workers' control techniques and on street culture. In the Black Country and industrial South Wales the courts were used early in the nineteenth century to eradicate traditional wage supplements and to impose discipline and company morality. Dr Reid describes in a recent article how employers and authorities in the Midlands made prodigious attempts to force workmen to confine their leisure pursuits to Saturday afternoons. 39 There were also in industrial Britain prior to the late 1840s common fears of the mob and of a lack of discipline amongst the youngest members of the workforce. Sometimes the criminal statistics reflect such anxieties. 40 On the other hand, industrial capitalism licensed an acquisitive

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morality and provided new opportunities for theft and fraud. Several contemporaries complained of the ease with which financial and commercial malpractices were executed, and were alarmed that many professional people seemed willing to commit offences at work rather than accept a reduction in standards or expectations. There was concern, too, that aggressive materialism was spreading down through the ranks of society. 'Why should I not have the good things of life', ran a typical criminal excuse of the later nineteenth century, and it reflected both an acceptance of modern ideals and a rejection of the limits placed on their fulfilment. 41 Significantly, urban magistrates and policemen were often highly critical of the opportunities and temptations which industrialists and salesmen placed before working people. Government reports on the industrial and seaport towns in the mid century described the enormous quantities of cotton, metal, coal, rope and wood that disappeared from unguarded workshops, mines, docks and markets. As we shall see in chapter 6, the 'Black Market' in these goods was considerable. Finally, in this new and increasingly urbanised capitalist world there was the process of alienation. In towns like Manchester and Merthyr the very settlement pattern mirrored the separation of classes. Where the isolation was most complete there was, argued Engels and Gaskell, a lowering of 'morals, manners and dispositions', and the seeds of much crime and future conflict were sown. 42 In his picture of demoralised Manchester, Engels describes the crimes that made up a culture of alienation, defeatism and some despair: a high theft rate (mainly food and clothing), assault (often by gangs and often directed towards the police) , prostitution, family violence, infanticide and suicide. Merthyr, Cardiff, Glasgow and the East End of London all had areas in which this pattern of crime was common and such districts were invariably occupied by families accustomed to low pay and irregular employment. A few individuals in these communities, amongst the receivers, prostitutes and 'bullies', made a truly rewarding profession of their 'social war' (Engels) against society, but here as outside many of the offences were committed by ordinary working men, eldest sons, poor widows and single girls for whom petty theft and vice were calculated economic acts preferable to pauperism. In Manchester, as in rural Suffolk, there was a cycle 'of summer work and winter gaol'. 43 Other forms of criminal behaviour amongst the working population in the centres of Britain's commercial and industrial revolutions were more obvious acts of protest, and we shall be examining these in the next section. By way of a footnote, it is worth reminding ourselves that most contemporary writers did not see a permanent connection between capitalism and chaos. For Joseph Fletcher, G. R. Porter, Peter Gaskell, and Thomas Plint, the new economic order simply demanded higher public standards and better policing. 'It

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would be . . . erroneous ... to infer that our national character has depreciated in consequence of the increase of metropolitan and manufacturing wealth and population', said John Wade in 1833. 'The truth, is that both virtues and crimes increase with riches, the former I conceive in a faster ratio than the latter; unfortunately we have only statistical returns of the evil, not the good deeds of wealthy and civilised communities.' "" It was hoped, though most optimists had a few doubts, that ultimately the 'higher morality' would prevail, and crime would be kept at a tolerable level. David Philips, in his new book on the Black Country, suggests that this position had been reached in one industrial region by the 1850s. CRIME AND PROTEST The relationship between crime and protest has become a major preoccupation of modern social historians. From their work it seems that a high crime rate and protest movements do not always coincide, though in the period of the industrial revolution there was a distinct correlation between property offences and more open forms of class hostility. Doctors Gatrell and Hadden claim that in the first half of the nineteenth century 'certain kinds of criminal activity' reached their most serious levels during times of political agitation and tension. 45 Professor Gurr and Doctor Peirce also found examples of a coincidence of violence and strife in later nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury London, even though by this time working-class protest had many more legal channels and outlets. 46 In the last resort, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, the nature of the relationship between crime rate and protest movements depended greatly on the type of community, the character of those involved, and the response of its magistrates and police in periods of stress. Perhaps at this point we could underline the difficulties historians have encountered in dealing with this subject, and remind ourselves of the cautions of H. S. Becker and D. Matza. One cannot easily distinguish between two kinds of offence and offenders, between 'nice' social crime and ordinary selfaggrandisement. There is a danger of romanticising men and gangs who were regarded, even by working men, as private adventurers willing to exploit the poor and their grievances. On the other hand, there is a comparable risk that because crimes in the post-1850 period rarely assumed the character of riots and strikes and had less tangible community support, they can be dismissed as activities lacking a political or protest dimension. Studies of vag·rant offences and of working-class violence in these years indicate the variety of criminal forms of social protest. In describing the latter Professor Hobsbawm identifies two major types: those crimes which have an element of protest in

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them, and those which reflect a fundamental clash over law . 47 In the countryside the second usually represented a conflict between tradition, popular morality and class legislation of fairly recent origin, and were most common in the years between the Restoration and the Great Reform Act of 1832. For example, people resisting new Acts relating to forest, common and waste lands took their stance on 'time-honoured custom' and sometimes drew up their own alternative 'legislation'. Moreover, even as late as 1900, there were some laws which the poor never truly sanctioned. Joseph Arch tells us that the taking of sticks, straw and a few turnips was a common and accepted practice. Poaching, too, in certain circumstances, was not seen as an offence. The idea that wild animals, birds and fish were 'God's gifts, or everyone's property', was not easily given up. Most poachers, and some smugglers and wreckers, were neither ordinary nor deferential criminals. 48 Professor Hobsbawm 's other type of criminal protest was more extensive. From a reading of Edward Thompson or Douglas Hay it appears that the term 'rural warfare' is an apt description of relationships in parts of the eighteenth-century countryside. Attacks on property and persons sometimes grew into large confrontations, such as those between 'the Blacks' and commoners in Windsor Forest or on Cannock Chase. The story has been followed into the nineteenth century by John Archer, Julian Harber and other researchers. It seems that certain rural crimes had a strong element of protest in them, and that the incidence of such offences did not run parallel to that of ordinary property crimes. Arson is perhaps the best example, for by the third decade of the nineteenth century it had become the characteristic form of intimidation in East Anglia, and to a lesser degree in the Home and southern counties. Related to, and sometimes accompanying, this form of protest were the sending of threatening letters, maiming and poisoning of animals and some assaults on gentlemen and their farm machinery. All of this, and the difficult relationship between crime and protest, will be examined in the next two chapters. Unfortunately some aspects of popular protest in rural society have been neglected by historians. We still know all too little of the many riots against new forms of farming and the establishment of proprietary rights in close-knit and independent Scottish and Welsh communities in the eighteenth century. '+'3 Similarly much work has to be done on what in Wales was called 'Rebeccaism'. In the eighteenth century and down at least until the 1890s, the male inhabitants of the Principality dressed up in women's clothes and with great ritual and discipline opposed enclosure Acts, fishing laws, toll gates, tithes, etc. Such activity, which was an extension of the mock trial, did not disappear as early as some writers suggest. Moreover, the response of rural communities to changes in the Poor Laws was more positive and sustained than we often realise. In some areas, for example, every stage in the execution of the Poor Law

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Amendment Act of 1834 was greeted with riots, arson, and attacks on the persons and property of Guardians, and there was further resistance from workhouse inmates. More seriously, one could argue that all the major rural 'explosions' in the sixty years before .and the twenty years after 'Captain Swing', have been grossly under-researched. Even so, as we shall see later, there seems little doubt that the 1860s and early 1870s witnessed an important shift in the character of protest in the most advanced agricultural areas. There were also, of course, criminal forms of social protest in the industrial regions: collective bargaining by riot, attacks on the unskilled and blacklegs, and the destruction of new machinery were a common reply to loss of earnings, status and control. Professor Hobsbawm, who helped to reinterpret Luddism, sees an inverse relationship between the extent of such crimes and the growth of trade unionism, but in Sheffield and Manchester in the 1850s and 1860s unionism and illegal forms of intimidation went hand in hand. 50 In the West Midlands, too, the nailers resisted the late arrival of mechanisation in their industry in typical Luddite fashion, whilst on the South Wales coalfield the Scotch Cattle tradition was still alive in the 1860s. In the strikes of 1843 and 1849-50 industrial-peasant women forced erring strike-breakers to swear obedience on a fryingpan, and explosives were used on the houses of the most stubborn workmen. Mobs and marching gangs, so conspicuous in the industrial districts in the late eighteenth century, postwar depression and in 1842, were again prominent during the troubles of the 1860s in Lancashire, North Wales and elsewhere. Dave Douglass has also demonstrated that the miners of the north east were prepared to use violence and sabotage in disputes late in the century. 51 Thus, although there does appear to have been a greater commitment to peaceful union and political pressure by industrial workers in the third quarter of the nineteenth century one must not exaggerate the decline of direct action. Finally, there were connections between crime and protest in the city and town. In certain British towns the mob was a common phenomenon, expressing disapproval at eighteenth-century Whig politics and impressment, or at nineteenth-century elections, Catholicism and the Salvation Army. The most popular disturbances prior to 1812 were undoubtedly food riots, and in years such as 1740-1, 1756-7, 1766-8, 1795-6, and 1800-1, these numbered several hundred. Recent work on these riots stresses their complexity, the discipline of the crowd, the moral economy message contained in their action, the support which they received from the poor and even from some soldiers and magistrates, and the growing seriousness of the food riot at the turn of the century when it became more closely associated with political and industrial campaigns. It is important to realise, however, that the urban crowd was not necessarily involved in social-protest movements. Even when it was, the authorities

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sometimes treated it with a degree of tolerance, though the notion of the controlled eighteenth-century crowd is now under attack from a number of quarters. Dr N. Rogers, who has written several papers on the early Hanoverian London mob , is impressed by its power and independence. The same verdict would apply to the behaviour of the urban crowd during the Reform crises of later years. 52 This brings us inevitably to the crucial question of the relationship between crime, protest and revolution. Some contemporaries felt that when crime and protest together reached serious proportions, insurrection was not far away. Yet this was by no means the case; in the eighteenth-century countryside, for example, there was much malicious destruction of property and ritualised violence, but the popular culture was not a revolutionary one. 53 The situation became more serious at the very end of the eighteenth and in the early nineteenth centuries. In rural Britain illegal forms of protest remained essentially localised and without an open political content, but in the new urban and industrial districts major economic changes, a real or imaginary increase in criminal behaviour, a variety of popular movements, a deepening radical ideology and European comparisons all helped to give birth to the concept of 'the dangerous class(es)'. The fear of the 'dangerous classes', or more specifically of an alliance between political agitators, the unemployed, vagrants and criminals, can be located in the industrial areas during the first half of the nineteenth century and in London during the second half. 54 Having examined this fear, Dr David Philips, Dr Victor Bailey, Dr Lisa Keller and Dr B. Lewis conclude that whilst the concern of the propertied classes was genuine enough, the danger of a widespread rebellion by the 'exploited poor' was inconsiderable. 55 In a recent study of the troubled years between 1789 and 1832, Dr J. Stevenson concludes that they 'can in some ways be regarded as surprisingly quiescent'. 56 Even in 1842 and 1886 there was, so these historians claim, no serious working-class threat to the legitimacy of the law and the authority of the police, and governments were rarely frightened by the intentions of Chartists or socialists. It is perhaps an overconfident analysis at least for the first four decades. In industrial South Wales, for example, there was justified alarm at what radicals, criminals and the underemployed might do. The spectacular Merthyr rising of 1831, eloquently remembered by Professor Gwyn A. Williams and ignored in the optimistic thesis of Professor Thomis and Dr Holt, confirmed the worst fears. 57 In the Manchester and Oldham areas, too, there was mass anger and violence until about 1843. Dr Philips claims, with more authority, that by the late 1850s the middle and upper classes were remarkably confident in the field of crime and protest, that the machinery of law and order had been firmly established, and that a certain level of crime was now accepted as normal, at least in the industrial Midlands.

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In a sense the 'working-class problem' was well on the way to being solved: revolutionary consciousness and protest movements seemed in decline, the rate of recorded offences against property and persons was falling, and the authorities had begun to pick out c-ertain groups like juvenile delinquents and prostitutes for special attention. This was, as John Foster and Gareth Stedman Jones remind us, part of a transformation of much importance in modern British history. 58 Thereafter, governments were less preoccupied by threats to law and order, and enshrined their confidence in the good sense of the 'respectable' working class by giving them the vote in 1867 and 1884. CRIME, AUTHORITY AND ADMINISTRATION The most recent historians of crime have shown an increasing interest in the political context of crime. They have switched attention from criminal behaviour to the purpose and character of criminal law. Legislation can have many objectives, both coercive and ideological, and it seems clear that major changes in the legal code had a wide political and social significance. Contemporaries were aware of several important legal developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the enactments of many Acts relating to property, public gatherings and industrial action, the de-criminalisation of certain activities like witchcraft and adultery, and the opposite trend in regard to other forms of social conduct. In fact, all the historical examinations of the British legal code at the beginning of the twentieth century revealed the enormous changes that had occurred since the Restoration of 1660. 59 The intriguing questions are these: why did this legal revolution happen? Who was responsible for the new laws and their varied impact? Did legislation, and, for that matter, criminal behaviour, in our period simply reflect the power and priorities of an elite? Professor Gurr, in his massive treatise on the subject, believes that the answer to the last question is 'No', except perhaps in the case of Acts concerning civil strife. 60 In his view any thesis which presupposes an umbilical connection between power, law and delinquency cannot explain the longterm changes in criminal behaviour that have been detected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and it ignores the role of individuals, pressure groups and public opinion in both demanding and executing legislation. Alan Bainbridge, in his study of Cardiff, came to a similar conclusion, and David Philips also contends that the lack of articulate opposition to laws defending property and persons in the Victorian years implied a general consensus. It is a tempting thesis, to which we shall return later in this chapter. Certainly, whatever the character of the authority which dominated the law-making institutions there was no automatic relationship between its wishes and the criminal statistics.

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Sometimes governments influenced directly the level of civil disorder offences, but much depended on the quality of the administration of Acts of Parliament. For instance, historians of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century society tell us that demands for a vigorous execution of a tough criminal code produced a neutral or even counter-productive effect in communities where the onus for policing and prosecuting rested with private individuals and where the legal system was rigid, cumbersome and costly. Even the reduction of penalties after 1820, notably the abolition of some 190 capital offences by 1860, and the legislation passed after the mid eighteenth century to make prosecutions easier and cheaper, all had less effect than reformers had hoped _61 The administrative changes which had the most dramatic impact on the crime rates were almost certainly the wide extension of summary jurisdiction in our period, particularly with the Juvenile Offenders Act of 1847, the Criminal Justice Act of 1855 and the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879, and the introduction of a professional police force with increasing powers and resources. Contemporaries like A. C. Hall had no doubt of the importance of these two developments; they enabled those in authority to proceed directly against many thousands more Britons. We can pursue further this question of the relationship between authority, law, administration and crime by looking at two vital agencies of the law, namely the magistrates and police, especially in relation to public--order and property offences. One is impressed in the period before the 1880s by the increase in stipendiary appointments, by the growing middle-class dominance of some benches, by the extension of magistrates' power and by their resentment of any interference from the central government. As an example of their power, it has been noted that country magistrates in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries not only pressed for more legislation against poaching, gleaning and other delinquent behaviour, but also increasingly dealt with such offenders at petty sessions, possibly held in 'the big house'. The discretionary power of these justices at the level of petty and quarter sessions was an integral part of the pattern of paternalism, deference and terror, which Douglas Hay describes so eloquently in a recent book. 62 Studies of crime in nineteenthcentury rural Mid Wales reinforce the point: prosecution and punishment were measured with a good deal of care, and the gentry disliked too much advice from ministers and police chiefs. 63 At times in settled communities there is no doubt that local criminals were treated with some leniency, but when, as in the 1790s, 1815-17, 1830-1 and 1843-4, their society seemed threatened, country magistrates could be brutally persistent in hounding offenders. In the industrial districts the relationship between the magistracy and the extent and character of recorded crime is more obvious. For example, David Philips draws significant

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parallels between the changing pattern of Black Country crime and the changes in the composition of the Bench. Between 1836 and 1860 the coal- and iron-masters of the area 'captured' the magistracy, and, despite warnings from the Home Office and the Lord Lieutenant, they openly used the law and the police to defend their own property and to enforce wage reductions on their workmen. In these years there was a truly prodigious increase in the number of cases of thefts of iron, coal and wood that came before the Black Country courts, and the region became notorious for the number of prosecutions under the Master and Servants' Act. In parts of industrial South Wales there were similar correlations, as we shall see in chapter 4. The nature of judicial administration was a source of considerable tension in the large urban areas of Britain. Complaints of inadequate courts, long delays and 'justices' justice' were common. As a result stipendiary magistrates were appointed, first in London and then in many other towns, but these new men were never as independent as reformers had wished. In the mid-Victorian years, for example, some joined their unpaid counterparts in an evangelical crusade. Puritans on the bench pressed for prosecutions against club and theatre owners, 'the people of the streets' and offenders against the Lord's Day Act. In Wales the pattern was of an attack on the beer interest and drunkenness in the mid 1870s-early 1880s, whilst in Liverpool a Liberal election victory in 1890 was followed by a truly comprehensive anti-vice campaign . 6'' Yet here, as elsewhere, even the most reforming of magistrates and Watch Committees sometimes found their directives ignored or moderated by police chiefs and those close to the realities of urban and working-class life. At this point it is appropriate that we should consider the role of the police in the administration of the criminal law. The history of the police in our period indicates their growing importance and changing role. In the village community selfpolicing had been the rule, but the second half of the eighteenth century witnessed a move by the propertied classes towards private policing and protection societies. Parish constables might be efficient in dealing with petty crime, but they were a poor organ of social control and hardly able to suppress criminal forms of protest, as the events of the 1760s, 1790s, 1816 and 1830-44 cruelly demonstrated. During the 1830s and 1840s the appointment of professional policemen became increasingly popular in large urban and industrial districts, and less so in the more remote and backward rural areas. When the compulsory Police Act was passed in 1856 only about half the counties had appointed paid officers. Thereafter the level of police recruitment rose fairly evenly until the end of the century, an inverted reflection of the graph of serious crime. By 1900 they had assumed an importance and authority which would have been unthinkable in 1800. Professor Beattie informs us that the constables of eighteenth-

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century England had little influence on the crime rate, but late in the next century there was general agreement that the new police force had a significant long-term impact on the character and extent of crime. 65 Much of the work on this subject by Doctors Macnab, Cockcroft, and David Philips supports the thesis propounded by R. Lane in his study of nineteenthcentury Massachusetts. 66 Briefly, the arrival of the new police usually produced an initial rise in public-order offences, and a more gradual and regionally varied effect on property and indictable crime. These men, who were often led by ex-army officers, quickly helped to enforce new standards of public order. Legislation against violent behaviour in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had been difficult to enforce. But now, in the worst districts of Salford, Merthyr, Liverpool and London, there was a vigorous police battle for control of the streets, and a high incidence of cases involving assault, disorderly conduct and drunkenness, as short-sighted ratepayers bitterly noted. Police chiefs like Stephen Neal launched major drives against street urchins, prostitutes, vagrants and gypsies, and prided themselves on their control of the crowd. Superintendents before the Select Committees on the Police in 1834-53 chronicled the amazing success of the Metropolitan constabulary in almost every riot after the Reform Crisis. 67 In the countryside, too, much to the delight of the reforming clergy, the new police soon established themselves as an 'improving' force: they brought to the local court cases of assault which had once hardly deserved the term 'criminal'; they set about controlling boisterous recreations; and they broke up gangs of underemployed youths and poachers. Villages like Wymondham in Norfolk and Hindon near Bath were said to have been transformed by their presence. Yet it is worth recalling that police numbers remained small in many country districts and that episodes such as the remarkable Rebecca poaching raids of the later nineteenth century could reduce them to helplessness. To a degree, then, the mob tamed itself, at least as much as it was tamed by government or its agents. 68 The confidence which the police assumed in their handling of public order crimes was not so obvious in respect of other offences like petty theft and burglary. Although it is difficult to quantify the police impact on the rate of the latter, it is possible that in this area the new constables were initially less successful than the old. True, they did destroy some traditional criminal haunts, but there was some point to the criticisms that the new police in London and Manchester were a poor detective force, and we should note Dr Macnab's claim that the major police reforms of the mid century had little immediate effect on the rate of indictable crime. Instead, their impact was probably a gradual one, becoming more apparent as they changed their priorities and widened their attack on criminal behaviour. In Liverpool, one of the two most policed cities in Britain, there was much pride at the way in which their police took the battle

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to the criminal and at the parallel fall in known property offences. By the late 1860s and certainly after 1879, as the police were given more technical assistance and greater supervisory powers, the official detection rate rose in many areas. In Wales, for example, as in parts of Scotland, three or four persons were arrested at this time for every five reported indictable crimes, and people began to set their policemen impossible targets. 69 Frequent requests for more police patrols from tradesmen, employers and ratepayers underlined their value as protectors of property. One neglj:!cted aspect of historical study has been the relationship between the police and people. Sometimes the former were strangers to the community, and always there was pressure on them to isolate themselves from social contact with the working class. The immediate impact of professional policemen in a district was frequently traumatic; it occasioned anti-police protests in the capital and riots in parts of the industrial north, in rural East Anglia and in south-west Wales. 70 In Merthyr Tydfil, where the new police of the 1840s had orders to watch Chartist leaders and to enter the 'no go' area of 'China', there were bitter conflicts and assaults on officers. Elsewhere, too, as we shall see in later chapters, violence against the police remained at a high level until the 1870s. The very fact that police were a vital element in ensuring the execution of the Poor Laws, Game Laws, Vagrancy, Juvenile and Education Acts increased their unpopularity. Their work in connection with the Vagrancy Act of 1824 and the Poaching Prevention Act of 1862 was certainly resented; innocent working people complained that they were placed under constant surveillance. Many were arrested on suspicion only, and there was a justified feeling that, as in cases of drunkenness and assault, the police operated a distinct class bias. With a few honourable exceptions, the new police evinced little sympathy for those on the margins of society and the law. However, there was a dichotomy. On the one hand, there was still much class distrust of the police in town and village in 1900, as Flora Thompson and Robert Roberts illustrate. But, on the other hand, almost from the beginnings in the 1840s and 1850s, the legitimacy and, to a degree, the in de pendence of these state officials was established. Soon there were exaggerated claims of general acquiescence in their role, and demands for more police protection from working-class people in tough districts. We should remember that one of the aims of the new police force was to obtain community support. They not only offered everyone the prospect of greater security, but also became involved in primitive forms of social work. Moreover, they used carefully the increasing amount of discretionary power which they had in regard to arrest and committals. Superintendents and sergeants sometimes handed out cautions to fortunate residents. In London, Liverpool and Cardiff the constable on the beat, anxious to fend off public

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hostility, showed a degree of annoyance at the wisdom, practicality and additional work of executing grand moral directives from above on matters such as soliciting and breaches of the Sunday Observance Laws. 71 CRIME, IDEOLOGY AND CONTROL A. C. Hall, writing in 1901, claimed that with industrial progress came independence and liberty, and with liberty came the need to control and socialise. Civilised society had much to fear from idle, vagrant and rebellious instincts, and the legal system had a significant part to play in the ideological battle. Used wisely the law could raise 'standards' and perform important educational functions. He did not, as we saw earlier, fear a rising crime rate. 'In general', he wrote, 'new crime follows the line of greatest resistance to the new life of society. '72 He was delighted that the extension of summary jurisdiction and the new police force had 'made possible a repression of minor acts of evil, such as had been undreamed of hitherto'. In 1896, 2, 308 persons in 100, 000 were tried by police courts, and of that number 609 were tried for drink offences, 221 for offences against the Education Acts and 108 for offences against the Vagrant Acts. Attempts to regulate social conduct in the second half of the century accounted for the only real growth area in recorded criminal behaviour, and for many of the sudden fluctuations in the crime rate. The interesting question is, of course: in whose interest was the law thus used? For an answer many writers have turned to an hegemony thesis. Harold Perkin, for example, has described the history of nineteenth-century society in terms of the triumph of the entrepreneurial ideal, and the imposition of common conservative values by a set of sophisticated control mechanisms. 73 For Perkin, John Foster and others, the turningpoint in this story was the early Victorian years, when the consciousness and actions of the working class apparently persuaded the bourgeoisie of the wisdom of transforming society, or sections of it, in its own image. Deviance thus bred fear and fear led to social control. And one mechanism for imposing middle-class values and morality was the criminal law. The relationship between ideology, control and crime is, however, a complex one, and two cautionary notes should be sounded. 74 First, much of the so-called 'bourgeois ideology' of the 1830s and 1840s was not new. The wish to inculcate a respect for order, discipline and work had a long pedigree, stretching back to the Society for the Reformation of Mariners and beyond. Nor were these cultural ambitions exclusive to those in authority; there were many eighteenth-century dissenting craftsmen and artisans who were also critical of idle and dissolute behaviour amongst rich and poor. Even so, there was a qualitative change in the late eighteenth and nineteenth

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centuries, particularly in rural and industrial districts where class separation and hostility were most acute. The demands and problems of industrial capitalism and rapid urbanisation heightened the sensitivity to working-class attitudes and habits, and partly because of this, startling new information was made available on juvenile delinquency, prostitution, drunkenness, etc. During the Chartist period, cadres of professional men, 'the experts' of industrial society, argued that until the working class was ideologically 'sound' and separate from the urban residuum, society could never be secure. They looked to the law, police, religion, leisure pursuits and particularly education to achieve the required result. In later years exponents of capitalist and city ideals gave more attention to the residuum, and here the forces of the law and especially its reformatory institutions had a vital role to play. The great fear of so many reformers was that without constant policing and attention, and without training in 'industrial discipline', to quote W.D. Morrison, the poor and their offspring would present a major and permanent cultural threat ('moral contagion') to the new world. Second, it must be admitted that by no means all of the middle and upper classes were obsessed with social control and the dissemination of conservative values, or with using the law as part of a great ideological onslaught on the rebellious and dissolute. No doubt Joseph Fletcher was right when he stated that many wealthy people in 1849 lived comfortably with the dangers and contradictions of an unequal society. 75 In the early decades of the industrial revolution the question of order was an imperative for the middle class, but, this apart, many of them were only too content to be at a distance from the poor and their problems. Indeed, the zeal of some purity reformers was also very limited in character; they were anxious to protect middle-class property, family life and their young from the evils of drink, prostitution and vagrancy, and were reasonably happy so long as the latter were out of sight. A good portion of Parliament, and some leading magistrates and policemen, adopted a laisser-faire or practical approach to the whole question of social conduct. Law could be extended only so far into the daily lives of ordinary people. 76 Having glanced at one part of this difficult subject of crime and ideology in the earlier part of this chapter, it is time to consider three more related aspects. First, no history of crime would be complete without reference to the Puritan evangelicalism that permeated so many activities in the period from the mid eighteenth to the mid nineteenth centuries. It attempted to mould attitudes, especially in regard to work discipline, Sunday observance and leisure attitudes. A variety of Acts were passed to help enforce Puritanical restrictions on behaviour, and organisations were established to prosecute people who ignored this legislation. By 1850 evangelicals, zealous magistrates and policemen had almost eclipsed certain traditional

Setting the scene

25

sports like bear- and cock-fighting, and had reduced the numbers and vitality of fairs and festivals. The story is one of little popular resistance in some areas, and deep resentment in others. In London, where the battle was a hard one, much had been 'won' by the 1890s: we are told that fairs had become controlled, and that music-halls and dancing saloons had begun effectively to licence themselves. Visitors to the major cities at the turn of the century were often much impressed by the 'improvement' in public behaviour and entertainment. 77 At this point we touch on the phenomenon of Victorian respectability, a rich mixture of religious fervour, class selfinterest, and capitalist-individualist ethics. These components were personified, for example, by the extraordinary Cardiff Watch Committee. For this committee drunkenness appeared to replace sedition as the besetting sin of the working class. 78 The interest in drink here and elsewhere grew because of the activities of temperance and religious pressure groups, and also because of the growing conviction in town and countryside that drink was the chief source of indolence and crime. In fact, there was a nineteenth-century cottage industry devoted to exposing the links between drink and vice, gambling, family instability and violence. 79 One wonders just what effect this pressure had on the tremendous national rise in recorded crimes of drunkenness in the mid-Victorian years, or did the latter reflect a real 'outburst of debauchery', as A .E. Dingle and Professor Checkland imply?'l 0 Similarly, what happened after the mid 1870s? Was the sharply declining national rate a tribute to worsening economic conditions or to a weakening of aggressive respectability? In parts of strict nonconformist Wales the pattern is significantly different. Whatever the variations, however, by the end of the century drunkenness was the single most common charge in the courts. If the drunkard was one target for religious and secular missionaries, so also were the prostitute and the vagrant. These people of the streets mocked and appeared to threaten the very existence of an industrious, settled, Christian and family way of life, especially once the early traumas of the industrial revolution were over. Moreover, in some districts they were, as we shall see, the props of a criminal underworld. In the early Victorian years the youth, poverty and conspicuous nature of female prostitution became a favourite topic for ministers of religion. Their fears of the moral implications of this 'growing menace' were reinforced by the new statistics on their numbers and criminality. In Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool, for example, the numbers of prostitutes seem to have increased from the late eighteenth century to a peak in the early 1840s, when they were responsible for up to half the female assaults and a large share of stealing, especially from the person. At Liverpool in 1842, where 2, 899 prostitutes 'were known to the Police' (perhaps a third of the actual number), 1,289 were charged with being drunk and disorderly, and 528 with

26

Setting the scene

robberies from the person .81 Twenty years later the police figures of known prostitutes and arrests were still high, but by 1900 the 'Great Evil of the Great Cities' was on the wane. 82 There were times, as in the late 1850s, early 1870s and 1890s, when the authorities induced policemen to arrest great numbers of prostitutes under the various national and local improvement Acts, and religious or political reformers on gaining power purged places of entertainment, lodging houses and the like. All this, of course, pushed up the criminal statistics of London, Manchester, Liverpool and Cardiff, but the 'moral effect' was limited, and sometimes counter-productive. 'Prostitution', said one contemporary, 'is like a rope of sand . .S! Like prostitution the problem of vagrancy became more conspicuous and less acceptable in the nineteenth century. Henry Mayhew called vagrancy 'the nursery of crime', and certainly a large number of the people arrested in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were identified as vagrants. Despite some views to the contrary, most of them were taken simply for vagrancy crimes, chiefly begging, sleeping in the open air and being without visible means of subsistence. The Vagrancy Act of 1824 and subsequent statutes were intended, amongst other things, to enforce dominant ethics of work, independence and family responsibility. Some of the increases in criminal statistics in the mid- and late Victorian years bear witness to a growing determination to control vagrants and to the latter's angry reply. As we shall see, workhouse offences often formed part of the vagrant's anti-social response, as did the waves of arson, notably that which spread across North Wales and the border counties in the 1860s. The final aspect of the relationship between crime, ideology and control were the twin concepts of a proper family life and correct juvenile behaviour. Enquiries by governments and individuals into drunkenness, prostitution, vagrancy and juvenile crime frequently turned into detailed analyses of the workini-class family, its relationships (or lack of them), and habits. " It was increasingly felt that one answer to the social problems of urban and industrial life was to enforce respectable standards of family responsibility and care on the very poor, which meant an exceptional and often resented degree of state interference. Bastardy and Vagrancy Acts were already on the statute book, but in the mid- Victorian years Parliament added new legislation to curb serious violence and neglect within the family, and the Education Acts of the 1870s and a whole series of Acts in the 1880s required parents on pain of fine or loss of child to earry out certain parental duties. At this rate, John Glover told reformer Rosa Barrett, they would soon have all 'the children in the workhouses and the parents in prison'. 85 The number of cases under the Education Act in 1892, 86,149, conveys something of the scale of the 'battle'. 'What to do with the children of the poor?' became perhaps the dominant social question of this period. It was bound up,

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27

of course, with the needs and tensions of an emerging industrial nation. In the decades after the Napoleonic Wars contemporaries showed a greater interest in the notion of juvenile delinquency, especially in the large towns like Liverpool where Captain Williams and Edward Rushton had begun to describe in alarming detail the dangers of cheap publications, the popular theatre, street fairs and pubs. People were also more prepared to use the courts and the new police to punish petty misdemeanours. 'Many offences for which a lad is now sent to gaol were formerly disregarded', said John Eardley-Wilmot in the 1820s, 'or not considered of so serious a character as to demand imprisonment', and 'crowds of young offenders, who formerly escaped detection have been brought to justice ... '. 86 The publication of criminal statistics and the sudden interest in the age of criminals convinced observers like Thomas Beggs that juvenile delinquency was the most dangerous and consistent threat to order in a civilised world. Under pressure from people such as Mary Carpenter, progressive law and prison officers, and members of the Social Science Association, decisions were taken to remove the 'delinquent and neglected child' (a significant pairing) from the streets, to give such children some form of work training, discipline and instruction, and to treat them as special criminals. Much new legislation was passed in the mid nineteenth century in relation to juvenile crime and punishment, and the first industrial schools and reformatories built. Reformers believed that all this contributed to the decline in the crime rate, but there was a counter-effect which became most obvious late in the century. The notion of respectable juvenile behaviour was then reinforced by a range of new youth movements and officials, and by a determination to control leisuretime activities, and all this was formalised by restrictions on juvenile drinking, gambling, dangerous play, street selling, truancy, etc. Moreover, as A. C. Hall noted in 1901, 1 reformatory penalties have induced social prosecution 1 • In Cardiff, Oxford and some other towns the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth saw sudden increases in the official rate of juvenile disorder. Despite the general improvement in children' s language, dress and manners, society was, said W.D. Morrison, in danger of helping to create a new juvenile delinquency problem. ~ 7 CONCLUSIONS To sum up the present state of research: first we now have a fairly clear picture of the long-term changes in the total crime rate over two hundred years and of the crucial transformation in perception and behaviour in the mid nineteenth century. To underline this point, Professor Ted Gurr argues in a recent publication that since about 1850 the threat of crime and public

28

Setting the scene

disorder has been generally of minimal concern to the ruling elite in Britain. Second, we can identify changes in the character of recorded crime, notably a decline in the level of traditional types of offences against persons and property - excluding possibly burglary and white-collar crimes - in the later nineteenth century, and greater prominence for breaches of laws governing conduct in a modern and mechanised society. Third, it appears that most of the people arrested for committing these offences were fairly young and poor members of the community. They risked gaol for small rewards; so far as one can tell, the number of prosperous and professional criminals in these years did not begin to compare with that of recent times. Fourth, without taking up an extreme labelling position, there can be little doubt that government and society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries set itself a level of criminal behaviour that it found tolerable and with which it could adequately deal. Thus the number of persons taken into custody in 1700 was remarkably small, whilst 150 years later the figure was greatly magnified. Fifth, we now have a number of explanations for the changes in criminal behaviour and character of offenders, some of which have yet to be verified. It seems, for example, that single-factor interpretations made sense only within the bounds of certain classes, districts and periods. Thus there were special reasons in the second half of the nineteenth century why the machinery of law and order was fairly successful in deterring and discovering offenders. The balance of power and technical knowledge was clearly on the side of the state. Similarly, the relationships which Engels, A .C. Hall and others saw between crime and ideology, progress and poverty were more circumscribed than they imagined. Only someone a:s brave as Professor Gurr would dare to fashion out of all this a grandiose model of public disorder and criminal behaviour which he hopes 'others will find ... worth using and testing'. 88 Before we return to this question of interpretation, it is important to identify the gaps in our knowledge. Much research has yet to be carried out on eighteenth-century records, with possibly a keener appreciation of the intrinsic deficiencies of the surviving evidence. What do the sudden changes in the level of indictments in this period actually signify? More information is also needed on the nature of perceived criminal behaviour in the next century. Which activity was criminalised and de-criminalised in a society that was slowly developing into the modern secular welfare state? How did the patterns of recorded rural crime differ ftom those in urban and industrial communities? The neglected police occurrence, charge and court books may supply some of the answers. Detail is also lacking, despite a wealth of primary material, on matters such as arrest, trial, conviction and acquittal rates, the level of civil disorder in the years prior to 1760 and after 1848, and on the character of criminals generally. It is surprising how little

Setting the scene

29

is still known of eighteenth-century vagrants and nineteenthcentury juvenile delinquents. One can perhaps isolate three themes still waiting for an historian. The first of these is a political one. Professor G. R. Elton rightly claims that, in their preoccupation with criminal behaviour, social historians have often missed the essential political and legal background. We ought to know more about the precise nature of legislation and how laws got into the statute book; and what political factors determined the manner in which Acts of Parliament were executed. Professor Elton, who is sharply critical of radical historians, believes that many laws were simply the result of individual initiatives and administered in a haphazard fashion. 89 Others, including the present writer, would argue that class interest provided the essential context within which such decisions were taken. The second neglected theme is the relationship between crime, class and community or, more accurately in the nineteenth century, notions of community. Research in modern Welsh history indicates that important considerations in deciding which people should be regarded as criminal and how they should be punished were their class and their place of residence. 'Outsiders' and 'marginal people', like vagrants or sailors, were more likely to appear on charge lists than the settled members of a community; they were also unfairly blamed for many crimes of violence and theft, and were useful scapegoats, especially at times of tension. Some authorities insisted that criminal behaviour was introduced into their district by 'foreigners' and 'strangers', but this did not deceive many working-class residents who were anyway aware of the class nature of legislation and action against vagrants, prostitutes and poachers. One working man in 1858 told an open meeting in London that these 'evils' could not be tackled until the 'upper classes were reformed', and this feeling undoubtedly curbed the actions of some magistrates and policemen. It may be, however, that there was, as so many observers claimed, a less tolerant attitude on the part of working people to most criminals by the midVictorian years. Unfortunately the whole area of working-class attitudes to crime, and to the police, is shrouded in mystery. We know that they regarded murder, bestiality and certain acquisitive offences as natural not law-made crimes. But how did they regard sexual crimes or breaches of Education, Licensing Acts, etc.? For how long did unofficial definitions of crime and forms of punishment exist alongside state justice? What use did the working-class make of an increasingly accessible and cheap legal system? The third theme which has been too much ignored is that of crime, prevention and punishment. The valuable probings of Allan Silver, Robert Storch, Ursula Henriques and Michael Ignatieff have shown us how much we need further comprehensive and theoretical studies in Britain. 90 Some optimists of the nineteenth century expected crime to disappear forever, whilst

30

Setting the scene

others envisaged a future where it would be controlled, even regulated, by the state. Edwin Chadwick, Richard Vaughan and Joseph Fletcher believed that crime in an emerging industrial society was best controlled by greatly improved police and educational facilities. At its best education, rather than religion, would encourage class co-operation and limit demoralisation and materialism. As for punishment, the obvious changes were from the severity of the eighteenth century, with its many Acts requiring the death penalty or transportation, to the typically short prison sentences of the mid nineteenth, and later the extension of fines and cautions, notably for women and children. As an aside it is worth recording William Ewart's vain attempt to abolish capital punishment altogether in the 1ate 1840s. The years from the 1770s to the 1840s witnessed the rapid extension of the penitentiary system. The reasons for this development were both practical and philosophical, and went far beyond any notion of 'functional efficiency'. At the same time, but more particularly after 1814-15, transportation became a very popular method of dealing with known thieves. Gradually, however, this and other forms of punishment came under attack from ruthless critics who doubted both their deterrent and reforming value. Dr W. C. Taylor, writing in 1839, 91 expressed the impatience of many reformers: We have found that morals are not , like bacon, to be cured by hanging; nor like wine, to be improved by sea-voyages; nor like honey , to be preserved in cells . . . . A penal administration and a correctional administration are two very different things. Whether society has yet advanced sufficiently to do without the former may be doubted; but it is indisputable that there is an urgent necessity for taking the latter into immediate consideration. As we have seen, this urgency was generally conceived in respect of juvenile offenders, and here Mary Carpenter and the Reverend John Clay wished to replace the missing influences of family or work by the right reformatory training. The treatment generally of the criminal in our period was beset with problems. There were practical difficulties, like insufficient money, and more significant ideo1ogical 1imitations. Narrow analyses of the kind of people and places that were apparently responsible for crime produced some equally narrow answers, and there were fears that the many changes in the penal system and the new interest in forms of prevention and care were undermining the virtues of self-help, laissez-faire and charitable endeavour. In the words of Matthew Hill, 'Do not remove a feeling of responsibility from individuals, families and the community' was the classic view of those who disliked too much state interference. 92 But the state, through important legislation on the character and administration of prisons and

Setting the scene

31

reformatory schools, increasingly became involved in the whole business of punishment. Some of its bureaucrats believed that uniform changes in penal policy could determine crime rates and even the character of offenders, but apart from some shortterm results, there is, as we shall see later, little to be optimistic about in the history of punishment. 93 Finally, what does all this tell us about historians, sociologists and theories of crime? Despite the doubts and attenuated theorising of Professor Gurr, most social historians, including the present one, still see modern crime as rational behaviour, closely related to the character and will of the ruling class and the defence and priorities of the capitalist system. Granted that crime has always existed, we argue that the character and level of crime, whether it be offences relating to property or social conduct, indicate points of tension in the new society that was born during the years 1750-1850. Yet there is no hard reductionism or fundamentalism in recent historical writing. For example, in Edward Thompson's opinion, the law in the eighteenth century was more than simply a reflection of power and status in society, as some radical deviance theorists claim. This law encompassed tradition, practices and even rights which could act as a brake on arbitrary power and seizure of property, and it encapsulated notions of equality before the law and presumed innocence which could be turned against those who wished to exploit it. 94 Moreover, as several writers have noted, the ambitions of the ruling elite before the mid nineteenth century were limited by the ratchet effect of community feeling and policing. Thus government-inspired campaigns against forest criminals, machine-breakers and food rioters had some disappointing results. As for later years, some radical historians believe that those in power now used the greatly extended legal and police systems to effect their wishes. Yet Professor Gurr insists that the legislation defining criminal behaviour and governing the treatment of offenders in this period reflected interests much wider than those of a small capitalist elite. David Philips, too, informs us that there was general public support for many of the laws regarding personal safety and property. 95 There is a degree of truth in this, but it is worth recalling how little is known of working-class attitudes. Consensus is, like social control, a dangerous concept; no doubt many working men used the legal apparatus of the state whilst still believing that it and the new police were helping to safeguard class privilege. By way of an epilogue. perhaps we should add a note on the manner in which social scientists and historians work. The former might despair at the approach of historians of crime who often work with the minimum of scientific equipment and a notable lack of intricate theoretical models. One sociologist complained that some of us do not relate our work sufficiently to 'theories of society' and 'the contemporary situation'. This is

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Setting the scene

an old criticism which pays insufficient regard to the discipline and instincts of the historian. Even those historians who see crime from a radical perspective quickly appreciate the value of a careful and open approach to what is essentially new and difficult evidence. Before rushing to set up models of criminal behaviour, we all need to bear in mind the experience of A . C . Hall, one of the most intelligent writers on the history of crime. From his acute analysis of the changing pattern of modern crime, he predicted that 'the rate of increase may not be as rapid in the twentieth century as it has been in the eighteenth and nineteenth'. 96 As for criminologists and sociologists, although their propositions and theories are often very helpful to the historian, one can argue that their work has been sometimes too mechanical and one-dimensional. Perhaps it is significant that there have been recent requests within the sociology discipline for historical perspectives on gang activities, pilfering, 'criminal areas' and the rest. 97 Similarly, it must be obvious by now that single and global theories of crime - psychological, ecological, economic, etc. - need to be tested very thoroughly over time. It is hoped that this book will go some way towards a greater understanding of the historical factors which define, stimulate and control criminal behaviour in various communities.

2 ARSON AND THE RURAL COMMUNITY: East Anglia in the mid nineteenth century

The malicious destruction of property was a persistent and important element in the story of rural crime. At certain times in the early Victorian period, notably 1844 and 1851, it constituted a high proportion of recorded indictable crime, and even fifty years later it formed about one-tenth of summary proceedings in country districts. This destruction of property, together with the violence which characterised many rural areas until the 1860s, confirmed the prejudices of those who believed that rural workmen were more ignorant, immoral and criminal than their urban counterparts. In John Glyde 's comparative study of mid-century Suffolk it was the residents of the villages and not the towns who exhibited a 'sad depth of moral debasement' . 1 Damage to property in the countryside took many forms: the demolition of homes, outhouses, machines, enclosures, fences, weirs, and walls, the destruction of crops, bushes and trees, and the killing and maiming of animals and birds. Some of this was only youthful exuberance and vandalism, but other injury to property was inspired by motives of personal and social revenge. On occasions the destruction of property took on very serious proportions indeed. There were protracted local struggles, such as the Otmoor and Caernarvonshire enclosure disputes, during which miles of walls and fences were torn down, and, of course, there was the widespread intimidation of Captain Swing and Rebecca. 2 The most common form of malicious damage in the Victorian countryside was, however, arson. It had been used by workmen as a weapon of intimidation in the late eighteenth century, and again in 1800, 1812, 1816-17, 1822-3, and 1829-36. During the Swing riots of 1830-2 incendiarism was a peripheral activity, except in parts of East Anglia and the south east. 3 Thereafter it became increasingly important, the major form of rural protest until trade unionism took firm hold in the late 1860s and 1870s. Why did underground terrorism prove so attractive in this period? We know that the events and memories of 1830-1 cast a shadow over open and peaceful expressions of labourers' grievances. Trade unionism did appear in various guises, especially in the years 1834-5, and there were strikes and riots in the countryside in the next two years, but the authorities kept a close eye on these proceedings and they quickly subsided. Arson, as Dr A .J. Peacock tells us, had peculiar advantages in this situation, at least whilst policemen, watchmen 33

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Arson and the rural community

and firemen were still thin on the ground. Isolation, which in one sense worked against an organised labour force, became a useful aid here; labourers could commit crimes with a certain impunity, and farmers could be intimidated. Some of the latter informed the parliamentary committees and commissions of the 1830s that it was the threat of arson which made them keep up their workforce, pay decent wages, and hold back on mechanisation and reductions in poor-relief payments. 4 The history and scope of incendiarism can be found, to a degree, in the criminal statistics. From these we learn that there were distinct chronological and regional patterns. In the 1830s the annual committals for arson and wilful burning in England and Wales numbered 70, more than double the figure for the previous decade, but in the 1840s the average rose even higher to 123. Peaks in the statistics occurred in 1844, 1849-52, 1862-4, and 1868-9. In 1844 and 1863, the years with the highest figures, the number of committals was 245 and 368. The actual incidence of incendiarism was, of course, much greater than this; perhaps three out of four cases never reached the courts. 5 At a conservative estimate, the worst years saw a minimum of a thousand fires, and some of them were very large indeed. Sixteen homes were destroyed in one fire at Colne near St Ives in Huntingdonshire in 1844, and more than twice that number went up in smoke at Cottenham in Cambridgeshire six years later. 6 Damages of £4-5, 000 were fairly common, and some insurance companies stopped taking new customers. The criminal statistics indicate that, at various times, parts of Britain were especially vulnerable to the arsonist. Thus East Anglia was notorious for its fires in the years before 1852, and counties of the south west in the next twenty years. Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire seem to have been constantly under threat. In the first of these there were at least a hundred reported cases of arson in the early 1840s, whilst the other two counties received much unwelcome publicity in the years 1849-52. 7 At one blaze near Hungerford in the spring of 1849 about a thousand people came to watch. 8 In the early and late 1860s, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire were again affected. 'What . . . are we to say to the reappearance of this senseless and most wicked mischief at the present time', asked 1 The Times' on 5 March 1862, 1 when there is no political discontent, when the old causes of social irritation have been successively removed, when the condition of the population has for years been eminently prosperous, and when the rudiments of useful education have been placed within reach of the very poorest?' In Yorkshire and the west country farmers ignored the question, and got on with the job of protecting their property against a succession of attacks. 9 Just as the 1860s witnessed a significant change in the recorded level of rural violence, so they also marked a turningpoint in the story of the malicious destruction of property. In

Arson and the rural community

35

this decade of better wages, farmers in the south and east began to worry about more open and peaceful forms of protest, namely meetings, petitions, strikes and early trade unionism. Incendiarism could sometimes reach serious proportions, but, as we shall see in chapter 7, a growing number of offences were committed by people from outside or on the margins of the village community. In the 1870s there was a significant fall in the number of cases of arson known to the police, and for the rest of the century it never regained its former popularity. Not that arson disappeared altogether; in Dorset, Devon, Hampshire and Leicestershire, for instance, many fires were reported in the press in the 1870s and 1880s. Incendiarism was one response to the union lock-outs of the period, and it continued to reflect anger over poor wages and conditions until the First World War, and even afterwards. The area most affected by incendiarism in the first half of the nineteenth century was East Anglia. Apart from the usual crop of winter fires, there were also several major outbreaks of arson in the years 1815-17, 1822, 1825, 1829-33, and minor ones in the late 1830s. Six people were executed for this crime at the county gaol in Ipswich between 1816 and 1833, and even as late as 1848-52 a third of prisoners in the Bury and Ipswich gaols were committed for arson . 10 In the years 1843-4 incendiarism spread across much of the land between the Wash and the Thames. In Cambridgeshire the parishes around Newmarket, on the borders of the Isle of Ely, and to the west of the city were the scene of some spectacular fires. In neighbouring Essex the property of farmers, clergymen and poor-law officers in the north-eastern part of the county was also attacked with frightening regularity. Five years later, as another wave of arson swept across East Anglia, south and east Essex was again the scene of many fires, together with the EssexCambridgeshire border and west Cambridgeshire. The main incendiary counties, however, were Norfolk and Suffolk. By 1842 arson had become commonplace, and over the next ten years the men of these counties described it wryly as 'our disease'. It reached its height in 1844. In the summer of that year, when three or four fires were visible from one spot, the rector of Assington Church, Mildenhall, took for his sermon the appropriate text: 'And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord; and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace' (Genesis: xix, 27, 28) . u These fires were notable both for their regularity and for the concern and fear which they engendered. Writing in 1851, John Glyde, the historian of Suffolk, remembered the year 1844 as 'one of intense alarm to the owners and occupiers of farms'. 'Fires were of almost nightly occurrence during the long winter evenings', he continued, ' ... property was as insecure in this

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Arson and the rural community

district of England, as the life of a landlord's agent was in some parts of Ireland. '12 This outburst of incendiarism has a special significance because it caught the attention of the press, Parliament and the public. In particular, it drew to East Anglia one Thomas Campbell Foster, 1 The Times' correspondent who had recently returned from his successful mission in south-west Wales. Foster, from the beginning of his career in journalism, brought to his art a single-minded professionalism. He produced and advertised his own method of short- hand reporting, and quickly displayed a highly developed consciousness of the importance of his profession and of its independence. His special assignment was to visit areas where crime and protest had reached serious proportions. Perhaps his most famous enterprise was his sympathetic investigation of the Rebecca riots. His accounts of the problems of rural life in Scotland, Wales, East Anglia, south-west England and Ireland in the 1840s brought down upon his head an angry storm of criticism. He was accused, unfairly, of being simply an agitator against the New Poor Law. After one famous clash with Daniel 0 'Connell he was repeatedly labelled 'the gutter commissioner'. At times his logical reasoning, which was to stand him in good stead during his later career as a lawyer, ran close to middle-class reformist thinking, but his achievement - and the abuse which he inspired - can be compared with that of Henry Mayhew some years later. Certainly his reports from Norfolk and Suffolk in 1844 constituted a major examination of the life of the rural labourer, and allow us to look more closely at the arsonist than at any other time or place. Much of this chapter will be concerned with his analysis. Agricultural labourers formed the largest occupational group in mid-nineteenth-century East Anglia, and, of course, in Britain generally. In the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1841, 77,517 men and women were employed as labourers by 12,832 farmers and graziers. Their dominance in some of the parishes which became prominent in 1844 for incendiarism was overwhelming. 13 The same sample reveals that the great majority of agricultural labourers lived in their own homes, and that the average size of their household was 4. 9. Several landowners and journalists attributed the problems of rural society to the size of labourers' families and to their tendency to marry at an early age. From a survey of a small number of Suffolk parishes it appears that the average age of marriage for men was 24. 8 years and for women 2 2. 8 years . 1" The marriage records also underline the monolithic and static nature of the labouring class: 89 per cent of labourers were the sons of labourers, and 78.6 per cent of labourers married the daughters of labourers, a situation which helps to explain the popular belief that increasing social frustration was at the heart of rural discontent. 'He (the labourer) has nothing to lose, nothing to defend, and nothing to hope for', wrote Joseph Kay in 1850. 15 Sadly the census and parish records rarely indicate the

Arson and the rural community

37

differences in work and economic status within the labouring class. Most farms in Norfolk and Suffolk were under 150 acres and employed fewer than half-a-dozen men, but on the largest farms servants and team-men were employed throughout the year, as well as regular and casual labourers who worked on a weekly or daily basis. The biggest proprietors had increasingly resorted to payment by results, and some, especially in west Norfolk, had begun to use the gang system whereby a contractor was engaged to find the labour to complete a task like sowing and harvesting. These gangs, often composed of young people, were universally condemned by contemporaries. Women and children still played an important role in the rural economy; in some districts there is evidence in the decade after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 that children were increasingly being used as cheap labour, with the connivance of parents desperate for money. Thomas Campbell Foster on his tour of Norfolk and Suffolk in the summer of 1844 was at pains to stress the variety of behaviour and circumstances within the labouring population. His customary procedure on entering a village was to call on cottages occupied by families of differing incomes and social attitudes. His detailed case studies of labourers in Woodbridge, Hitcham and Sturmer show just how important were factors such as marital status, size of family, careful management and illness. John Holder, the hard-working ploughman with three children and a comfortable family income of lls. 9d. a week, was in a very different category from Robert Hammond, a 22year-old single man who lodged with his aunt and earned 5s. a week, and he in turn was one fortunate step removed from William Death, with his nine children, who had already been in the workhouse and now survived only by obtaining casual work and charity. In general, Foster believed that income of labouring families ranged from some 6s. to 14s. 6d. per week, with an additional sum of £2. 15s.- £4. lOs. for harvest work. At least 70 per cent of their earnings was spent on food and basic shop goods, and much of the remainder went towards the rent ( £2. 15s.- £4 per annum). The outstanding characteristics of the case histories provided by Foster and other contemporaries were the low standard of living and the vulnerability of the labourer's position. Poverty had many faces in the countryside: children suffering from all the diseases associated with malnutrition, dispirited men hoping for work, and women old before their time. Their insecurity was obvious; it was difficult if not impossible to budget for loss of work and accommodation or for illness and old age. In winter months and when men became too old to work the union house was the symbol of the poor. labourer's despair. At such a time the safety net of cheap rents, private charity and additional earnings assumed a crucial significance. Much of the attention of contemporaries was directed to these aspects of rural life. Perhaps the most comprehensive social-welfare

38

Arson and the rural community

survey was that carried out by the West Suffolk Labourers' Improvement Society. Its report, published in January 1845, showed that in sixty-seven parishes cottage accommodation was inadequate and generally poor, especially in open villages where the houses built by speculators were small and expensive . 16 Ironically, some of the better cottages were being pulled down at the very period when they were most needed. In a bid to reduce overheads and poor rates, some landowners in the vicinity of Norwich and Bury no longer provided accommodation for their men, and so these had to find lodgings some miles away. Other proprietors, like Reverend M. Benyon of Culford near Bury, offered labourers good cottages but imposed strict conditions of tenancy. Some cottagers had gardens which acted as a barrier against hunger. And there were also allotments, the number of which had risen sharply since the Captain Swing troubles. The West Suffolk Labourers' Improvement Society found that twenty-two of its parishes had small allotments, and another fourteen had larger ones, but leases could be strict and rents were sometimes exorbitantly high. The Society also noted that clothing, coal, medical and other clubs, to which labourers subscribed, had increased considerably in the sixty-seven parishes in recent years, although it admitted that their impact was limited. In very bad times, as in the winter of 1843-4, wealthy individuals like the Kerrisons of Norfolk still handed out large quantities of food and clothing. The labourer's 'whole life appears to be constantly wavering between toil and charity', noted the 'Morning Chronicle' correspondent on 2 January 1850, in his long and penetrating analysis of the East Anglian farm-worker. Most observers of the mid century described East Anglia as a divided and unequal society in which paternalism and deference had lost much of their meaning. Although James Kent was an obsessive champion of small farming, his picture of the world around Stanton in Suffolk gives us some idea of the way in which society had changed Y There was (forty or fifty years ago) a more equal society: ... the master and men were also upon more equal terms, and working together begot a common feeling of friendship; the workmen and boys were introduced into their master's house, to enjoy their meals over a good fire, and were allowed a dish of hot milk, or a pint of beer, without stint or reserve. The workmen were also allowed to take their Wheat, Barley, Pig, Pork, Butter, Cheese, Milk, &c. off their master at a redueed price ... the harvest home was a general and unanimous holiday ... . Now, alas! not only has this splendid Common been taken away from the inhabitants, but every piece of waste land, and half-year land, has been inclosed; every green spot has been engrossed; and the industrious inhabitants may wander

Arson and the rural community

39

in the dusty road, and the young people must give up their old English sports, ... and fill up their time by listlessly parading the dirty and dusty paths and roads, concocting plans for poaching, or stray to the alehouse. Kent, like Glyde and others, spoke of a 'new race of gentlemen farmers', who had given themselves to 'fashion and pleasure' and who pursued sectional economic interests and progressive agriculture at the expense of those who worked on their farms. Much of the land in East Anglia had been enclosed by the 1840s, estates had been consolidated, and a strident commercial attitude brought to employer-employee relationships, custom and charity. For their part, some farmers complained of 'a new breed of labourers', untrustworthy, lazy, sullen and 'quite unlike their forefathers'. Their working and living conditions had certainly changed a good deal. As Kent tells us, living in and wage perks had become less common in East Anglia than in most other parts of Britain. Young farm servants and labourers were often obliged to seek lodgings with relatives, or at public houses, and some of them, including at least three arsonists, simply slept under hedges or found shelter in barns and home-made shacks. As one can well imagine, such labourers received the minimum of formal education. Certain parishes, like those in the Shipmeadow area of Suffolk, had no schools whatever, and even where day and Sunday schools were common, attendance was poor and the instruction inadequate. One journalist in 1849 wrote of the 'Gothic ignorance' of the labouring population in parts of East Anglia. It is therefore no surprise to find that of the 84 people who appeared at the Norfolk and Suffok assizes on charges of arson and sending threatening letters in 1844, 11 could read and write well, 45 imperfectly and 28 not at all. One popular criticism, voiced most forcibly by the Reverend F. L. Page of Wool pit in Suffolk, was that these labourers rarely attended church or came within the ambit of other traditional social controls. There is much evidence to suggest that the young viewed the established Church with considerable contempt, mocking its ministers and adherents in the streets, stealing from churches and rectories, and playing cards whilst divine service was in progress. Significantly, much of the clerical invective in East Anglia was turned against the nonconformist chapel and the beerhouse. During the 1820s and 1830s there had been a rapid expansion of Baptist and Methodist congregations, and one of the explanations for the many fires in Walsham, Rattlesden, Mildenhall, Hadleigh, Glemsford and Stowmarket was that they were 'eaten up with Dissent'. Such a connection indicated the independence of labourers, but little more; some of the arsonists were members of the Church of England, and on one occasion the premises of a Methodist lay preacher were set on fire . 18 The beer houses were a more obvious target; legalised by an Act of 1830 they were

40

Arson and the rural community

one of the few places where labourers could meet without being overlooked. If beer houses became the home of the rural criminal and gang this was in the nature of things, but the link between drink and incendiarism was never firmly established. What was certain, however, was the prevalence of ill-feeling in this society. The rector of Wool pit, much given to hyperbole, spoke of a spirit of 'revenge' by 'one class against another', of labourers ranked against farmers, magistrates and clergymen, and newspapers mentioned 'malice' or 'revenge' as the possible cause of perhaps a third of the fires. People who met the farm labourer at this time often said that he was a shrinking and sullen individual. Kent claimed that the labourer had lost 'his frank, open, bold English character, and [had become] a slavish sulky creature, who is not allowed to reason with his master upon his wrongs, and therefore he gratifies his revenge by burning down his master's buildings and farm produce' . 19 As we shall see later, people actually danced with delight as another 'mean farmer' received his reward. Nowhere was this intensity of feeling more evident than in the threatening letters of 1843-4: 20 Bradford Skelton Gunton and Weldon if you ware Gentlemen you would keep us from starving, but insted of that you are b---, we'll keep our sixpence a day for pouder and shot to blow out your branes. About this whe'll tell you further, That we '11 either shoot or murder, March, Chatteris, Sutton and Cone, Whee all intend to be one to one. You wifes and children about the street Shall lay like rotten sheep Rais our wages and we'll be still And if you don't we'll have our will We'll send our Bullets throw you windows and walls And throw you and your stalls, Our clubs so strong tha com no thicker and faster In the end the pore is master. Feelings of anger and revenge had been present during earlier troubles but, in the aftE~rmath of the Swing riots, agricultural associations and other societies for 'rewarding the industrious poor' had been established to improve relations between classes. The South Erpingham, Docking and Downham associations held dinners, sponsored ploughing matches and shearing competitions, and gave prizes for long service and well-kept cottages. The puzzled response of the leaders of these societies to the events of 1843-4 is a measure of their failure. Even within these associations there were a few brave spirits who attributed the open hostility of these years to neglect in a paternalist society. The Reverend Henry Worsley of Eaton

Arson and the rural community

41

in Suffolk criticised landowners and clergymen for being nonresident, whilst other observers bemoaned the lack of interest which farmers showed in their employees, especially the younger ones. How could the rich exercise control in rural society when they made hardly any contact with the poor? There was also a more positive side to this picture: the non-payment of wages, the various methods adopted to reduce earnings, and the powers of intimidation. Farmers sometimes addressed labourers as serfs, and several young arsonists complained of physical cruelty. The most notorious example of cruelty in 1843-4 involved Joseph Richardson of Lavenham whose men were accused of dragging female gleaners behind horses, and King Viall of Middleton Hall, near Sudbury, who was charged with fatally beating a boy. In the latter case one meets labourers who were prepared to do almost anything to retain their jobs. This is the reluctant father speaking at the coroner's inquest : 21 My boy died on Sunday at half-past three .... I went on Monday to master for a Christmas-box, and he said, I suppose the poor boy is gone, and I said, 'Yes, sir'. He said he was very sorry for me; he asked me how my wife was. I told him very sadly indeed, and very uneasy. He gave me a ticket for three pints of beer at the White Horse. Viall had some of his property set on fire, a reminder that intimidation and terror were common to both sides. One important source of ill-feeling was the introduction of professional policemen into districts where there had previously been only parish constables. In the 1830s parishes, and associations to protect property, appointed paid constables, and in the early 1840s the process was taken further when Norfolk and East Suffolk established a rural police force. Some of the chief officers of the new police were outsiders, mainly from the Metropolitan force, and their impact on the rural community was considerable. At Wymondham in Norfolk, a market town of some 6, 000 people, it was said that gangs were broken up, robberies prevented, and streets made peaceful. Elsewhere there were claims that police supervision had reduced the number of 'idle persons' and vagrants, and had made the task of the poacher and sheep-stealer more difficult. Mr Bevan of the Suffolk Fire Office argued that farm property was more secure in parishes which had these policemen, and Sir John Walsham believed that without their help the New Poor Law could never have been imposed on the people of Suffolk and Essex. 22 The poor, of course, did not share this enthusiasm. This is part of one of the many threatening letters sent to police officers and to those who appointed them :23 William Boutel and William Brown you Can doo As you please about keeping on These plece on if you doo you both Shall have a blaze very soon you May Watch day and night you

42

Arson and the rural community Shall be sure to have it. And both These plecemen Shall have their Brains blown out.

This letter was sent in the winter of 1844-5 by Samuel Stow of Polstead, whose brother had been arrested by the police some months before. The homes of policemen were attacked, their carts sabotaged, and members of their family subjected to taunts and violence. Those constables who went on night patrol or who acted as watchmen for farmers could expect little mercy. James McFadden was killed at Gisleham whilst trying to protect farm property from arsonists and thieves. In the court rooms and meetings of the Poor Law Guardians, two communities met face to face. Here, interests, values and prejudice were sometimes displayed in a spectacular way. Much of rural crime reflected the problems of rural society. Since the beginning of the century the number of committals frJr serious crime in Suffolk had inereased by 250 per cent, and in Norfolk by 150 per cent. For the years 1838-44 the figures were 25 and 34 per cent respectively, with indictments for violence to person and property accounting for much of the increase. The pattern of recorded petty crime is also revealing. Of the 163 people in Beccles House of Correction in 1844, 41 had been committed for felony, 28 for offences against the Game Laws, 26 for offences against the Vagrancy Act, 25 for disorderly conduct in the workhouse, 16 for assault and 12 for malicious trespass. Although we do not have the full statistics it was estimated that almost two-thirds of these rural criminals were under thirty years of age, and at the assizes in the early 1840s the average age of those on trial was even lower. Some clergymen claimed that much of the crime in the Victorian countryside was inevitable. 'We can't live honestly', ran a postscript to one threatening letter of 1844. Certain families, even sections of villages, virtually existed by crime, a yearly saga of stealing wood, vegetables, hay, and rabbits. Free fuel was especially important for working people. When the Reverend J. S . Henslow , botanist and clergyman of Hit cham, remonstrated with one old woman, she replied: 'we never think any thing about taking a few turnips from the field or sticks from the hedges: it is God makes them grow, not "the Farmers"'. 'This may be laughed at as a joke', said Henslow, 'but in reality it is a "cursed thing".' 2 ~The poaching of reared game and the stealing of fowls, horses, sheep and cows was a more organised affair, and was often carried out by small gangs. The statistics of indictable crime for Norfolk and Suffolk suggest that these activities were very popular in the mid 1830s, but newspaper comments reveal that they were just as common in parts of East Anglia in the winters of 1842-3 and 1843-4. One report in December 1844 stated that 500 pheasants had disappeared from the plantations of Sir Edward Kerrison in Norfolk, and earlier in the year twenty-three sheep were taken from Gissing Hall near Diss in the same county and driven openly to market . 25

Arson and the rural community

43

At a certain point crime became malicious protest. Sheep and pheasants were sometimes killed and left in the farmers' fields, perhaps with a note attached to them. Accounts of incendiarism in the early 1840s are accompanied by reports of animals and birds killed or maimed by poison, wool or wood in the throat, and knife wounds. In the Costessey-St Faiths district to the north-west of Norwich, cows, donkeys and horses had their tails and hocks cut, pheasants were poisoned, and there were even more extraordinary acts of revenge. At Mrs Watling's farm in Sotterley, Suffolk, a fire on 1 June 1844 followed an attempt to strangle two of her cattle. 'I Should verry well Like to hang you the same as I hanged your beastes you bluddy rogue' ran ~art of the threatening letter which she received at the time. 6 Other property was also destroyed as an act of protest; fences were smashed, gates left on the road and trees cut down. In the most spectacular confrontation, over the Nettisham common rights, three hundred soldiers were called in after the local population had cut down four hundred trees. There were also clashes over rights to glean fields, marshes, woods, and hedgerows, and these formed the dim background to several cases of arson. The violence of these years provides another dimension to our story. One would like, were the evidence available, to examine closely the behaviour of the young hooligans of Hadleigh, Polstead and Bun gay, the assaults on farmers, millers, agents, bailiffs, and clergymen, and the many burglaries. In the winter of 1843-4 highway robbery became a common sport on the roads leading from market towns like Hadleigh, Mil den hall and Newmarket across the Cambridge border. Big houses and churches in these areas were also broken into by young labourers; Hen slow, for instance, lost property from his church, home and schoolroom. On occasions such attacks had an element of vindictiveness in them, and farmers, clergymen and policemen were cut about the face or shot at. The precise relationship between crime and arson is a difficult matter. Although a rising crime rate seems to have heralded the incendiarism of 1843-4, chief constables sometimes made the point that when fires were numerous other serious offences like the stealing of farm animals were less common, and we know that the labouring population rarely indulged in violence or looting at the scene of fires. 27 However, from John Glyde 's analysis of Suffolk criminal records it is evident that villages and market towns which had the highest recorded ratio of criminals to population, such as Hadleigh, Ixworth, Bun gay and Stoke-by-Nayland, were generally centres of incendiarism. It was said of the Polstead fires, for example, that they occurred on farms which had long been the target for thieves. 28 Two criminal activities which had special connections with arson were poaching and the disturbances over the execution of the New Poor Law. In the Parliamentary select committee's report on the Game Laws in 1846, landowners and chief

44

Arson and the rural community

constables strongly denied that outbreaks of incendiarism were in any way associated with the preservation of game. Captain Boult bee, for instance, claimed that only a small minority of the hundred Bedfordshire fires had occurred on estates run by sportsmen. 29 Even so, as we noted earlier, there were stronger links than this, much to the delight of the 'League' and the 'Morning Advertiser'. The correspondent of the latter journal told his readers that a large proportion of the labourers of Polstead, Stoke, Hadleigh and Kersey could be found in the evenings in the cornfields and game preserves of Sir Joshua Rowley and Mr Tyrell. 30 One of their number, Samuel Stow, conducted his own personal war against farmers and policemen, and became a folk hero. In the poaching cases which were dealt with in the courts during 1844 one is struck by the number of people involved, the organisation behind the expeditions, the popularity of poaching on enclosed land, and the serious violence which often accompanied this crime. It was said of poachers David Clow and Edmund Bot wright, both of whom were charged with incendiarism, that policemen were afraid to apprehend them. When Jeremiah Head of Great Saxham was imprisoned for poaching he threatened to destroy 'every place the old b- [Squire Mills] had got', and some years later a young man of Dalham in the same county left a trial of blazing ricks after his father had been transported for poaching. 31 On other occasions, the crimes ran along parallel courses. On the night of 11 May 1844, for example, Michael Snell and John Frost of Bradfield St George set out with their young friends to fire stacks and steal pheasants' eggs. Connections were also drawn between incendiarism and the Poor Law troubles. Historians have underestimated the amount of opposition to the New Poor Law, partly because it was more isolated, geographically and socially, than that in the manufacturing districts of northern England. Changes in the administration of the Poor Law in East Anglia had always been resented, not least because a comparatively high proportion of the people were paupers and relief had become for many an unemployment benefit. Families grew accustomed to receiving a certain allowance, and Hen slow tells us that when this was threatened, the 'loose characters' of the village assembled in gangs of twenty to thirty to demand their rights. The introduction of professional overseers and lower scales of relief in the late 1820s and early 1830s led to several ugly incidents, but it was the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which produced the greatest bitterness. The shock of 1834 was as much psychological as practical; people felt that a right had been changed into a form of control. And they were very angry that , apart from F. K . Eagle in Norfolk and the Reverend M. Maberley in Cambridgeshire, almost all their 'protectors' welcomed the new Act. In theory the people retained a certain bargaining position; if they all agreed to enter the workhouse when required to do so, they would quickly force the farmers to find work for them.

Arson and the rural community

45

In practice, however, things did not work out that way. The New Poor Law was manipulated for the benefit of ratepayers; Cosford was just one of the unions which adopted unpopular measures to keep relief at a minimum and within ten years the poor rate in Norfolk and Suffolk had fallen substantially. The other side of this coin was that the poor often refused to enter the workhouse. Apart from the stigma attached to them, and the stricter regimes within them, those about to enter these workhouses were concerned about what would happen to their homes and knew that it was difficult to regain regular employment once inside. Consequently, except in hard times like the winters of 1843-4 and 1849-50, the inhabitants of workhouses were usually the young, the old and the sick. 'The farmer's fear of the labourer's going into the workhouses is wholly dispelled now', wrote James Kent, 'for he finds that rather than go there, he will submit to take any low wages that are offered him. '32 Many young boys who left home at about sixteen years had little choice but to enter the 'house' for a short period of time, and one of their first acts on leaving was to indulge 'their feelings upon the property of those who may or may not have done them some real or imaginary wrong'. 33 In parts of Norfolk and Suffolk each new stage of the implementation of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was greeted with riots, the firing of workhouses, brutal assaults on farmers and Guardians, the destruction of parish carts and cattle maiming. The ferocious climax was reached in the Great Bircham area, where hundreds of armed labourers were 'bound in a bond of blood and blood' in a minor peasant war. Although this rioting died away fairly quickly, anger over the execution of the Poor Law provisions was a regular feature of East Anglian rural life. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else in Britain, the fight against the new regulations continued within the workhouse. Some eight hundred people were transferred from seven workhouses to Ipswich gaol between January 1844 and December 1852. They were sent to prison for, amongst other things, the arson and riots at Shipmeadow in 1843-4. During one riot the able-bodied women and men broke down all the doors and windows in the workhouse wards, and were attempting, when twelve policemen arrived, to remove the brick wall which separated the yards. Elsewhere, too, in 1843-4, poor-law officers and property were attacked in parishes which were to become notorious for fires. Such activity was, in the context of East Anglian history, only one step removed from a wider disaffection. The extensive 'Bread or Blood' riots of the immediate post-war years were followed in the early 1820s by another wave of marching-gangs, machine-breaking and arson. For. being involved in the latter troubles, which were mainly confined to Norfolk and Suffolk, two hundred men were gaoled in the former county alone. The story of Captain Swing in these counties is of machinebreaking, incendiarism, poor-law disputes and anti-tithe

46

Arson and the rural community

demonstrations. It highlighted the labourers' growing concern for employment and fair wages, and their willingness in some areas to compromise with the farmers at the expense of the titheowners. 'Tithes should be reduced', ran a typical slogan, 'and the Rents be reduced and more wages for the labourers ... or it would be worse.' According to Dr Anne Digby, the crucial development in social relationships during the 1830s was the way in which this convenient alignment of forces broke down in the face of the New Poor Law and economic pressure. By the beginning of the next decade several people were certainly alarmed by the polarisation in rural society. The Reverend J. S. Henslow, stung by the events of 1842, issued ear1y in the following year the first of his warnings to the gentry of the district. Six months later, after a long dry summer, the greatest outbreak of incendiarism in nineteenth-century East Anglia began. It is difficult to estimate the size of this wave of arson. From reports in 1 The Times' and local newspapers it appears that incendiarism in the winter of 1843-4 was especially common in the counties of Bedford, Cambridge and Essex, but as the spring came on so attention turned to Norfolk and Suffolk. In May John Gedge, the secretary of the West Suffolk Fire Office, drew up his own incomplete picture of the changing pattern of this crime in the eastern counties. 34 The problems of identification were considerable; it was not always possible to decide which fires were accidental, the result of drink and carelessness. Farmers sometimes maintained an understandable silence over small cases of incendiarism and the receipt of scores of threatening letters. Some of them refused to prosecute suspected criminals for reasons of fear and finance. Journalists claimed that every court case represented fifteen or twenty unsolved cases of arson. The probability is, however, that in the crucial months of October 1843-December 1844, over 250 incendiary fires flared up in the countryside of Norfolk and Suffolk. The seasonality of this incendiarism is clear. An increase in the early winter of 1843-4 was followed by two other upward swings in the months March-early July and in November of the same year. When the incendiarism was at its height, reporters found themselves trying to cover from eight to sixteen fires in a week. The geography of these fires is revealing. The bulk of incendiarism occurred in a rectangle bound by Mildenhall and Debenham in the west and east, and by Garboldisham and East Bergholt in the north and south. A secondary area of activity was the north-east quarter of Norfolk, and there were also three small circles of unrest radiating from Beccles in Suffolk, and from East Rudham and Didlington in Norfolk. Certain centres, like Hadleigh and Exning, had been prominent during the 'Swing' riots and before, whilst others, such as Law shall and Easton, were to be troublespots throughout the 1840s. Amongst the parishes most affected in 1843-4 were

Arson and the rural community

47

Stanton, Walsham, Mild en hall, Great and Little Sax ham, Polstead, Stowmarket, Rattlesden and Hitcham in Suffolk, and Costessey, Honingham, Garboldisham and Wymondham in Norfolk. Some of these were large and open communities; a few, like Costessey and Polstead, were situated on the fringes of commons, woodland and game preserves, and another group, which included Stanton and Walsham, were the home of many 'penny capitalists' and allotment owners. Yet even closed villages were affected by the troubles of the early 1840s. It was, as we shall see later, a special collation of geographical, social and economic factors which made these country towns and villages so vulnerable to the incendiary's attack. 35 The character of this arson was simple, yet obscure. The majority of fires broke out during the late evening and night; daylight arson was generally confined to the periods of greatest activity. Almost half of the reported cases occurred at the weekends (Friday 6.30 p.m.-Sunday night), and quite anumber of these coincided with church services. This fact alone suggests that considerable planning was involved. Some fires were indeed the final act of the traditional trilogy of threatening letter, disguised avenger, and burning stack. It was customary for those concerned to meet in a public-house beforehand, and then to journey out at the appropriate time. There is some evidence from references to gangs in warning letters and from talk of friends coming from neighbouring vil1ages that the business was more organised than contemporaries liked to admit. The arsonists were certainly able to evade night watchmen with remarkable skill. Once inside the farm it was a simple matter to plant their combustible matter or set fire to stacks with lucifer matches. The targets were usually thatched barns and stacks, threshing machines and furze hedges at some distance from the farmhouse. Some of the greatest destruction of property took place only when small fires got out of hand; no personal injury was intended, and, with a few exceptions, none was given. Those attacked represented the whole spectrum of 'upper class' rural society: landowner, farmer, clergyman, Poor-Law Guardian and magistrate. 36 If one could choose a classic victim it would perhaps be the Reverend W.B. Mack of Horham, near Eye in Suffolk, who was both a magistrate and chairman of the Hoxne Union. The manufacturers of machines, the owner of a saw-mill, brewers, innkeepers, bailiffs, insurance agents and even cottagers were also included in the incendiary's round, though such visits were comparatively rare. By contrast, large farmers such as John Harman of Costessey Park, James Smith of Rickingshall and John Boby of Columbine Hall, Stowupland, had several fires on their land. Their enemies were not satisfied until everything, even partly-rebuilt barns, were levelled to the ground. Some vendettas continued over years, and it seems likely that certain farmers left under this pressure or were encouraged to move by their landowners.

48

Arson and the rural community

Although none of the fires in Norfolk and Suffolk could compare with the desolation of a few villages in neighbouring counties, they were, nevertheless, serious enough. In the winter of 1843-4, for example, Great Wenham near Ipswich was the scene of two major conflagrations. At the first, which took place at Mr Robert Ansell's premises, insurance firemen and soldiers from Ipswich were unable to prevent the destruction of a dozen stacks and buildings worth over £1,000. The second fire, at Mrs Western's Priory Farm, was even larger, despite the prompt attention of nine fire engines. In the late spring of 1844 there were similar scenes in at least a dozen villages; at Exning, Great Thurlow and Assingdon there were despairing attempts by policemen, clergymen and hundreds of onlookers to save furniture, animals and cottages over a wide radius. As the months passed so landowners and even villages became increasingly conscious of the need for their own up-todate fire appliances, and these helped to reduce the losses by fire in the following winter. As a result of the disappearance of vital insurance records it is now impossible to calculate with any degree of accuracy the damage caused by the fires in Norfolk and Suffolk. My own figures indicate an average loss of over £250 per fire. As the demand for insurance rose sharply, so the caution of the Norwich Union and other companies increased. New conditions were attached to insurances, several old customers were turned away, and in the late summer of 1844 a general agreement was reached to increase rates on farm property and stock. Even so, the Suffolk Fire Office recorded heavy losses for the financial year 1843-4. 37 In 1851, when East Anglia experienced another serious outbreak of incendiarism, the secretary of the West Suffolk Fire Office drew up a retrospective account of the impact of arson on the company's finances. 38 Over the previous nine years the Office had lost over £5~i, 000 because of incendiary fires. One of the aspects of incendiarism which concerned insurance secretaries in 1844 was the extent to which it was sanctioned by the labouring population. As in 1830, there were those who denied that such sympathy existed, and they listed the many occasions when workmen rendered assistance at fires, but in general the balance of argument was against them. All the travelling journalists admitted that many labourers approved of the destruction of property, some stubbornly refusing to help the farmers in spite of threats and financial inducements. On a good number of occasions workmen came to jeer, cut hoses, pour fuel on the fire, and, increasingly in Suffolk, to steal dead animals and property. Soldiers and special constables were sometimes sent with engines in order to protect the firemen. As they raced through the countryside groups of smiling people shouted: 'it's no use', 'too late, too late'. The community feeling behind some cases of arson was extremely strong; threshers on the spot where fires began saw nothing, and suspicious 'strangers' vanished into thin air.

Arson and the rural community

49

There is little doubt that the culprits were often known, though it sometimes took many months to get them into court. The first instinct of farmers and constables was to grab passers-by, the 'bad characters' of the village, and old servants who knew the premises. At least 120 persons were apprehended for the 250 fires, but charges were eventually dropped against a third of them. The flamboyant mock-trial celebrations at Corpusty in December 1843, when a young labourer was released from the hands of his persistent accuser, was a rare glimpse of the inward satisfaction that must have existed in places like Stanton and Polstead. On this occasion horns and bells were sounded, and 200 people ate and drank on the common. 39 Some of the most wanted men, such as Samuel Stow and the fleet-footed Leach Borley, were folk heroes, and those who gave evidence against them did so at their peril. Borley, a man of 27 years, had already been involved in a riot and an attack on the Duke of Grafton's steward, when he was taken for arson. Prosecution witnesses who identified these people were assaulted, or, as in the case of the Weasenham woman who informed on a deaf-anddumb labourer, they were burnt in effigy. Petitions were also forwarded to London on behalf of some offenders. The authorities were forced to use dubious methods to obtain convictions against such men. Informers, often old criminals themselves, and policemen presented 'confessions' and incriminating evidence which sometimes proved too much for the judges. Defence counsel justifiably protested that convicted criminals such as Frederic Shadbolt and John Williams, whose testimony condemned four men, were not objective witnesses. 40 Shad bolt admitted during a case of coining that he made a living out of giving information against people. For swearing against arsonists at the Suffolk spring assizes he received a free pardon, a reward and a subscription from farmers. One of the reasons for the presence of so many young children in court was the comparative ease with which they could be intimidated or persuaded to implicate others. Significantly, the trials of Thomas Sessams, aged thirteen, and John Harvey, aged nine, at the Norfolk winter assizes drew large sympathetic crowds. Much of the evidence in court was thin and circumstantial: a prophecy in a beer house, a similar footprint, a bad look, a reluctance to help in one case, or an eagerness to help in another. In several instances the evidence was stretched to its limits, old scores were settled, and examples made of young men whom even the judges and juries regarded with some sympathy. The village communities undoubtedly believed that a few of those who stood silent and undefended in the dock were innocent of the charge of arson. Of the 85 persons who appeared at the Norfolk and Suffolk Assizes in 1844, 33 were sentenced to transportation, 11 given gaol sentences, 39 acquitted and 2 turned Queen's evidence. The immediate reaction of the civil and police authorities to the round of arson, community support and intimidation took

50

Arson and the rural community

several forms. It was generally agreed that transportation was no deterrent to the arsonists; in some cases they actually welcomed it, proclaiming that it could hardly be worse than their lot at home. Consequently some effort was made, both inside and outside the courtroom, to publicise the worst aspects of the convict's life. Others demanded the return of the death penalty, which had been abandoned for arson in 1837, and theatrical hangings at the scene of the worst crimes. When the fury over incendiarism was at its height, two of the recommendations which appeared in local newspapers were the extensive use of mantraps and bloodhounds. But beneath this froth was the persistent demand for more watchmen, police officers and fire appliances. Extra policemen and plain-clothes detectives were drafted in during the winter and spring of 1843-4, and a small number of them achieved outstanding results. Superintendent English, who was based for a time at Po1stead, was the most hated and successful trapper of arsonists. He travelled scores of miles, in a variety of disguises, to arrest men such as George Dye and John Frost. When Jeremiah Head received his sentence of transportation for life, his cynical retort was: 'I thank you, Mr English, and am very much obliged to you. '~1 English was cited frequently in the long statistical debate in the local press over the effectiveness of the new police forces. One of the more interesting aspects of this debate was the way in which landowners and farmers changed their mind under the prompting of Lord Euston and Mr Bevan and the continual threat of incendiarism. In October 1844 West Suffolk followed Norfolk and East Suffolk and established a county constabulary. This decision was the central thrust of a more dynamic approach to the problem of rural crime which began in the late spring of that year and reached its successful c1imax in the Norfolk winter assizes. This approach embodied closer cooperation between magistrates, a tougher attitude to vagrants and beersellers, the harassment of 'idle and suspicious' villag8rs, the formation and revitalization of associations to catch felons, the offer of more rewards to informers, and a 'battery of sermons on the evils of incendiarism. In the meantime Parliament redefined and strengthened the laws relating to arson. By the early winter of 1844, as the detection and conviction rate rose sharply, certain people were obviously delighted with the result of all these efforts, but for some farmers and prophets the year ended as disastrously as it began. Indeed, from the criminal statistics, newspaper reports and insurance records it is clear the incendiarism remained at a high level in parts of East Anglia for another decade. Two questions occupied the minds of contemporaries. Who were the arsonists? What drove them to commit a crime 'second only to murder'? There were three main theories. The first was well expressed by Mr C .R. Bree of Stowmarket. 'Those implicated in the mania will be found among the "loose hands",' he wrote

Arson and the rural community

51

in a letter to a local newspaper, '- the drunken, dissolute, discontented, idle scoundrels that are to be found in the beershops, reading seditious and inflammatory publications, that have been too long tolerated. "'2 The impression given was that regular farm workers had greater loyalty, or perhaps found alternative ways to make their feelings known. The second theory was one which always accompanied rural protest: as crime on this scale was outside the experience and wishes of resident labourers, it could be perpetrated only by outsiders and vagrants. For a time many people, including Home Secretary Graham, flirted with this notion. The final theory, much less popular than the others, was that the fires were started by the farmers themselves. 'You may depend upon it , master,' an old Suffolk man told the 'Morning Chronicle' corres~ondent, 'it is not the poor who do these things; it is the rich. 3 There was an element of truth in all these opinions. Anna Frary, who threatened to cut her uncle's eyes out and then set fire to a shed, was one of a number of people apparently motivated by personal malice alone. Some of those arrested were also unemployed or 'lived by their wits', and several accounts of fires mention 'strangers' who had been seen in the area just before the blaze. One stranger, who was arrested and then freed, was said to have been responsible for as many as eight fires at Mildenhall. Other 'bad characters' and vagrants suspected of causing several fires were Robert Hayward, Leach Borley, John Williams, John Double and James Lankester. There is some evidence that Double and Williams encouraged others to fire property in order to obtain money as informers. Lankester was, by all accounts, a different character, a 30-year-old native of Pal grave, who was accused of travelling the countryside for the purpose of inciting labourers to destroy threshing machines and corn stacks. We do not know if he held strong political views, as did a few of his counterparts in the Midland counties. Political missionaries, either of the Chartist or Anti-Corn- Law variety, seem to have made little impact on the arsonists of East Anglia. As for farmers setting fire to their own property, the only court case in 1844 was that of the Knowleses, father and son, at the Suffolk spring assizes. However, insurance swindles were not uncommon in other years, and some farmers no doubt welcomed good insurance payments in difficult economic times. Although the legal records may not give us a representative sample of offenders, nevertheless the information which they provide can be set against the opinions given above. Two-thirds of those who appeared at the assizes of 1844 on charges of arson could be broadly described as 'agricultural labourers', the remaining third being chiefly composed of village craftsmen and unemployed labourers. Respectable leaders of the village communities, who sometimes played a prominent part in the open protest of strikes and riots, were significantly absent from the list. The average age of those acquitted at the trials was as low

52

Arson and the rural community

as 22.3, whilst the age of those convicted was 24.3. The presence of so many young people at the courts was used in two opposite ways to illustrate the importance of this outbreak of arson. The Reverend F. L. Page argued that these children were being cleverly used as a front by adults in the expectation that they would escape the full rigour of the law, whilst others insisted that much of the incendiarism was the result of young people trying to keep warm at work or being careless with matches. Unfortunately the court evidence tells us very little about the 'idle scoundrels' who were supposed to have been the most active arsonists. Perhaps a dozen or so of the eightyfive men and women were 'bad characters' or 'vagrants', with criminal records . James Micklefield , aged 17 years , was one of these. After being gaoled for stealing potatoes from Mumford's farm at Little Cornard in Suffolk, he returned and set the property on fire. Alternatively some of the defendants in court were given good characters, even by magistrates and prosecutors. The overwhelming majority of these people lived within a short distance of the scene of the crime, and a good number of them had been employed at one time or another by the farmer whose ricks were burnt. We have details of the employeremployee relationship in only 29 cases; from these it appears that 23 of the arsonists had worked, or were working, for their victims, and 6 of these lived in the farm. It was the realization that the danger came from 'within our midst' that stimulated the demand for an inquiry into the causes of incendiarism. In the spring of 1844 Sir Augustus Henniker and several other local dignitaries raised their voices publicly for the first time, and, as the fires increased, so their call for government intervention received support from local newspapers like the 'Bury and Norwich Post' , from various pressure groups and from insurance agents. 1 The Times' was also concerned to analyse the causes of the troubles and to suggest, where possible, remedies for the unrest. For almost six weeks Thomas Campbell Foster, its special correspondent, travelled across Norfolk and Suffolk, visiting scores of cottages, interviewing people from all walks of life and sifting through a mountain of correspondence. In the process he created a great swell of public interest and indignation. In Parliament Foster's accounts of incendiarism broadened and sharpened the debates over the Poor Law, free trade and the 'condition of England' question. The climax of parliamentary interest was reached on 19 July when Milner Gibson brought forward his motion calling· for a government inquiry into the events in East Anglia and the Home Counties. John Bright obviously enjoyed the oceasion. 'If they had in Lancashire,' he declared, 'instead of 250 fires in nine months, one in a month, much surprise would have been expressed that they [the members for the manufacturing districts] had not made a proposition for an investigation into a matter of such consequence. 1 The Home Secretary and the members for Norfolk and Suffolk denied

Arson and the rural community

53

that the labourers were discontented or that the forces of law and order were stretched, and the motion was lost by 130 votes to 41. The only concessions which the government made in this parliamentary session were to ask the Grand Jury of Suffolk to make a presentment on the subject and to appoint a select committee of the House of Lords to inquire into the character and ages of persons char.Jed with arson in the two counties during the years 1815-44. The result of all this interest was confusion; more than one person complained that a serious purpose had degenerated into academic and political infighting. Newspaper editors and correspondents repeatedly emphasised the point that some of the fires broke out on farms which were occupied by men such as Mr James Neave of Wymondham and Mr T. F. Wood of Combs, who employed a full workforce and who were generous to the poor of their district, not realising that this indicated perhaps the depth of class hostility. In these instances incendiarism could be satisfactorily explained only by 'outside elements' such as Chartist agitators, seditious newspapers, and the AntiCorn-Law League, or by the idle drunkards, malicious vagrants and impressionable children whom we met earlier. 45 Some people complained of too much education and too much religion. Others attributed rural discontent to indolence, ignorance and irreligion. The Reverend Page, in a strange collection of sermons, claimed that arson was God's answer to a period of long neglect on the part of His people. In truth, everyone and everything was at fault; in the crescendo that raged around Foster, there was an astonishing readiness to shift blame and responsibility. But there was a positive gain: Foster and the arsonist had pushed the labourer to the front of the debate over the 'condition of England' question. If it were true, as the Reverend Sidney Godolphin Osborne insisted it was, that the British people knew less about the rural labourer in 1843 'than about any other class of society', then the picture changed dramatically thereafter. 46 Newspapers, journals, societies and meetings - some of them addressed by labourers themselves - looked closely at the home and history of Punch's 'Rick-burner'. 47 The contemporary interest in population, overproduction, poverty, state intervention and machinery were shown to be as relevant to the rural sector as to the industrial. In the speeches of Lord John Russell and Fear gus 0 'Connor one can measure this change. 'Society, like a policeman, had turned upon them the full blaze of its hull's eye', wrote Thomas Hood. For Hood and many other contemporaries, the fires of East Anglia scorched away the last shreds of myth and ignorance, and revealed a man worn down by 'Winter, Disease and Want' and dangerously near the borders of despair and revolution. In a sense Britain had, at least, taken its 'Rural Problem' seriously. 48 We have already considered the general position of the rural labourer in the mid century. In these last sections we shall

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Arson and the rural community

examine more closely the difficulties in rural society, the precise reasons why communities and people turned to crime and protest, and the remedies which were brought forward. At the heart of the 'Rural Problem' was the lack of employment opportunities. 49 Since the immediate post-war years certain districts had been particularly affected by this, especially during the winter months, as the fires and riots of 1816-17, 1822 and 1830-1 showed. Reports from fifty-nine parishes in Norfolk and Suffolk singled out unem~loyment as the main cause of the 'Last Labourers' Revolt'. 5 Thereafter, there was more interest in Poor Law, allotments and other schemes for relieving the labour situation. With the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 worried Guardians and proprietors sponsored the migration and emigration of several thousand labouring families from East Anglia. During the later 1830s the farming world experienced better times, but the falling priees of the early 1840s indicated another sharp change in fortunes. In the Stanton area, for instance, the price of wheat fell progressively from a high of 70s. 8d. per quarter in 1839 to 54s. in 1843. Then, in the late spring and summer of 1844, came the drought, and only half the normal crop was brought in. Farmers who were very dependent on the corn markets and who had high rentals began to cut back sharply on labour costs in these years, especially in the heavy loam areas of both counties. Men and boys were sacked or put on short time, and wages were cut to the bone. 51 At Wymondham, Rattlesden, Great and Little Thurlow, Hitcham, Stanton, Sotterley and Walsham a large number of labourers were without work for much of the year. Their plight was increased by difficulties over alternative work and migration. The decline of domestic rural industries was an important element of the 'Rural Problem' of the early nineteenth century. Stephen Dennison, Poor Law Official, reported in 1843 that in the villages of Norfolk and Suffolk the population was 'strictly agriculture'. 'The only thing I could find', he said, 'which at all supplied the place of spinning, was the "Allotment System". '52 In the following year woollen, silk and certain other industries in the largest towns and villages suffered a contraction, and the vagrancy figures began to soar. The Poor Law authorities, notably those in Suffolk, once again reverted to the solutions of the mid 1830s and began to finance the emigration of poor persons. 53 For many of the others without work migration was the only answer: a move to a more prosperous parish, to local ports, to the Durham coalfield, or, more commonly, to the sites of new railroads. At Packenham the vicar offered 5s. to men prepared to seek employment on the railway from Colchester, but at Hitcham an angry Hen slow failed to persuade the unemployed to try their luck at Newcastle. 'Not one of them would stir! '54 In fact, there were sound reasons for staying at home. So long as they kept to their place of settlement workmen had a

Arson and the rural community

55

kind of security. Some parishes did provide work on the roads for their own people, and could be ruthless with those who had left their families to obtain employment elsewhere. When, in 1842-3, men returned in their hundreds from the manufacturing north, they found no work and sometimes no poor relief, and a few of them turned to crime. There were also connections between the issue of parish versus non-parish labour and arson. 'Foreigners' were likely to suffer economically, and perhaps physically, when times were hard. It was said of one illegitimate boy accused of starting a fire at Stonham As pall, that he had been dismissed by his employer in favour of a local man, and that great efforts had been made to prevent his gaining a settlement in the parish. A persistent source of popular anger in the early 1840s was the employment of 'outsiders' to get in the harvest or thrash the corn. 'It would be well for you to discharge them as soon as you have done harvest,' ran a letter sent to a farmer a few miles over the SuffolkEssex border, 'for as shure as you are a man if you set them into your barn they shall thrash but one day for you shall have a light we dont wish to harm you if you will em~loy your own people and thrash your corn done by the flail. ' 5 Although many denied it, there can be little doubt that the problems of employment, and employers' attitudes to it , drove men to commit crime. Districts which had a high percentage of casual and unemployed labour were often the areas most affected by fires. One of the complaints of labourers in these regions was that employers were increasingly prepared to hold back wages when the weather was bad or when work was slack, and in general they were prepared to dismiss men at a moment's notice. This feeling reached its height in the early summer of 1844 when the content of threatening letters reflected the despair of families whose seasonal hopes had been destroyed. 'Loock at the peopel standing daley around your market place,' ran a letter found in Stowmarket, 'loocking you full in the face as much as to say, we want worck, we are starving. '56 'You damded raskel you bluddy farmers Could not live if it were not for the poore' , ran another letter sent in May to Hannah Watling of Sotterley, 'I will lite up a nice little fire for you the firs opertuinity that I can, and I Shoul like to have you their at the present time if the poore be not emploed different to what they have been. ' 57 Significantly, the fires almost ceased in August when work was available. One of the interesting features of the cases of arson was the number of accused men who had recently left their employer or who had been threatened with dismissal. William Medlar of Burgh, Norfolk, who was given fifteen years' transportation for setting fire to a shed, said of his victim, Robert Samuel Thorne, that he starved him and his wife and family, 'neither gave him work, nor suffered others to do so'. 58 When the Jonas family of Great Thurlow lost a large part of their farm on 7 May the first action of the authorities was to arrest an unemployed labourer, Joseph

56

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Barrett, a man with a wife and seven children, who had once got his old employers out of bed to demand work and a home. It seems clear that, as in the early 1830s, labourers used the threat of incendiarism to safeguard jobs in the worst parishes. Richard Gapp of Walsham, who ignored warnings, had at least two fires on his property. After the extensive fire of 1 July several labourers came to his home asking for work, with obvious satisfaction on their faces. 59 This concern for employment spilled over into hostility against those whom the poor suspected of reducing their earnings. Reports suggest that some of the mysterious Polstead and Mildenhall fires were an extension of conflicts over gleaning and the use of droves. There were also a number of legal battles and riots over land which had been set aside for the use of the poor by parish charities and certain enclosure awards. The writers of several threatening letters claim 'that there is rlantey of parish property to maintain all the pore of this place' .6 Some of it was not being used as originally intended. Poor Law and Charity commissioners of this period discovered that some of the money from 'town estates' and 'fuel allotments for the poor' had been 'misapplied to the rates'. At Hitcham and several other villages the indiscriminate provision of charity had been stopped, and indeed money, land and gifts left for the poor were being used to build workhouses, pay officials and even to buy a fire engine. 61 Another prominent source of complaint was that farmers, and not labouring families, received the full benefits of parish land; much of it was let out to them at very cheap rents, and they stoutly resisted the growing number of requests that some of this land should be turned into allotments for the poor. 62 Sensitivity over allotments and enclosures was undoubtedly a part of the ill-feeling behind incendiarism in the New Poor Law era. An anonymous letter sent to Lord Ashburnham after a fire on his estate contained the message that his steward had not carried out his lordship's promises to give 'small parcels of land at a fair rent for benefit of the Pore'. 63 The use of machinery attracted even more hostility. 'The labourer knows' , wrote James Kent, 'that the Thrashing Machine, the Horse-power Chaff-cutting Machine, the Horse-hoeing machine, the Hay-making Machine, the Drilling Machine, the Turnip-cutting Machine, etc. , etc. , all deprive him of work.' 64 In this, the most progressive and mechanised part of rural Britain, the destruction of machinery had been a feature of popular protest between 1815 and 1832. In the years after the Swing riots the process of mechanisation was halted in parts of East Anglia, but ten years later there is evidence that machines were being reintroduced, especially on some of the smaller farms. Considerable publicity was given at this time to the benefits of this policy, but labourers remained unconvinced, especially when these maehines were manned by outside contractors. 'You are robbing the poor of their living by employing thrashman 's machines', was a typical remark. 'I understand

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57

that you have a wheat hoe', ran part of a letter sent to the Jonas family, 'and we have a life hoe prepaired for you. '65 Makers of machines, like Messrs Heffer and Chinery, were visited by the arsonist, and one notes that machine sheds were amongst the first to be set on fire, especially in the winter months. Rather than risk the loss of crops and property, many farmers in 1843-4 took their machines to pieces. Wages were increased under similar pressure, with ls. per week as a common concession. During the collapse of wheat prices the labourers' income had been reduced substantially. At Walsham and Stanton, for instance, a wage of lOs. a week in 1840 had fallen to 8s.-8s. 6d. in 1843, and there were many labourers receiving only 7s. a week by the summer of the following year. It was a similar story in Polstead, Hitcham, Freckenham, Withersfield, and Great and Little Thurlow. Foster claimed that to the west of a line going through the centre of Suffolk the average wage was some 8s. a week, some 1-3s. below that of other districts, a revealing parallel with the geography of incendiarism, and one which was to be repeated in 1849-50. Once again young and single men often suffered the most; in some of the worst areas they could expect no more than 5-7s. When the arson was at its height meetings were held by Suffolk farmers in an attempt to take concerted action to improve the situation. Although many denied any relationship between poverty and arson, the records of 1843-4 provide eloquent testimony to the contrary. 66 Threatening letters refer frequently to 'the starving cryes of the pore'. When a constable arrived to arrest Ann Manning, the mother of five children, on a charge of incendiarism, he found that the house had no furniture, not even a bed. 67 By their policies, advice and actions, leading landowners and insurance companies recognised that farmers who paid low wages were the most likely target of the arsonist. We are told that labourers often discussed their plight, and talked of a minimum wage and controls on machinery. On the eve of one fire the songs in the public house were of farm servants and the meanness of their employers, and the letters left at the scene of the crime often requested better rewards for labour. The anonymous 'malice' which newspapers saw behind so many incendiary fires often disguised a conflict over wages and communal joy at the expense of 'another 7s. man'. William Gill of Drinkstone, who was transported for life, was dismissed by his master after complaining of very low wages. The most famous case involved Samuel Jacobs, who was found guilty of arson at Columbine Hall, Stowupland. The recent history of his long relationship with John Boby, his employer, had been one of continuous friction over wages. At the time of the second fire on the farm Jacobs was earning 6s. a week. 68 The complex relationship between wages, poverty and poor relief was at the heart of rural discontent. One aspect of the immediate background to the arson of 1843-4 was a tightening

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up of poor relief. The number of able-bodied persons given outdoor relief because of want of work or insufficient earnings was low in these years, especially in Suffolk. Yet the alternative was deeply resented, as we have seen. Feelings ran high on this matter in the winter of 1843-4, and in the following summer, when scores of men and women were forced for the first time to seek admission to the workhouse. The number of able-bodied adults receiving indoor relief in the year ending Lady Day 1844 was some 67 per cent higher than the figure for 1841. 'If you do not put a stop to the union, we will burn you up' , was the tenor of several threatening letters sent in the Risbridge Union. Foster,, who closely investigated the character of Poor Law administration in the troubled districts, claimed that it was both cruel and ineffective, especially for old people and for those who wanted assistance for only a short period of time. Some gentlemen used the fear of the workhouse to reduce wages and to keep labourers in a state of permanent anxiety. On 21 June 1844 Foster produced incontrovertible proof that the ticket system of poor relief existed in the Risbridge Union. 59 The system was relatively simple: the applicants for relief were required to present a ticket signed by all the farmers in their parish which declared that no work was available for them. It was, as the Reverend F. L. Page illustrated, only one of a number of similar schemes by which the rural poor were forced to accept partial employment and starvation wages. The local newspapers were openly horrified by the disclosures, and Sir James Graham made a public statement deprecating such practices. Not for the first time, Foster gave himself a pat on the back. But the battle was not over. 'The Times' correspondent's most difficult and controversial task was to show how hostility to the administration of the Poor Law could be linked directly to the outbreak of incendiarism. It was his theory that many of the apparently motiveless fires were a measure of this hostility. In a list of over forty ineendiary fires in Norfolk and Suffolk he tried to prove that the only consistent factor was that the victims were either Guardians or had some other connection with the Poor Law. Many observers ridiculed Foster's vague reasoning - after all, so many farmers were Guardians - and the journalist was never able to clinch his argument. Some of the fires did occur in unions like Cosford which had made substantial reductions in the rate of relief since 1834, and some of the centres of opposition to the New Poor Law, such as Mildenhall, were also the home of arsonists. There were also a few individual connections; one fire involved a man who had been refused poor relief, another was started by a young labourer on his way home from Nacton workhouse, and Ann Manning committed her offence on the day before she was due to enter the workhouse. Yet, in contrast to periods before and after, outright condemnation of the New Poor Law in the

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59

court records of 1843-4 is rare. 70 One can imagine Foster's disappointment. If Foster's achievement was to explore the depths of the Rural

Problem, it was left to others to provide the remedies. Discussion took place at two levels. Nationally, the Society for Improving the Condition of the Working Classes became the focus for the optimism and cynicism of a wide variety of reformers. At a local level, agricultural meetings were turned into forums for debating the state of the labourer, newspapers opened their columns to extensive correspondence, and half a dozen people published pamphlets on the discontent in the countryside. The 'Nonconformist' and Thomas Hood examined some of their 'queer remedies' with studied amazement: 'A Bible says one, a Reading made Easy says another - a Temperance Medal says another or maybe a Hagricultural Prize. But what is he to eat, I ax? 171 In spite of this mockery there was a growing belief that fundamental changes were needed to improve the labourer's position. The proposals for reform included both public and private action. The political remedies were predictable enough, from a repeal of the Malt Tax and greater security of tenure for farmers to a minimum wage for labourers. The 'Suffolk Chronicle', the 'Nonconformist' and the 'Northern Star' claimed that nothing would be achieved without major changes in the balance of political power, whilst the 'League' attacked everything short of Repeal. 'The Times', meanwhile, pressed on with its stormy campaign to change the provisions of the Poor Law Amendment Act, and claimed to have wrung concessions from the Home Secretary regarding the workhouse test and the discretionary power of Guardians. An Act was also passed which modified the Law of Settlement, though this disappointed many reformers. A similar reaction greeted the demise of proposals for the enclosure of waste lands and the creation of field gardens out of parish land. Finally, the request for a government-sponsored emigration scheme met with no response. A great deal therefore depended on local officials, employers and clergymen. Amongst the ideas which they discussed were the setting up of district or colonial farms, the extension of flax cultivation, as recommended by Mr Warnes of Trinningham, the establishment of a land improvement society, and the development of waste and scrubland in parishes where work was scarce. The West Suffolk Society for the Improvement of the Condition of the Labourers was launched on 27 September 1844 to find a consensus for action. It chose, as its first priority, an increase in the amount of regular employment. At the same time Hen slow, fearing the winter ahead, tried and failed to persuade the ratepayers of his parish to guarantee work for the underemployed. Landowner Sir Henry Bunbury required his tenants to engage a certain number of men throughout the year, and the Duke of Norfolk offered a premium to the farmer who employed the highest proportion of labourers during the

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winter of 1844-5. In general, however, the notion of a compulsory labour rate was attacked by employers with unhappy memories of previous schemes. Nor were they too pleased about the repeated exhortations to bring more capital and science to their farming. By the winter of 1844-5 this row over the better exploitation of resources had become merged into the longstanding debate over the relative merits of large and small farms, which James Kent, the Reverend T .B. Morris and others were conducting with much fervour. For Kent, small farming meant more intensive use of the soil, greater returns, more work and less poverty. He called upon landowners to subdivide their farms and to provide allotments for poor labourers. The letting of land, both private and common, as allotments had been for twenty years the most positive response of the upper classes to incendiarism, and many more new schemes were introduced in the 1840s. Yet, as the examples of Barton, Granton, and Walsham show, the presence of allotments was no guarantee of safety from fires, not least because the 'honest and industrious', 'respectable class' of family men who usually obtained leases were not typical arsonists. Allotments were seen by many people as part of a wider attempt to improve the soeial and moral life of the labourers. In the aftermath of the fires, the leaders and organs of rural society gave much attention to population control, family care and the 'proper' use of charity, and more formal contact was established between classes at harvest homes, association dinners, ploughing competitions, horticultural shows and cricket matches. The clergy, who provided much of the thrust behind this campaign of 'Improvement', placed recreation and selfhelp high on the list of their priorities. Fetes and sports days became a regular feature of parish life, and Hen slow even put on marvellous fireworks displays. Labourers were encouraged to join temperance, clothing, medical and especially enrolled benefit clubs. With some notable exceptions the education of workmen received little attention. 'In truth', warned the 'Bury and Suffolk Herald' , 1 we have yet to form a mind for the labouring poor. '7L The Reverend Mr Benyon of Culford, Mr Shaw of Kesgrave Hall, near Woodbridge, and a few other victims of the arsonist took this message to heart and erected new schools on their estates. What was the impact of these changes? Labourers disliked the 'grandmotherly control' implicit in the attempts to revitalise village life, and there was much sense in the criticism that so many of the reforms did not tackle the real economic and social problems. When emigration, the favourite scheme of consolidating landowners, was tried in the 1840s and 1850s, it was often found that the best and better-paid labourers left first. Nor did the granting of new leases and other concessions to Norfolk farmers bring much direct benefit to the workforce. Some people believed that the new allotments and labour rates did improve

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the situation, and in the 1860s reports from Hitcham and some of the other incendiary parishes suggest that the labourer had become more 'independent' and crime was on the decrease. The improvement in the agrarian economy and the introduction of the county police were often given as the main reasons for the change, though no doubt the remarkable migration from the country in the third quarter of the century also helped to reduce tension. Even so, it is worth remembering that poor employment, the Poor Law and parish charities remained sources of discontent into the 1870s when trade unionism at last took firm hold. The relationship between crime, terrorism and peaceful methods of protest in the Victorian countryside is a difficult matter. One form of action did not rule out another, workers' anger being expressed in a variety of ways both before and after the critical turning-point of the 1860s and 1870s. The village meetings, petitions and other union activities of Joseph Arch's early campaigns had their precursors in most of the southern and eastern counties during the 1830s and 1840s. By the early 1850s local unions and strikes were more common than historians have hitherto realised. On the other hand, in the Great Depression illegal acts of intimidation enjoyed a revival in the south, and judges in some counties bemoaned 'the usual acts of arson'. Yet there were distinctions between criminal and peaceful forms of protest, even in the Swing troubles. Although the poacher, arsonist and union activists often had similar grievances and worked a close regional furrow, there were differences in support, organisation and method. The arsonists were younger and less respectable than the union men. What characterised their actions was not political conviction and long-term strategies, but despair, hatred, and the glorious prospect of instant revenge. Robert Dew, transported for a fire at Richard Gapp 's farm in Walsham, said of his crime: 'It was the most beautifullest blaze I ever saw in my life, and I shall never forget it to the latest hour of my life. 173 In the rebellious letters and deeds of the early 1840s we can see origins of the angry confrontations that were to come in East Anglian villages, and of the consciousness of the Docking unionist who said of the leaders of rural society: 'They have been crushing us ever since we left Paradise. They got us down - feet, legs, hands, arms and shoulders. ,71> The first union men were, however, older than the arsonists, and they had developed their values, priorities and organisational skills in the militant nonconformist chapels that had spread across the countryside in their lifetime. The climate of political and social change, and the labourers' improved bargaining position in the late 1860s and early 1870s, gave these men the advantage, and the underground terrorism of the earlier years gradually faded away.

3 THE POACHER:

a study in Victorian crime and protest

A study of the Victorian poacher raises several points of interest for historians of nineteenth-century society . 1 First, he was such an ordinary figure, an accepted and normal part of rural life. In recent works of oral history old people recall just how important poaching had been for their predecessors, and for the family and village economy. 2 An examination of the statistics of rural crime in the nineteenth century reveals that, together with theft, trespass, vagrancy and Poor Law offences, poaching offences absorbed a major share of the magistrates' time. For example, in 1843 one in four convictions in Suffolk were against the Game Laws, whilst in Norfolk over 2, 000 poachers were fined or imprisoned in the years 186371. 3 Landowners such as Lord Ashburnham of Battle in Sussex, and Lord Musters and Sutherland in the Midlands, fought a daily, and sometimes losing, battle against these people. In the second quarter of the century poaching was widely regarded as one of the fastest growing crimes in Britain, and, unlike arson, highway robbery, cattle-, horse- and sheep-stealing, it continued to be a prominent and permanent part of the rural scene. Even in the 1880s and 1890s contemporaries were periodically shocked by the bitterness and violence which accompanied this particular criminal activity. 4 A study of poaching, therefore, tells us a good deal about the secret world of the village and the labourer. 5 Second, an analysis of poaching illustrates different views of society, property and law. For a variety of reasons the poacher was taken up by some romantics and socialists, and placed alongside gypsies and mouchers as representatives of a natural order. 'When, as today, society rests on private property in land,' said Edward Carpenter, 'its counter-ideal is the poacher.' He inhabited an enviable sub-culture in which birds, fish, game and even perhaps land were recognised as the people's property. 6 This picture was brutally disfigured, not least by a formidable roll-call of landowners in parliamentary commissions, but it contained a measure of truth. Both James Hawker of the Midlands and the anonymous King of the Norfolk Poachers were radicals; the former claimed that landowners had stolen land from the poor. Looking back on his life at the end of his autobiography he said: 'I have poached more for revenge than gain.' The King of the Norfolk Poachers organised public meetings in his parish to protest over the loss of 'village lands and monies'. He claimed that after one meeting an anonymous 62

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benefactor offered him enough money to emigrate to Canada. Of course, these were two exceptional poachers, but there is sufficient evidence in the work of Douglas Hay and Edward Thompson to suggest that poachers could be in the forefront of the battle over custom, rights and law, and this was one reason why they sometimes became folk heroes, characters of popular songs and stories. In the risings of 1816 and 1830 they were an important element in the mobs that marched across the eastern counties. 7 Third, a study of poaching is important for what it reveals about the changing nature and tensions of rural society. By the mid century the preservation of game and fish had become not only a vital status symbol for many landowners, but also a considerable business undertaking. This commercial aspect was stimulated by the Act of 1831 which permitted the killing and selling of game by anyone who held a game certificate. Previous to the Act the only persons qualified to shoot game had been those with landed wealth or of high social status, and trade in birds and animals had been declared illegal. 8 It was hoped that the new provisions of the Act would reduce social tension in the aftermath of the 'Swing' troubles, but reformers were soon disappointed. Although the right to kill game now rested with the occupier of land, landowners generally reserved that right for themselves by inserting appropriate clauses in new leases. Farmers continued to complain of damage to property and crops, and of the inadequacy of rent and cash compensations. During the 1850s and 1860s a small queue of angry farmers left the estates of such keen preservers as the Musters of Annesley Park, near Nottingham, and the Benyons of Suffolk, and a larger number refused to inform on known poachers. In some areas their bitterness was channelled into a tenants' revolt at the elections of the 1860s. Sensitive landowners increasingly allowed their tenants to reduce the amount of ground game on their farms, and as a result the Game Law question became more obviously a class issue by the end of our period. The wider village community also felt aggrieved over certain aspects of game preservation. In some areas it brought unwelcome influences in the form of rich urban sportsmen and the laws and officers of Fishery Boards and Game Associations. We can see, for instance, in the court records of mid Wales and the writings of Hugh Evans and Samuel Roberts, a deep suspicion of foreign elements, and of their lack of cultural and financial commitment to the local community. A good number of cases before Montgomeryshire magistrates in the 1860s and 1870s were started at the instigation of English sportsmen, angry over the disappointing catch on land let to them for shooting purposes. Where the commercial element in preservation was particularly strong, as on parts of the English-Welsh border, there was sometimes a strong clash between this, on the one hand, and local traditions and a peasant economy on the other. In a fascinating way the Game and Fishing Laws were both

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a cause and symbol of the differences between the 'Romans' and 'Britons' of rural society. The Reverend Henry Worsley of Easton in Suffolk, searching for the causes of crime in 1849, decided that a 'powerful auxiliary factor' was 'the antagonism of class against class in our rural districts, the association of country sports no longer subsisting as it did once, many of the sportsmen visiting their seats only in the shooting season, and remaining there no longer than this continues'. 9 The shoot, supposedly an occasion of unity, could be seen as a theatre of strangers. There the balance of power in rural society, and indeed different views of the countryside, were displayed in all their starkness. The poacher who chose to break the rules of the game faced the whole panoply of physical and judicial protection that had grown up in the eighteenth century. This gave his crime a special excitement and satisfaction . 10 Significantly, the major explosions of unrest in the countryside during the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century were preceded by sudden increases in the number of recorded poaching offences . 11 All in all, then, it was hardly surprising that the most famous opponents of the Game Laws, men such as the Duke of Grafton and John Bright, described them as the greatest source of alienation in rural society. Fourth, a study of poaching brings us close to that great political debate of the mid nineteenth century over free trade and the power, productivity, taxation and morality of landowners. Although a reform of the Game Laws had been part of the radical programme since the eighteenth century, Bright and a frustrated Anti-Corn-Law League seized on the issue in the early 1840s in their attempt to widen their attack on monopoly and protection. Due mainly to Bright's persistence, the first of several official inquiries into the subject were held in the 1840s, namely the Select Committee report on the Game Laws in 1845-6 and government compilations of serious poaching incidents in 1843-4 and 1848-9. Similar inquiries followed in 1862 and 1872-3. Somewhat surprisingly, three poachers gave evidence before these committees, and one of them staggered the Committee of 1844-5 by revealing that he had dealings with some of their parliamentary colleagues. Partly as a result of these inquiries, important changes in the laws relating to game and poaching were made in this period, though not always in the direction sought by Bright. The rigorous Night Poaching Act of 1844 was followed in 1862 by the controversial Poaching Prevention Act which extended the definition of 'game' and increased police powers of search and confiscation. Then, after renewed pressure from farmers and politicians, the famous Ground Game Act of 1880 was passed, belated confirmation in some quarters of the concessions of sympathetic landowners . 12 Inevitably any estimate of the extent of the poaching raises serious historical problems. Estate papers usually provide us with little information on this crime and comparatively few cases were brought before the quarter sessions. We have therefore

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to rely mainly on newspaper evidence, which is often selective, petty sessions files that are frequently incomplete, and parliamentary papers which provide us with only the bare statistics of summary proceedings after 1856. Moreover, criminal records do not give a reliable picture of the amount of poaching; for a multitude of personal, social and political motives landowners and farmers were sometimes reluctant to prosecute, and cases were settled out of court with confessions, cautions and promises. Fear and finance were important considerations in the early nineteenth century. 'Mr King I have to tell you that if you let Binks or Col. Meyrick or any of his Gamekeepers come on your land after this week', ran a threatening letter addressed to Mr Isaac King of Wickham St Paul, Essex, 'we will set fire to every Stack of Corn and every Barn you have got or Allow them to in forme against anyone. •B People who ignored such threats and sent poachers to gaol sometimes had their cattle maimed and property destroyed. Prosecutions could also be expensive in these early years, and proprietors often preferred to spend that money on prevention instead. Hence the sharp increase in the number of watchmen and defence associations in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the practice of handing out beatings at the scene of the crime. It is also worth recalling here that the ideology of paternalism and deference in the countryside both permitted and demanded a certain generosity on the part of landowners; and there were, for instance, good reasons why Merioneth gentry did not wish to appear as tyrants in the 1860s. Caution was the order of the day during the Game-Law debate of the 1840s, and fervent supporters of these laws claimed that this agitation intimidated proprietors, gave poaching an air of legality, and made the forces of law and order uncertain in dealing with it . 14 Another group of people found connections between the extent of this crime and changes in the law and its enforcement. Judges placed much of the blame for increases in poaching in the 1830s and 1840s on the Beerhouse and Game Acts of 1830-1. Others were unhappy about the redefinition of 'game' later in the century, whilst the nature and effectiveness of the Salmon Fisheries and Poaching Prevention Acts of the early 1860s raised a storm of controversy. The commitment and capability of the police also varied markedly in rural areas. Criticisms were made of the new police and keepers for dignifying a host of trifling incidents by bringing them to the attention of the courts. In some areas their keenness proved counter-productive, and a succession of young boys won discharges from irritated magistrates. Elsewhere, however, little was done before the Prevention Act of 1862. To illustrate the contrast, the appointment of Captain Congreve, a sportsman, as chief constable of Staffordshire in 1866 coincided with an increase in the arrests of night poachers, whereas police chiefs in Norfolk and mid Wales ruefully admitted that in their regions many cases still went undiscovered. The result of this was, as the Welsh Land

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Commission noted in 1896, that in some notorious poaching localities the number of convictions was depressingly small. 15 Finally, an important influence on the amount of poaching was the size of the possible catch, and here human decision, disease and the weather all played their part. Against this background one can understand why informed observers sometimes made contradictory statements about the extent of this crime. Yet despite this, and the disagreements between reformers, the major shifts in the indictable crime statistics and summary proceedings are clear enough. Sharp increases in the former were recorded in the early 1830s, 1843 and 1848-51, and these were followed by less formidable peaks in years such as 1858-62, 1869-70, 1874-8, 1881, 1885 and 1894. 16 There were perhaps two critical turning-points: the early 1830s, when the literary evidence suggests that poaching reached unprecedented levels, and the mid 1870s, the last high plateau in the statistics. In the second half of the century increases in poaching figures had a distinctly regional character, with, for instance, the South West prominent in the late 1860s and East Anglia in the 1880s. Between 1845 and 1871, two fairly average years, the number of commitments for night poaching and trespassing in pursuit of game doubled to 9,810. In 1880 the number stood at 9,029; recorded poaching offences and arrests had now begun to fall significantly not only in proportion to the size of population but also within the total statistics of rural crime. It seems unlikely that this decline was due simply to a reduced sensitivity on the part of authority or to less efficient policing. The counties which had the highest ratio of Game Law offences to other crimes included Rutland, Bedford, Huntingdon, Suffolk, Norfolk and Nottingham. Within these counties there were both isolated rural communities and suburbs of large towns in which poaching was especially rife. In East Anglian villages like Thetford, Ixworth, Polstead and Woodbridge, the number of recorded offences in the years 1842-4 and 1848-53 returned to the high level of the previous decade, and there were warning signs of the organisation, ritual and intimidation of an even earlier period. Poaching in the vicinity of the Midland towns was of a somewhat different character, and here the rural criminal worked, sometimes uncomfortably, alongside his urban counterpart. Sneiton, Trentham, Sandon and Hopton, and half a dozen other parishes around Nottingham, Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent were the scene of a remarkable resurgence of poaching in the 1860s in the face of stricter legislation and new police appointments . 17 The statistics for offences under the Fisheries and Salmon Fisheries Acts reveal a somewhat different chronological and geographical pattern. The highest national figures here were for the late 1860s and the early and mid 1880s. By the mid century the advent of new Fishery Boards, bylaws and licences had increased the conflict over traditional fishing rights and

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the tension between those on the upper and lower waters of rivers like the Wye, Severn, Derwent and Eden. In parts of mid Wales, Cumberland and Westmorland the poaching of fish, especially salmon and trout, reached epic proportions. The Chief Constable of Cumberland reported that 953 persons had been proceeded against in the county for offences under the Salmon Fisheries Act between 1862 and September 1871. The number was much higher in the following decade, reaching a peak in 1878 when the frustration of the Eden authorities turned to rage. The story of one family's determination to defy the new regime of Preservation Board and bylaws has been told in J.M. Denwood's provocative 'Cumbrian Nights'. It had obvious parallels with the Rebecca saga on the upper Wye in Radnorshire and Breconshire. The spectacular poaching raids of the mythical Rebecca, which were given national publicity in the winters of 1856-8, 1866-8, and 1875-81, finally led to the appointment of a royal commission . 19 It can be confidently argued, therefore, that poaching was a major activity or industry in Victorian Britain. What is more difficult to establish is the relationship between it and the legal trade in rabbits, game, fish and eggs. By the 1850s an extensive network of dealing in these goods had developed to meet the spiralling demand for cheap meat from the urban working class and for game from the middle and upper classes. London, like so many other cities, looked to Norfolk and Suffolk to supply its needs, and particularly to dealers in Leadenhall and Bran don. The size of this trade was quite remarkable. In the early 1870s almost a million rabbits were sold by tradesmen in Birmingham, the Potteries and Nottingham during the months from October to March. It is impossible to calculate how many of these were caught illegally. Probably only a few though Philip Pusey MP was convinced that new commercial incentives, the Act of 1831 and improved transport had extended the scope of organised poaching. Certainly there were gangs in the mid century who sent their catch by train to London and Birmingham. In general, however, one suspects that the market for poached rabbits, hares and fish remained a local one, with friends of the poacher selling them from door to door or at a local stall. The extensive national trade in live game, eggs and out-ofseason birds was a different matter, and George Brooke, a leading merchant, claimed that in this poachers played a major role. 20 Much, of course, depended on the time of year and state of trade; observers suggested that periods of high prices, such as 1861-2 and 1873, brought respectable tradesmen and poachers closer together. Contemporary discussion of the reasons for poaching usually revolved around three issues: temptation, demoralisation and distress. Temptation was seen in the form of greater facilities for poaching and for the sale and distribution of the catch. In the 1840s the controversy over the Game Laws hampered the

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development of game and fish preservation, but by the 1860s it had advanced considerably in counties such as Suffolk, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The coastal belt of East Anglia became covered with game preserves. New woods were planted for the benefit of pheasants and partridges, shooting rights were increasingly let to outsiders, and the 'battue' system of killing game was adopted in certain areas. Game, rabbit and fish farming took on new dimensions. At Thetford in Norfolk, where poaching gangs congregated, farmer Bartlett sold 30,000 rabbits in the season 1855-6. Similarly, on stretches of strictly preserved rivers, the leg:al catch of fish could be very large indeed. Reformers attacked increased preservation on several fronts, and claimed a direct relationship between it and a rise in poaching offences. The Duke of Grafton spoke of the deformation of a once healthy sport and of a parallel decline in public morality amongst those living near game preserves. John Glyde, a percipient social observer, described beerhouses and game lands as the two 'breeding grounds and training schools of crime'. Yet the relationship between preservation and crime was more complex than reformers believed. The initial response to game preservation was usually a rise in poaching incidents, especially when non-residents and outsiders were involved. 21 Much depended, however, on the attitude of agents, farmers and keepers. Where they were as anxious as landowners to preserve rabbits, game and fish, the classic pattern was a rise in the number of prosecutions for poaching and a subsequent slide into mutual respect or fear. In some areas the main battle against organised poaching had been won by the mid-Victorian years, and characters like Richard Harris of the Worcestershire constabulary saw strict preservation and policing as the answer to all rural crime. But it remained a fluid situation; it needed only an upsurge of tension between landowners and farmers, as on the Upper Wye in the 1870s, or the return of severe poverty to undermine such confidence. Where reformers were on firm ground was in their insistence that the system of preservation contained within itself inducements to illegal activity. Farmers losing crops to rabbits and game sometimes approached poachers for help, and keepers, too, occasionally worked closely with them. Frederick Gowing, who lived at Snape in Suffolk, claimed that in the months and weeks before the shoot he poached live game and eggs from one estate for the benefit of the keepers and landowners of the next. In parts of mid Wales and the Midlands a few keepers and watchmen were themselves fined for cheating their masters or for stealing from neighbouring estates. Moreover, there was a general acknowledgment in the inquiries of the time that the gentlemen and tradesmen who bought and ate game out of season must have been aware of its illegal source. Hence the protest from poachers and opponents of the Game Laws that 'all sections of society are involved'.

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Another controversial factor associated with Victorian poaching was distress. Here there was a very sharp difference of contemporary opinion. Most leaders of county police forces and great preserving landowners such as Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley and the Marquis of Salisbury believed that there was no connection whatsoever between poaching and poverty. On the contrary, so it was argued, the crime itself required some capital, and much of the profits were spent in the beer house. It was true that some poached for sport and amusement; miners, for example, found it an exciting contrast from their daily work. Indeed, such were the attacks on traditional pastimes and recreations in the mid century that catching a rabbit or having a drink were two of the few pleasures left to country people. Much, too, was made of the fact that some of the best poachers had an air of respectability or at least were comfortably over the subsistence level. In the memoirs of John Wilkins of Stanstead in Essex, one of the famous nineteenth-century keepers, his most formidable foes included a miller and a farmer's son. Police constable Evans of Pennal in Merioneth, in a diary which he left to his successor in 1887, noted that amongst the persons whom he suspected of poachinJ was Hugh Williams, a nephew of Inspector Williams of Corwen. Yet in spite of these examples there is little doubt that the relationship between poverty and poaching was a strong one. Working people turned to this crime fairly quickly when faced by economic and social pressures. In the more urbanised areas one can see how often increases in day poaching statistics during the mid-Victorian years coincided with high food prices. 23 Similarly, an examination of the crime figures of Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire reveals that day poaching reflected the fortunes of their major industries. 'There is comparatively little poaching when trade is good,' Lord Hatherton said of the former county, 'and a great deal when it is bad. '24 When William Matthews, framework-knitter, was asked to pay a fine of 30s. for his first poaching offence at Nottingham Shire Hall in May 1862, he replied, 'I have no money to buy something to eat with, much more anything else.' It was a similar story in Cumberland, where underemployed weavers and hatters poached fish in winter, and in the mining districts of South Lancashire, Durham and Monmouthshire when the men were placed on short time . 25 In the countryside the connection between poverty and poaching was perhaps more obvious, especially in difficult farming years like 1843 and 1851. 26 Asked how they lived on irregular and low earnings, the poor admitted: 'We can't do so honestly.' This was particularly true of the young men of the village who often received harsh treatment at the hands of employers and poor-law officials, and who were unable or unwilling to find alternative employment elsewhere. 'Can't you find the men some work, clearing out weeds, draining or anything,' Henry Villebois of Mar ham, Norfolk, told his agent. 'If not we shall

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make Poachers and thieves of them all. '27 Both Gowing and Hawker helped families obtain illegal sources of income once the harvests were over. 'The great proportion of the labourers under the game laws do not come into prison until after Christmas,' wrote the chaplain of the Beccles House of Correction, 'when the money earned by them during harvest or in the herring fishery is expended'. 28 According to Joseph Arch and Clare Sewell Read the irony of this situation was that strict preservation reduced the farmers' productivity and thereby their labour force. And, where unemployment was high, a man committed for poaching was unlikely to recover from the fall. This is a summary of part of an examination of JK, a single labourer aged 24, by a prison inspector at Ipswich gaol: 29 Been three times before (to gaol) for similar offences. Thinks there is a difference between poaching and stealing. 'I should not steal myself. . . I had no work; they would not employ me because I was a poacher. They wanted me to go into the house, and I would rather go to the gaol than the house.' The remark about the workhouse is interesting, for recent research has underlined William Cobbett's prediction that opposition to the new Poor Law would form a major ingredient in rural crime and protest. Gowing tells us that a man with an order to go into the workhouse felt that he 'might as well be caught under the game laws, and get committed for two months to hard labour'. 30 Apparently the young men of East Anglia were often faced by this choice. The Reverend J. S. Henslow, no great lover of the old poor-law system, claimed a direct link between rural crime in the 1830s and 1840s and the bitterness over the new policies advocated by reformers. Although the anti-landowner lobby insisted that necessity and temptation were the major springs of poaching, there were, however, other sources which respectable observers often ignored. For some, poaching was an extension of a traditional and independent way of life, in which notions of rights and customs played an important part. It is easy to forget that common and waste land had been a valuable source of cheap food, as well as fuel and grazing. Enclosure awards which gave proprietors a monopoly of game and fishing rights were often bitterly resented. A good number of offences in mid Wales and the Midlands occurred on disputed property or recently enclosed land. Speaking of the Rebecca poaching raids, J. Gibson Watt said that 'there was formerly a certain common in the district, and when it was open, I did not interfere with the men fishing, but after it was closed I did .... I had to take repressive measures to suppress the riots', he lamented. 31 One can compare this with the famous and prolonged Holt rabbit case of the 1850s and 1860s, when 'The Times'

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joined in the clamour over George Barker's attempt to stop Norfolk people enjoying their traditional share of rabbits on 'the Lows', 120 acres of waste land. 32 There were similar contests near Nottingham and on Cannock Chase, and scores of individual protests from poachers in court that marshes, pools, footpaths and ditches had always been considered public property. The records of criminal proceedings in East Anglia and the Midlands in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s indicate that the story of poaching should also be set against another conflict. The gleaning of corn and fallen wood, and the taking of wild fruit and vegetables, was part of a long-established seasonal pattern by which different family members of the rural and semiurbanised poor eked out a bare existence. In the North West free food remained a vital part of the working-class diet until the end of the century, but in Midland and Southern counties farmers erected posters in the 1840s warning labourers that the collection of mushrooms, bilberries, watercress and the like must stop. Hawker and Gowing deliberately chose to ignore this advice, and on the eve of feasts and holidays large sections of the village community followed their example. Such people often clung to the notion of wild animals, birds and fish being God's gifts - 'everyone's property', as a poacher in Carlisle gaol put it. Here was a clash between popular morality and class legislation of fairly recent origin. Distinctions were made between stealing reared pheasants and taking wild rabbits, and some men prided themselves on 'poaching square', that is operating outside the preserves where the private property in game was in doubt. Much resentment was felt when labourers were charged with killing game on the road or in their fields and gardens. Prison governors and chaplains were agreed that offenders under the Game and Fisheries Laws were 'quite hopeless', the 'most difficult of all cases'. People living near the rivers of mid Wales and the Lake District simply ignored new regulations regarding licences and seasons which conflicted with traditional habits. 'I cannot, with all my endeavour to do so,' wrote the chaplain of Kendall House of Correction about those who took salmon out of season, 'persuade them it is a crime. '33 In some communities these attitudes were so strong and the sanctions against them so weak that they became known as 'poaching villages'. Thomas Hardy's 'Mixen Lane', a refuge for the oppressed and dissolute, is an urban approximation to one of these, and Richard Jefferies' 'Sarsen' is an instructive caricature : 34 It is a republic without even the semblance of a government. It is liberty, equality and swearing .... Betting, card-playing,

ferret-breeding and dog-fancying, poaching and politics, are the occupation of the populace.

Such villages were to be found along the coast, near moors,

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commons, forest and quarries, and on the perimeter of great estates or in the midst of divided freeholds. At Parley near the Hampshire coast, ·for instance, poaching and smuggling had always gone hand in hand. Rafael Samuel in 'Village Life and Labour' shows just- how common and vigorous such free-lance communities were. James Watson, in his book 'Poachers and Poaching' (London, Chapman and Hall, 1891), recalls villages where almost everyone from cottage women to postmen, blacksmiths to parish clerks, spent winter evenings mending nets, making wires and breaking in their prized dogs. Frequently, of course, these were open villages, outside the care and influence of a major landowner. In such places there were few charity and allotment schemes to mitigate hardship or instil deference. One example was Stanton in Suffolk. This village, surrounded by large game preserves, was ferociously independent, a centre of crime, incendiarism and later trade unionism. Here farmers and policemen were often molested, and from this spot poaching gangs made nightly raids into the surrounding countryside. Whenever the 'demoralisation of the English peasantry' was discussed in Parliament, Stanton and Hindon in Wiltshire were likely to be raised. It was said that twentyfive families in Hindon lived by poaching alone. Who were the Victorian poachers? It is necessary to begin our explanation with a contemporary myth. Grantley Berkeley, on behalf of the great majority of keepers, gaolers and chief constables, attacked the poacher for being 'always of the worst description of agricultural labourers, generally inclined to idle ... [and] drunken habits, and almost alwals peculiarly neglectful, if married, of his wife and family'. 3 The royal commissions of the 1830s illustrated the dangers of having a large number of villagers dependent on poor relief, mouching and petty crime, and over the next decades determined efforts were made to control and disperse these people. The poacher was perhaps the most obvious target for landowners, clergymen, moral reformers and policemen. A Thetford gang was supposed to have 'kept a house with women in it to attract young men', and John Donne, ex-chief of the Norwich police, described how after a good night, scores of poachers in his district drank and caroused all day, seducing young men 'away from a course of honest labour'. Probably few of them had read Tom Paine and Charles Bradlaugh as Hawker and the King of the Norfolk poachers had done, but in the right circumstances they could be seen as dangerous social mavericks, striking at the heart of class control, privilege and ostentation. Thomas Mostyn, in letters to the chief constable of Caernarvonshire, complained that poachers at Gloddaeth were able to invade his estate with such effect that his keepers were terrified to go out of doors and guns were stolen from his gunroom. A Staffordshire gentleman, who leant out of his bedroom to remonstrate with men fishing just below in his pond, withdrew quickly as shots

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peppered the window frame. For him, as for many others, poachers were the most criminal, dissolute and dangerous members of the community. ss In truth, they were a varied breed. There was, for instance, an important distinction between the casual and the professional poacher, though this was sometimes more blurred than contemporaries imagined. Typical of the former type were boys out bird-watching, labourers on their way to work and farmers and tradesmen taking an occasional potshot at a pheasant. Joseph Arch believed that much of the casual poaching went undiscovered, and valued labourers, known to be first offenders, were sometimes let off with a warning or simply required to sign a written confession. Some of those that did appear in court were so bemused or shaken by the experience that they apparently gave up poaching for life. Professional poachers were defined as people who regularly obtained some if not all of their income by illegal means, and who frequently operated at night. 'Poaching, if pursued systematically and cleverly,' wrote John Wilkins, the Essex gamekeeper, 'is a good paying game, especially in the nesting season. 137 Gowing, after all, claimed to have paid £250-£300 in fines. James Hawker recalled how they travelled long distances for the richest prizes. 'Many times four of us would take train (from Northampton) for Weedon, walk to Badly Wood three miles away, sell our stuff in Daventry before daylight and no one would be any the wiser. '38 Like all the best poachers, Hawker took a great delight in evading capture. He moved about the country on a cord-weaver's ticket, and had a certain contempt for his less successful counterparts. The most famous poachers acquired a regional, and sometimes national, reputation. These included Gowing himself, Henry Osborne and Frederick Borley of East Anglia, and John Baxter, Edward Taylor ('the Lurcher'), 'Major' Lowe, George Gilbert ('the Spout') and 'Daddy' Richards of the Midlands. Some of these, like Baxter of North Staffordshire, were gang leaders; others, by their strength, personality and skill carved out their own 'territory'. In Hertfordshire the redoubtable Kit Nash 'held' the night poaching in the middle of the county, and the brothers Fox the north. Significantly some of these people were the products of long-established poaching families. In spite of denials from certain upper-class observers, many working-class women did encourage their menfolk in this crime, and young children were quickly taught the ways of their fathers and grandfathers. Amongst the better-known poaching families in the mid century were the Pauls of Costessey in Norfolk, the Heads of Great Saxham in Suffolk, the Greens of Chell in Staffordshire and the Shepherds of Lenton in Nottinghamshire. On the character of these poachers, the criminal records of the mid century are clear about three things only. First, the overwhelming majority of poachers were male, females being more active as carriers and sellers. Second, the average age

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was in the middle to upper twenties, the figure falling in some counties during years of distress and hunger. Several sophisticated reasons can be advanced for this age-level, some of which relate to concern or contempt for their parents 1 situation and to the problems of teenagers and young families in districts of underemployment, but there were also practical factors like their agility. Perhaps, too, the young were encouraged to poach because they had more opportunities to do so and, if caught, might expect more lenient treatment. There were some adventurous old offenders like William Pym and Thomas Redfern of the Tollerton district in Nottinghamshire, and 80-year-old Fletcher Turn bill of Easby in Cumberland, but, like arson, poaching was generally the activity of younger men. Other forms of protest, notably the trade unionism and strikes of the last thirty years of the century, seem to have had greater appeal to older sections of society. Third, when poachers are identified in the records they are overwhelmingly working people. Most of them had employment, even if it were only temporary, or, to judge from the comments of magistrates, simply a cover for their criminal activities. Joseph Arch 1s friend who worked all day and then poached at night to buy a cow was a fairly typical figure. Few permanent labourers were convicted of poaching on their employers 1 land; the most feared men were those on contract work, harvesters, sheep-dippers, molecatchers, woodmen and general repairers. Other prominent village poachers were carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths and building workers. In the vicinity of important manufacturing towns the composition of this criminal fraternity was obviously very different. The main occupations of those that appeared at petty sessions in the Staffordshire towns of Leek, Cheadle, Uttoxeter, Burslem, Tamworth, Longton and Stafford in the mid century were 1J.abourers 1 (a legal term which covered a variety of jobs), men of the mining industry, building workers, potters, and shoemakers, whilst in the Nottingham area framework-knitters were the major element. The authorities, in their search for poachers, were particularly suspicious of migrant workers. Harvest gangs had a bad reputation; farmer Thomas Sturgeon of Oaken den in Essex claimed that all the men who travelled from Wiltshire, Norfolk and Suffolk to work in his district were known as regular poachers. Tramps were less involved than contemporaries suggested, perhaps because of their ignorance of the countryside, lack of community support or a justifiable fear that if caught they would suffer more heavily than most. Gypsies and navvies were more fairly criticised. Railway and road construction workers were determined poachers in Wales, Cumberland and Westmorland, and quite a number were charged in the Midlands with beating hedges on Sundays. Gypsies appear less often in the court records, but several people testified to their skill with dogs and snares, and we know that the powerful Drapers were the scourge of keepers in the Home Counties.

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At the opposite end of the social scale it is impossible to estimate the number of those that poached. Mr Trench is probably correct when he says that by the Victorian era gentlemen poachers had almost ceased to exist, yet amongst farmers, professional people and 'higher tradesmen' the attraction remained. 'Men who are quite respectable ... will snare a hare, or go out with a gun,' said the chaplain of Appleby gaol, 'if the chances are that they are not likely to be seen or detected. '39 In Nottingham shire and Staffordshire in the 1860s, ministers, surgeons, solicitors, millers, butchers and especially farmers were charged with Game Law offences. Den wood claimed that, when caught, such people received generous treatment from keepers and were often allowed to settle out of court. As one follows the careers of the poachers through the court records, one is often struck by their intelligence, confidence and humour. The more sympathetic observers insisted that they were amongst the 'cream' of the working class. The job itself needed skill, careful preparation and a constant awareness of the movements of farmers, keepers and police. Some went about their work disguised as gentlemen, ministers of religion and women. When caught they were likely to give false names or even demand a search warrant, whilst in court they paraded a keen knowledge of the law and a battery of excuses and alibis. Sometimes their confidence proved their undoing. Samuel Slack of Mansfield who mocked a policeman when caught trespassing in 1862 was charged under the Poaching Prevention Act. 'I'd no notice given me about the New Act, which I ought to have had', he protested in court. 40 Through humour men about to bf· transported could express their contempt for the Game Laws and for the 'justice' associated with them. The criminality of these people was, and is, a matter of considerable debate. On the one hand there is evidence that poaching could be the first step on the criminal ladder. On the edge of towns like Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Nottingham and Norwich, scores of men were said to have existed solely by poaching and house-breaking, whilst a small number of notorious poachers in these communities figure prominently in the intimidating list of violent pre-industrial games, family conflicts, drunken assaults, affrays and pigeon- and fowlstealing. In the countryside night poachers were traditionally blamed for the whole spectrum of rural crime, from damaging crops and fences, through the stealing of farm animals, to the more serious cases of assault, murder and incendiarism. It was said that in the vicinity of Hindon nothing was safe from the marginal people, and we know of gangs in East Anglia and Cheshire which, if disappointed with a night's poaching, would take a few hens or burn a hay rick. Yet there was undoubtedly a distinction of sorts between poaching and other crime. Prison records of Nottinghamshire and Norfolk in the 1840s show that the criminal career of

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poachers was generally confined to offences against the Game Laws and illegal fishing, plus related cases of trespass, damage to property and assaults on keepers. A generation later one unfortunate offender who appeared at the Staffordshire Winter Assizes was told by Judge Martin that his good character would not be taken into account 'as people who never committed other crimes, sometimes engaged in poaching'. 'They are', said the chief constable of Somerset , ' almost a distinct people.' This picture of poachers as semi- or separate criminals helps to explain their initial anger at being placed on the treadwheel with other prisoners, their contempt for reforming chaplains and the unwillingness of some communities to treat them as outcasts. In the Victorian countryside, at least, the popular notion of a poacher as part of a separate criminal class with its own sub-culture confuses rather than illustrates. 41 Understandably the organisation of poaching remains something of a mystery. There was a general distinction between individual and gang poaching. Many poachers operated by themselves or with one accomplice, preferably a trained member of the family. They had dogs and ferrets and a variety of prized equipment, from wires and nets to collapsible guns and bludgeons. These individuals usually 'worked' the fringes of an estate during daylight hours. September-May (for game and rabbit) and December-August (for fish) were the most popular months for their activities, and Saturday, Sunday, and to a lesser extent Monday, Tuesday and Thursday were by far the most popular days. On Sundays, especially during the hours of church services, rural crime such as illegal fishing, stealing and arson was at its height and polieemen and keepr rs were placed on special alert. By common consent the greatest problem for these poachers was transport, especially after the Poaching Prevention Act of 1862. Birds and fish were left in ditches, old barns and under stones, to be collected by women, post-boys, coachmen, milkmen and carters of every kind. The poaching gang could be more professional in their approach. The history of the gang is an interesting one; prominent in the immediate post-war years, they re-emerged in large numbers in the early 1830s, early 1840s, late 1850s and early 1860s. Amongst the best known of Victorian gangs were those based at Westleton in Suffolk and Thetford, one led by a discharged keeper near the home of the Marquis of Salisbury, the Long gang of the St Helens area, and the Appleton gang under Thomas Guest which was the terror of north Cheshire. Generally their members were part-time criminals, but a few of the leaders of the larger g·angs in Lancashire, Cheshire and the Midlands appear to have had no other employment. Such were the exploits, intimidation and mobility of these gangs that chief constables from Cheshire, Cumberland and many other counties pleaded with the government for help in 1861, and one of the results of this was the Act of the following year. A

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decade later reports from the Midlands and East Anglia indicated that the number and size of gangs had been greatly reduced, though there was concern that, because of a loophole in the Act of 1862, professional poachers were switching from game to fish. 42 In the event, gangs were very active on the Eden, Derwent and Wye in the 1870s, and other types of organised poaching occupied a few harassed authorities until the last years of the century. The size of the gang varied considerably, though most had from five to fifteen members. The largest gangs in Lancashire, Staffordshire, mid Wales and East Anglia sometimes had 'managers' or leaders who planned their raids in secret, managed the finances, and then enforced their will by oaths and physical threats where necessary. They met at pubs and beerhouses such as the 'Squire's Tavern', Kingswinford, Staffordshire, the 'Horne's Castle', Nottingham, and the 'Chequers Inn', Thetford, and they took with them a motley collection of ugly weapons. Disguise was often used, whether it was the dust on Staffordshire miners' faces or the more elaborate costume of the fish poachers on the Wye :43 First went 'Rebecca' carrying a gun, supported by two sword-bearers, right and left, with their faces blackened, and their shirts worn over their clothes after the fashion of smockfrocks, with a handkerchief tied around their heads. These were followed by five ranks, four abreast, each outside man carrying a cutlass or sword, and the inside men spears or poles. What strikes one about this and other examples is the level of confidence and intimidation. Some gang leaders delighted in sending mocking notes, dead birds and fish to landowners and keepers. Rebecca, whose keenest supporters were farmers' sons, farm servants, labourers, and craftsmen, regularly pinned salmon on the market house at Rhayader. Possible informers were threatened with all manner of physical injuries, keepers and policemen who interfered might be shot in the leg, and farmers afraid of losing livestock often adopted a 'live and let live' attitude. 'I knew what they [the Westleton gang] were after', admitted Suffolk farmer A .J. Smith, 'and they knew that I did know it. '44 It was assumed that the larger gangs arranged in advance for the sale of their catch. 'Captains' or 'managers' of gangs sometimes took out licences which enabled them to send hares, birds and eggs directly or through agents to the large towns. The longer the distance covered in this trade the more safe was the transaction. Even when they were caught some of the men who dealt in illegal merchandise paid substantial fines with hardly a murmur. At a smaller and local level, gangs usually had informal contracts with itinerant vendors or with tradesmen who sold their catch over the counter in shops, stalls and

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public-houses. When middlemen were involved there was a strong suspicion that they took an excessive cut from the deal. In particular, the beer house-keeper was accused of manipulating poachers, buying cheap and then docking the price of drinks from their low profits. At times this concern with the role of beer houses grew to an obsession, with angry magistrates claiming that they were both the chief cause and regulator of rural crime . Poaching gangs, and indeed all poachers, came into conflict with a large group of people: landowners, farmers, protection societies, keepers, bailiffs, and excise officers, as well as the ordinary forces of law and order. Unlike many criminals the poacher of the early nineteenth century did not regard the police as his main enemy. Certain chief constables instructed their men not to patrol preserves, nor to lay information against those found on or near them. This reflected the concern felt in Wales, Suffolk and elsewhere that the new rural police must not become simply personal servants of great landowners. In practice, of course, poachers and policemen attracted each other. One of the first tasks of professional officers when they were introduced into Norfolk, Suffolk and Gloucestershire was to confront gangs who had hitherto operated with a certain immunity. Witnesses before the Select Committee on the Police of 1852-3 made it clear that night patrols were bound to pursue a man with a gun, or a gang of men that appeared likely to commit a breach of the peace. In the last resort detectives could be used to lay evidence against the most notorious poachers. River Conservation Boards were particularly insistent on police protection for their bailiffs. Inspector Nicholson and his men, ordered to watch the river Eden in 1871, brought 210 persons to court for poaehing offences in the next seven years. 45 In Radnorshire the constabulary force was doubled in 1880, chiefly because of the Rebecca troubles. With the passing of the Poaching Prevention Act of 1862, which empowered officers to hold and search suspects, policemen were drawn more firmly into the poaching battle. The passing of this Act was the occasion for mass protests, and its execution was initially accompanied by celebrated cases of unlawful arrests, convictions reversed on appeal, and countercharges against the police. From the late 1870s onwards the ratio of commitments under this Act to those for trespassing in pursuit of game rose sharply; those suspected of poaching complained that 'the Police are ever on our track', and thousands of lines and nets were confiscated during searches. Joseph Arch claimed that the Act placed innocent working people under constant surveillance. John Donne's instruction to his men 'not to interfere with anybody whom they knew to be a respectable man' only increased the sense of bitterness, and led directly to that village suspicion of the police which George Sturt found at the turn of the century. Donne claimed,

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however, that the Act ultimately achieved its purpose by making the poacher so accessible to the forces of law and order, and by thus associating him in people's minds with the common thief. 46 If the tension between poachers and the police in Victorian times occasionally turned into violence, it never compared in consistency with the hostility directed towards keepers, bailiffs and magistrates. In certain areas those appointed to watch covers and rivers quickly outnumbered policemen; the leading game counties had several hundred keepers each by the mid century. Their recruitment soon became a matter of some anxiety. Edward Marsden in the Rhayader district and Luke Culling of Campsey Ash near Woodbridge were just two of the men who had formidable criminal records; others were imported in the manner of foreign troops to impose their character and will on the local population. The Wye Fishery Board, desperate to fill empty places, selected bailiffs from the Midlands, much to the annoyance of a local MP. Some of these people were men of integrity and ability. John Wilkins and Samuel Owen of Rhayader avoided armed conflict if possible, and regularly gave young first offenders the benefit of the doubt. As Wilkins's memoirs illustrate, keepers and bailiffs were under enormous pressure, being at the centre of a crossfire of complaints from landowners, farmers and the general public. The double suicide of the Earl of Stradbrooke 's head keepers in 1844 highlighted their predicament, and resignations and dismissals were the common result. They were disliked by the working class for several reasons. The community regarded them as people who gave their first loyalties to their rich masters and acted as police informers. In parts of Hertfordshire, Suffolk and the Midlands keepers worked closely with the civil authorities in their campaigns against sheep-stealing, trespass and the gathering of fallen wood. Even after the Police Constables Act of 1872 several counties still used them to perform police duties. Second, they were accused of exploiting their position, sometimes using poachers and accepting bribes from them, at other times deliberately putting temptation in their path before an arrest. In court they were accused of fabricating evidence in order to obtain a conviction and a share of the penalty. Magistrates in the Midlands sometimes reprimanded keepers for wasting their time, cries of 'lying scoundrel' and 'traitor' flew thick and fast across the courtrooms, and policemen had to keep both sides apart. Third, some keepers and bailiffs were hated because of their aggressive instincts. Henry Grainger who punched a Selston man in the face near a beerhouse was a fairly representative type; William Morley, Musters' watchman, who beat someone to death on the public road to West Bridport, was a different proposition. Judges in Wales and the Midlands intimated in certain cases that 'the keepers had been too impetuous and anxious for a struggle', not least in allowing their dogs to

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savage trespassers. Keepers who had waited many cold nights for a gang often took Grantley Berkeley's advice and got in the first blow, and their exploits were duly recorded in folksongs like the 'Rufford Park Poachers' and the ballad of 'poor Slender'. The long battle between keepers, bailiffs and poachers in Victorian Britain sometimes reached serious proportions, as John Bright and his friends were quick to point out. The result of public-house brawls, silent ambushes and ferocious gang fights was a generation of bitter women and broken men. Powerful James Edwards, keeper to Lord Grantley at Wonersh in Sussex, was in a public- house watching a raffle for a pig, when he heard shots in the distance ai}d went to investigate; the next morning his body was found with a bullet in the head. A number of bailiffs on the Wye, Eden and Derwent were shot in the thigh or murdered between 1860 and 1881, including Edward Atkinson, a giant of a man, much feared by poachers in the North West. No quarter was given; on occasions keepers' cottages were plastered with bullets. After a particularly vicious fight in Staffordshire, it took two men to remove a sword from the skull of a dying keeper. An Oxfordshire keeper who pleaded for 'civility' was told 'you shall have war for civility', and to emphasise the message people in Wales and East Anglia were given to cheering outside coroners' inquests. 47 Under prompting from Liberal reformers, retrospective lists were made in the 1840s and 1860s of those injured and killed in poaching affrays. Although the lists are incomplete, they do provide clues to the chronology, geography and extent of serious violence. Amongst the worst years were the mid 1830s, early 1840s, 1848, and 1860-2; and the counties most affected included Cheshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Lancashire and Staffordshire. The 'Morning Chronicle' stated that some twenty-six keepers were the victims of murderous assaults in 1843 and 1844. In Staffordshire at least five persons were killed between 16 January and 16 December 1846, and some forty keepers injured - some seriously - in fights between 22 September 1860 and 16 January 1852. Audley, Trentham, Great Barr and Checkley were special troublespots, and colliers and quarrymen were prominently involved. 48 In Norfolk and Suffolk most of the poaching incidents that came before the assizes in the mid century had a strong element of violence in them, culminating in the murder of keeper William Napthen of Elvedon by the renowned Isleham 'Blacks'. Even in the 1880s and 1890s the deaths of keepers and poachers were not uncommon in the south of England, prompting on1~ writer to speak of the 'Blood Tribute' of game preservation. One of the common ingredients in these conflicts was the determination of gangs to stand 'like men' when the outcome of being taken was so serious. Writers, later seeking to explain the decline in poaching violence over the century, were certain that the reduction of penalties for night poaching had been an important factor.

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The relationship between the law and poachers is a fascinating one. Although the Night Poaching Act of 1844 promised its victims prison and transportation, the Act of 1831 allowed fines for killing game without a licence or for trespassing in search of rabbits, game and birds during the daytime. Even so, many people still testified to the unpopularity of the Game and Fisheries Acts and to the widespread suspicion of those who administered them. Joseph Arch, who emphasised the unequal impact of such laws on rich and poor, was one of those who claimed that the poacher in court had 'less expectation of fair justice' than any other criminal. Most poaching cases were not heard by a jury but were tried at petty sessions by magistrates who often had a special interest in upholding the Game Laws. 49 Michael Browne, the Nottingham poachers' lawyer and defender of Chartists, protested frequently about this state of affairs and joined the demand for the use of stipendiary magistrates or juries in all Game Law cases. Another complaint was that certain magistrates proceeded on inadequate and unreliable evidence, accepting the unsupported word of keepers or paid informers. A man with a previous conviction knew his chances were thin. In England and Wales the ratio of convictions to acquittals at the level of summary jurisdiction was 6: 1, considerably higher than that for indictable offences, and even those discharged were often lectured on the error of their ways and the generosity of the court. Control in rural society could indeed be exercised in a variety of ways. 50 Contemporaries also protested about the severity of the Game Laws. Although a superficial glance at the criminal statistics indicates that sentences here were lighter than those for comparable crimes of theft, the reality was somewhat different. For instance, a typical punishment for day poaching of game and fish in the 1860s was a £2 fine, plus expenses, but many spent periods in gaol instead for reasons of poverty, protest and preference. Night poaching was a more serious matter, and it was the policy of magistrates in Nottinghamshire and some other counties to impose the maximum penalty. Two-thirds of those convicted at assizes and quarter sessions in England and Wales between 1834 and 1871 were sentenced to a minimum of six months' imprisonment , and most of the remainder suffered transportation and penal servitude. Even those with the lightest sentence had to provide sureties for good behaviour, and in common default of these, another six months' imprisonment was added to the original three. In addition, a poacher in the early Victorian period could face multiple convictions and cumulative penalties for the same offence. The journal of the Reverend John Clay, chaplain of Preston House of Correction, provides us with several examples of men serving long prison sentences, having been prosecuted for trespass, the killing of game and tax evasion. 5 Much to reformers' delight , the Home Secretary began to reverse some of the magistrates' decisions in the mid and late 1840s; several dozen commitments were declared

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illegal and other sentences were commuted. Although these cases were comparatively rare, they left a reservoir of bitterness against the authorities. A few poachers appealed against what they considered to be unfair treatment, but a much larger number, including Gowing and Hawker, took evasive action and disappeared just before their case came to court. As the years passed, so the severity of the Game Laws was reduced. Even in Nottinghamshire during the difficult 1840s it was claimed that only in about 60 per cent of all poaching cases was the full penalty imposed. A generation later, fines of 5s. and lOs. , with costs, were not uncommon for first offenders, and a few trespassers even escaped with a caution or costs. Magistrates were guided in this respect by several factors, notably the pressure from complainants, the degree of violence involved and a poacher's attitude in court. By the late Victorian period it was a common argument that Game Law offenders were treated more leniently than those convicted under the Fisheries Acts or for theft generally. Salmon poachers were almost invariably prosecuted when apprehended and they could expect a £5 fine, whilst fowl and sheep stealers with criminal records faced long terms of imprisonment. Indeed, in some areas during the 1880s and 1890s the day poacher shared with the drunkard and prostitute the distinction of being able to return to the courts time and time again for almost the same punishment. In conclusion, perhaps we could identify those aspects of the Victorian poacher that would repay further study. First, this criminal was a more complex character than might appear at first sight. Although the poacher was essentially a private criminal, and some of the gangs models of the business ethic, this bastardised form of Victorian self-help was, as we have seen, often born of poverty and alienation and certain poaching activities can be associated with that long community conflict between law and custom stretching from the late seventeenth century to Joseph Arch's National Union. The extent of class hostility amongst poachers is, of course, impossible to quantify. There is nothing in the Victorian period to compare with the conflicts of the 'Blacks' and commoners in Windsor Forest and on Cannock Chase in the eighteenth century, but in the 1840s there were many reports of poachers engaged in such unprofitable pursuits as poisoning pheasants and hares, destroying nests, firing stacks, breaking gates and shooting farmers. How much of this was social protest? Some instances were acts of personal revenge for an individual wrong, but Gowing and Hawker were fighting the landowning class. 52 One can compare them with the Borleys and Samuel Stow; they waged social war in every way they knew. Some poachers in the second quarter of the century were among·st the leaders of popular protests against the New Poor Law, enclosures, evictions and gleaning rights, and poaching villages were often centres of rural militancy. We noted that poaching itself was a good index of

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social tension, with peaks in the statistics often heralding a serious outburst of unrest. Was it an accident that the 1870s were a major turning-point in the history of poaching and rural trade unionism? What we can say for certain is that if the extensive and sometimes violent activities of poachers are combined with the waves of arson that swept across parts of rural England between the Swing Riots and the late 1860s, we are describing villages which had not settled down to the fatalistic acquiescence which George Sturt and others found a few decades later. 53 Even before the days of Arch and the great Lock-Out of 187 4, paternalism and deference were more circumscribed and the labourers who rushed to Newcastle, Birmingham and Merthyr were less innocent of crime and protest than some historians would have us believe. Several observers like Joseph Kay and L .0. Pike, who knew the true situation, simply bemoaned the fact that such protests were inclined to be 'reactionary' and not 'progressive' in character. The second point worth developing is that, for both altruistic and selfish motives, many sections of the community refused to treat the poacher as an ordinary criminal. As we have seen, the working class regarded certain kinds of poachers as popular heroes. They rescued them from the hands of keepers and police and intimidated those people who took them to court. The most common punishments for informers were physical violence, effigy burning and ostracism. Examples of poachers turning Queen's evidence, or of other than keepers and their assistants giving evidence for the prosecution were rare. In East Anglia and Radnorshire crowds sometimes carried defendants from courtrooms to their homes and paid their fines. Professional poachers were admired for their skill and courage, but in years of real poverty the greatest popular sympathy was extended to men trying to feed their families in an honourable way. More interesting in some ways, however, was the fact that some respectable members of the community also gave active and passive support to offenders. Welsh nonconformist ministers, who usually thundered against a life of crime, encouraged opposition to the new fishing bylaws on the Wye, and a declining number of tenant farmers undoubtedly sheltered poachers. More serious, there were a few rare instances when angry magistrates interfered on the side of offenders in court, and were subsequently reprimanded by the Home Secretary. Even so, such intra-class solidarity was more tenuous and complex than John Bright fondly imagined. When, as in Wales and Hertfordshire, poaching activities threatened to turn into a wider attack on property rights, the limitations of extraworking-class help were clear enough. Finally, towards the end of the century contemporaries noted changes in the circumstances of, and attitudes towards, poaching. One view of the Ground Game Act of 1880 was that it reduced both the catch and sympathy for poachers. With the help of this and the Poaching Prevention Act, farmers, police

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and keepers now worked more closely together. Many tenant farmers were won over by landowners' concessions, and converted to the value of a professional police force by the general protection given to them and their property under the Acts and police orders of the 1860s. In the following decade considerable increases in police numbers were sanctioned in some rural districts, and farmers appeared more willing to support them in the battle against the poachers. Contemporaries claimed that the detection rate rose considerably at this time, and in East Anglia, at least, the last years of Queen Victoria's reign saw some final triumphant clashes with the most notorious gangs. The brutal fight between Torn Turner, five other keepers and the Isle ham 'Blacks' in the winter of 1894-5 was reminiscent of a Western 'shoot-out'. Perhaps, in some areas, the risks of being caught were now just too great.. 'The hamlet men were not habitual poachers', wrote Flora Thompson. 'They called poaching "a mug's game" and laughed at those who practised it.' 'One month in quod and one out', was how those in Candleford described it. 54 Joseph Arch and others also indicated shifts in popular sentiment; in their opinion the greater ease of mobility consequent upon the railway building of the mid century, extensive migration and emigration, an improved job situation, and better education and sobriety, all helped to make people less likely to commit crime and less tolerant of those who did so. Perhaps many country mothers eehoed the feeling of Elizabeth Ashby that 'that sort of thing was all very well twenty years ago', but not in the last third of the century. In strictest Bible Wales nonconformity had long sought to instil such attitudes, and in certain English districts landowners and Anglican clergymen had begun the difficult task of trying to separate respectable village families from the others. Changing economic circumstances, and a calculated social welfare programme may have accelerated the process. Allotments were said to have been a most effective deterrent against poaching. Internal community developments were also important here, not least the spread of Primitive Methodism and Bible Christianity in which the new leaders of protest served their apprenticeship. In the final analysis, however, changing attitudes to poaching in the late nineteenth century depended very much on the type of village and circumstance of the crime; although in some communities the differentiation betwe!en the 'respectable' poor and the 'rough' was as marked as in Flora Thompson's hamlets, the activities of poachers in the depression of 1893-4 could still evoke much popular sympathy. The highly successful rnotorised 'pot hunters' who descended on villages in the early twentieth century are part of a different story.

4 THE CONQUERING OF 'CHINA': crime in an industrial community, 1842-64

In this chapter we shall be concerned with a conflict that was fought out in many parts of Britain. It was a battle between traditional forms of life and criminal behaviour on the one hand, and an increasingly sensitive society and professional police force on the other. Merthyr Tydfil, our case study, was the Welsh boom town of the industrial revolution and it had an unenviable reputation. 'No one lives there from choice', said H .A. Bruce, one of its greatest defenders. Prominent Victorians deliberately passed it by, whilst that 'devoted curate', the Reverend G .M. Maber, headed the queue of those who fled the place. But if the respectable recoiled from the very mention of 'Merthyr', its attraction for missionaries and Mormons on the one hand, and for the deprived, disillusioned and down and out, on the other, was staggering. Although rich in numbers and wealth, it had none of the appendages of a real town; in 1850, for instance, there was still no town hall or hospital. Merthyr offered only the frontier ingredients of work, excitement, and the colour and culture of chapel parades, club days, Jewish weddings, Irish funerals and Welsh fairs. For the rebellious and criminal it was the promised land, and an army of wide-eyed youngsters, randy husbands, depressed wives, frightened deserters, 'smashers', card-sharpers and vagrants pitched their tents. The most desperate invaders moved with the Irish over Jackson's Bridge and into the country of 'China'1 where the controls, both physical and social, of the authorities were at their weakest. 'China', a small district earlier known as 'the Cellars' or just 'Pontystorehouse', was, by common consent , as bad, if not worse, than the 'Little Sodorn' areas of Liverpool, Nottingham and Derby. Journalists and commissioners seemed hypnotised by 'China', and under their watchful eye, evangelicals, reformers and the police launched a major assault on its culture, institutions and habits in the 1840s and 1850s. Their success, limited as it was, forms a part of the wider national triumph of Victorian order and respectability. The growth of Merthyr was startling, from 7, 705 residing in the parish in 1801 to some 43,378 fifty years later. It was a young population, and the census of 1851 reveals the narrow range in occupations in which they were engaged. Most males above 12 years of age were employed in mining and the manufacture of iron, whilst most females who worked outside the horne were employed by the ironrnasters or engaged as shop and domestic servants. Up to four-fifths of the population was Welsh; 85

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much of the remainder came from England, especially the western counties, and from Ireland. The Irish, who flooded into South Wales in the 1820s, and especially during the Great Famine, composed some 9 per cent of Merthyr's population in 1851. According to the 1 Morning Chronicle' correspondent, the Irish were strongly disliked by the Welsh, and tended to congregate in special districts or ghettoes. Welsh immigrants were also segregated to some extent; Merthyr had streets of Cardiganshire, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire people, whilst in south Twynyrodyn there was a colony of mid and north Walians. Indeed, the human map of nineteenth-century Merthyr was a patchwork quilt of different nationalities, occupations and status groups. For instance, many of the unskilled or unemployed 'foreigners' lived to the north and west of the town centre, in 'China', the first large industrial settlement, in Caedraw, and in parts of Dowlais. Cefn-coed-y-cymmer, to the north, Penydarren and the village district were full of Welsh colliers and miners, whilst local-born skilled iron-workers lived near their job at Georgetown, south Glebeland, etc. As for the tradesmen and professional people, these settled down close to the river Taff in the vicinity of Market Field. The town's prosperity was founded on the iron trade. The major works were those at Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, Penydarren and Plymouth, the output of which rose by well over a hundred per cent in the first forty years of the century. Dowlais works, run by the Guests, and Crawshay's Cyfarthfa were the great success stories, and the largest enterprises of their kind in the western world. When demand for iron was high, as in the mid 1840s, everyone in the town benefited; a boom in house building was paralleled by a substantial rise in wages and a greater rise in shopkeepers' profits. By contrast, problems of leasing and management, which all the major works experienced in the years 1847-60, and the trade depressions of 1847-52 and 1857-63, caused severe dislocation in the town. In the years 1851-1861, when the rate of population increase slowed down considerably, high unemployment, widespread poverty and emigration became more common. In fact , by the 1860s it was obvious that Merthyr's greatness had passed, and that the future lay with the expanding coal and steel industries in neighbouring valleys. Municipal and social life in Merthyr revolved around the major works, not least because the ironmasters were the greatest ratepayers and sought to control how their money was spent. One can see, for instanee, in the Public Health field just how important and retrogressive their role was; the town was still in 1860 without the basie public amenities. In cultural life, too, the masters, especially ,Josiah John Guest, his wife, and Richard Crawshay, helped to establish the small number of schools and libraries and became involved in the movement for 'Rational Recreation'. At a more immediate level the works had a significant influence on the pattern of settlement and nature of housing in the town; in Dowlais, for example, 30 per cent of

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labourers' houses were owned by the Guests or built with loans from the Company. It was not for nothing then that journalists and writers visiting the town were struck by the overbearing 'Coketown presence' of the giant industrial forces. Other influences were more intangible. One of these was that of the few prominent landed families of the area like William Thomas the Court, who exercised a diminishing power mainly through the administration of justice. By 1850 the new middle class in the town was stronger; this comprised a small collection of shopkeepers, dealers, public service officials, and professional men attached to the works. As the truck system disintegrated, so the independent shopkeeper began to flourish, and the 'Morning Chronicle' observer describes how the small shops of grocers, drapers, ironmongers, and booksellers were literally stuffed with goods. Some of these men clashed with the ironmasters over issues like truck, Public Health, and industrial relations, and partly because of this and their common nonconformist background and fears, the James family and their associates became avowedly reformist. To their trust in 'self-help and society', they added a belief in 'Social Economy' and a desire to 'elevate the working classes'. 2 The final dominant influence in the town was religion; in 1851 the works in Merthyr and Dowlais were surrounded by a motley selection of some eighty-four churches and chapels. As the number of official Sunday Schools was about half that figure, it is clear that provision for religion was incomparably better than that for other social services. According to contemporary reports and the religious census of 1851, some 80 per cent of the town were Dissenters, the leading persuasions were Welsh Independents, Baptists and Calvinistic Methodists, and somewhat less than half the population attended a place of worship. Revivals and waves of millennialism, which hit the town in 1848-9, 1857, and 1859-62 and often coincided with outbreaks of cholera, helped to swell temporarily the number of adherents. Religion was taken very seriously in mid-nineteenth-century Merthyr; Nonconformists clashed with Catholics, Dissenters with Anglicans busy establishing new churches, and Dissenters with Dissenters over every conceivable issue, from education to strike action. During the work of the Town Mission, street preaching and meetings of Tract Societies, interdenominational rivalry sometimes burst out in unedifying fashion. Yet behind the religious frenzy one notes from the diary of a street preacher in 1860 and the comments of journalists a degree of scepticism and apathy amongst certain intellectuals and the 'lowest strata' of the working class generally. 3 For these the secular role of Merthyr ministers was perhaps more important than the religious; people like Dr Thomas Price were prominent both as moral and political reformers and as industrial mediators. For a variety of reasons we know a good deal about the character and problems of the Merthyr workforce. It was estimated in 1850 that over 20, 000 persons were employed at the

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Key 1 China 2 Pontmorlais 3 North Glebeland 4 South Glebeland 5 Penydarren 6 North Market Field 7 East Market Freid 8 Village District 9 North Caedraw 10 South Caed raw 11 Pendwran-fach 12 North Twyn-yr-odyn 13 South Twyn-yr-odyn 14 North Georgetown 1 5 South Georgetown 16 Station Distrrct

Plymouth\

Figure 4.1 Merthyr in the mid nineteenth century: 'China' and its environs Map based on information kindly supplied by Professor H. Carter and Keith Strange. leading works. These were divided into distinct categories: firemen, forgemen, puddlers, rollers, various craftsmen like mouldmakers and blacksmiths, miners and colliers, and labourers and patchmen. Each section of the works had its own proportion of skilled and unskilled workers, and it was traditionally the Irish, the young and the females who formed the latter group. Some 900 males and females under the age of 18 years were employed at the Dowlais works in 1842, often doing hard menial tasks for subcontractors. Mr K. T. Weetch, in his study of the Dowlais iron community, gives a skilled to unskilled ratio of 1: 4 or 1: 3, and he distinguishes the former by their status, job security, income, house-ownership and careful budgeting. The pay differentials of the various sub-groups varied from works to works, and from year to year, but the following example from the 'Merthyr Guardian' of 1 May 1847 gives some idea of the grading:

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Rollers c £2 lOs. Finers and Puddlers ( £1 5s. ( £1 15s. Furnacemen

Colliers Miners

£1

18s.

£1 £1 lOs.

The first priority for all these workmen was a regular income. Wages in Merthyr were generally good, but payment was by instalments, prices and rents were often very high, and wage cuts could be savage. In 1833, 1842 and 1847-8, for instance, wage reductions were in the order of 30-60 per cent. Even worse for some groups of labourers was short-time work, and long periods of unemployment. The Irish unski1led, the sea-coal colliers of lower Merthyr and certain female workers were especially vulnerable here, and significantly they were regarded as the least thrifty and most dissolute part of the population. At the same time, however, there were occasions when thousands were laid off, as leases were renegotiated or works closed down altogether. The demise of the Penydarren company in the late 1850s is a case in point; by the early 1860s hundreds in the vicinity were near starvation, benefit societies had collapsed, and soup-kitchens were the order of the day. Moreover, as we have seen, there were unpleasant indications from the late 1840s that all was not well with the iron trade generally in the town, and inevitably the Irish were the first to feel the pinch. A succession of priests valiantly tried to meet the crisis, but children still starved to death in 'China' and Dowlais. Indeed, there had always been in Merthyr a residuum of down and outs, invalids, beggars and urchins who lived desperately from hand to mouth. When conditions were at their worst some 6-7, 000 people were on poor relief. Unions, official and unofficial, appeared in the area during the 1840s, but were unable to protect their members. Ultimately only migration, voluntary and compulsory, offered any permanent hope. 4 The second problem was housing. Although this was a common difficulty in the boom towns of the first industrial revolution, topographical considerations and commercial greed grossly magnified the dilemma in Merthyr. A few immigrant workers never obtained proper lodgings, but lived instead in 'tai-unnos' on the neighbouring common, crammed into shacks, or slept in the open near the furnaces. Most rented their homes from the iron companies, tradesmen, local professional people and speculators. Many of these houses were atrociously built and situated, but as times became harder so the demand increased for cheaper accommodation. Overcrowding was thus a permanent feature of the worst areas of the town. The 'Morning Chronicle' reporter described 'China' as a maze of bleak courts, tortuous lanes, and cellars, and discovered in them conditions that would haunt him to the end of his life. Six years later John James, surgeon, claimed that other districts had become even worse; 'China'

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was now 'a palace' compared to the riverside, Quarry Row and Bethesda houses. These were 'the abode of filth, and the scene of pestilence'. 5 Here the inhabitants were confronted by the greatest problem of all - survival. The continuous influx of thousands and the high birthrate partially disguised the appaUing deathrate in the town. Over half the deaths were of children under 5 years, a brutal statistic which only Liverpool could match. At weekends the streets were 'black with funerals'. In Upper Merthyr and Dowlais smallpox, scarlet fever, typhoid, and all the consumptive and diarrhoeic illnesses associated with malnutrition did their worst. The 'Irish fever' of 1846-8, and the cholera outbreaks, notably that of 1849 which took away about 1, 400 souls, only highlighted a grotesque normality. Those fortunate to survive beyond 5 years could expect a span of 35 years, but for the workmen there was the ever present fear of accidents and major disasters, which became a horrible reality in 1856 and 1862. The plight of Merthyr's widows and orphans was a recurring theme in newspapers of the time. Ironically, the reasons for the terrible death-roll in the town had already been established in a series of impressive Public Health reports; even for the casual observer, the correlation between disease, overcrowding, lack of sanitation and clean water must have been too obvious to miss. 'Merthyr stank in the nostrils of the world', commented W. Simons during a public meeting of ratepayers in 1856. 6

Fear of dirt , disease and death was part of the psychosis of the Merthyr middle class. When cholera arrived some of the wealthiest inhabitants took the first carriage out of the town. Medical men warned them constantly about the possibility of a catastrophe, but action was, as we have seen, slow and reluctant. Another anxiety brought a more immediate response. For much of the first half of the century the Merthyr middle class were concerned about the elements of disorder in their community, particularly mob violence. In such a rapidly growing industrial town, pre-industrial forms of behaviour and recreation had a detrimental effect on work, trade and property. On holidays and fair days, when the country mingled with the town, the mob traditionally took over the streets and tradesmen boarded up their shops. Days, even weekends in parts of Merthyr, were spent in brawling and gambling. Such activities and the more boisterous games of football and club parades were rigorously condemned by those intent on 'order and method' . 7 Other targets for reformers were irreligion and the publichouse. Ministers denounced the ungodliness of the town, and here they had in mind not simply the long-established clique of self-professed secularists but also the wider world of apathy, ignorance and prostitution. When Chart ism was at its height , the first of several mass campai~s was launched to convert the 'heathen' areas of Merthyr. This crusade ran parallel to a

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wider-based assault on the pub. By 1850, when this attack had reduced the number of public drinking places, there were still over 300 pubs and beershops in the town. They performed a vital role in the life of the workman, for it was to these that they often came for their wages, their entertainment and their politics. Some pubs, like the 'Three Horse Shoes', were the headquarters of union and radical societies, and the authorities were perhaps more worried about this aspect of public drinking than about any other. At times during the early nineteenth century the organisation of the Merthyr working class struck deep fear into the hearts of the middle class, and made them anxious for a permanent military force in the town. In 1831 they had witnessed one of the few incipient revolutions in modern British history, and this was followed by a long period of Chartist activity. 9 Although only a minority of the workmen joined the Newport rising in November 1839, there were constant threats of explosions during the next four years. Merthyr was one of the few places in Wales to join the General Strike of 1842, and government spies discovered arms clubs in the area. Six years later the workers were again on the streets, and there was now more support from the Irish and 'lower quarters' of the town, but the police and military precautions were more elaborate than ever and the fire smouldered out. Meanwhile, however, industrial unrest had raised its head, with ferocious clashes in the early 1830s, 1842-3 and 1847, to be followed by further conflicts on the fringes of the town in 1850, 1853, and 1857-8. In some of these the dreaded 'Scotch Cattle', an illegal organisation of miners, played a part, culminating in the blowing up of an Aberdare blackleg in 1850. Finally, there was the persistent problem of crime. As we saw at the beginning, Merthyr had a reputation of being a centre of crime from its earliest days. By the late 1840s certain industrial crimes in the town had reached serious proportions, whilst in 'China' gangs and prostitutes operated openly in the streets. The respectable ventured into that 'Empire' at their peril. Once the spectre of Chartist revolution had passed, and better conditions kept men 'aloof from joining or encouraging any associations', 'China' was seen as the greatest threat to the physical and moral welfare of the population. For several years much of the attention of the authorities was directed towards removing its influence. In the 1860s they were able to claim a famous victory. This chapter is primarily concerned with the extent of this criminal problem, the character of Merthyr's crime, and the ways in which the authorities tried to come to terms with it. In passing the chapter casts doubt on David Philips's picture of crime in an industrial community. From his analysis of indictable crime alone he shows that contemporaries were wrong about the high level of violent crimes and the existence of a criminal

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class. The great majority of cases were, he argues, cases of theft carried out by ordinary working people. A similar analysis of Merthyr cases at quarter sessions and assizes partly confirms Dr Philips's findings but, as we shall see, a more detailed investigation of police statistics and newspaper evidence reveals that some observers were not entirely mistaken. Any discussion of the amount of criminal activity in the town is limited by the usual problems of evidence and interpretation. Most of Merthyr's petty session records have disappeared, and for information here we have to rely on the incomplete reports of the 'Merthyr Guardian'. The bare statistics of crime at this level do exist for most quarters between 1842 and 1864 in the Chief Constable's reports, but the Merthyr Police District about which he writes was considerably larger than the town itself. 10 At quarter sessions and assizes the evidence on Merthyr cases is fortunately more satisfactory. Even so, the interpretation of the available statistics presents major difficulties. First, contemporaries noted that the implementation of the Juvenile Offenders Act of 1847 and the Criminal Justice Act of 1855 had a marked effect on the petty session larceny figures in the town. Second, there were periods, such as 1846-7, when magistrates, ministers and organisations launched determined campaigns against particular offences obnoxious to them, so that the statistics may well reflect these attacks rather than the size of the problem .11 Third, the dark figure of unrecorded crime in the town was probably high. We know, for instance, from the local newspaper that a good number of offences in the early years were settled out of court, and that in some crimes involving children people decided not to inform the police. Victims of robbery from the person and assault were also intimidated into not bringing charges, especially in 'China' . 12 Moreover, there were in this period significant changes in the numbers and attitudes of the police force, which in turn had an impact on the crime rate in certain parts of the town. In 1841, when the County force was founded, Merthyr had nine men and Dowlais two. By 1847 the Merthyr Police District had nineteen men, and there were further appointments in the early 1850s for such notorious areas as Penydarren Road and the suburbs between Merthyr and Dowlais. In 1864 the force numbered thirty-seven men, with sixteen of these stationed at Merthyr, four at Dowlais, five at Aberdare, two at Mill Street, Rhymney and Aberaman, and one at Hirwaun, Mountain Ash, Cwmbach, Cwmaman, Troedyrhiw and Penydarren. The four large ironworks also employed six constables, under a superintendent. After the trials of the early 1840s, when policemen were regularly beaten up and the public refused to help them, the new officers began, under Superintendent Wrenn's able direction, to have a considerable effect on street behaviour, illegal drinking and brothel crimes . 13 Against this background, therefore, we must regard the criminal statistics with a good deal of suspicion. In fact , as we

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shall see throughout the book, they are best used for comparative purposes. Although it is impossible to calculate accurately Merthyr's own crime rate, if we take the population of Merthyr and Aberdare as the base we discover that the rate of c:r.aiminal proceedings in 1861 was significantly better than that of Cardiff and Swansea, but worse than that of English towns like Derby and Nottingham. This gave a teasing substance to solicitor Meyrick 's claim that Merthyr 'had been at all times remarkably free of crime' . 14 Yet the rate of persons apprehended by the police gives a somewhat different picture. One can estimate, from admittedly difficult figures, that as many as two or three persons in a hundred in Merthyr and Aberdare were arrested annually. Contemporary opinion and incomplete statistics for the whole Police District indicate peaks in the crime rate in the early 1840s, 1847-8, the early and late 1850s, with troughs in the mid 1840s and mid 1850s. During the years 1842-64, however, the town of Merthyr lost much of its prominence in this Police District, as boundaries changed and neighbouring suburbs grew more rapidly in population. All one can say is that over this period there was a marked reduction in Merthyr's share of indictable offences which, if also true at the petty session level, would partly justify the popular view that the town in the 1860s and 1870s no longer deserved its old reputation. On the character of this crime the statistical and literary evidence is complementary. From returns of apprehensions in the Merthyr Police District between 1842 and 1864 it appears that the most common crimes were assault, larceny and drunkenness, with non-payment of rates and wages, wilful damage, and bastardy also fairly prominent. Over this period there were few significant changes in the character of this reported crime, apart from a marked rise in arrests for drunkenness after 1856 and a parallel fall in the number of cases involving non-payment of wages. With the help of additional newspaper evidence for the 1830s and 1860s, one can suggest that the rate of charges for felonies, larceny and juvenile thefts began to turn down after the late 1840s and early 1850s, as did that for some other property and vagrancy offences. The rate of apprehensions for some assaults, however, remained high until at least 1860. The records outlined above, together with reports of commissioners and H.A. Bruce's lectures of 1851-2, help to identify the so-called criminal areas of the town and the character of the criminals. Highway robbery and gambling offences were committed in the suburbs of Merthyr, larceny was common in the High Street and the Market Place, pickpocketing was a 'Chinese' phenomenon, drunkenness the besetting sin of Dowlais, and assaults were an almost daily occurrence in Irish districts like Bethesda Gardens and Quarry Row. From an examination of surnames one can estimate that assaults were generally committed by Welsh people, especially miners, colliers, puddlers and hauliers. Stealing from the person was the hallmark of

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the Welsh prostitute, whilst those apprehended for stealing and receiving property were equally divided into Welsh and non-Welsh people, many of them forming part of the unskilled floating population. Cases of drunkenness reveal a not dissimilar pattern, with between half and two-thirds of offenders being Welsh, but here miners and puddlers were more involved. Unfortunately, the information on the occupations of Merthyr's criminals is not as full or as consistent as one would like it to be. Only in reports of indictable offences was it the common practice to give details of the persons charged. From these it appears that over one-fifth of those at the quarter sessions and assizes in the years 1844-66 were 'labourers', with boatmen, colliers, miners and puddlers forming another fifth. Females comprised some 40 per cent of those charged with indictable crimes, and in those instances where status is given, single women predominate. The sexual ratio of all the committed prisoners is interesting; in the late 1840s the proportion of females to males reaches its height, the former being particularly prominent in pickpocketing and the stealing of coal and, to a lesser extent, food and clothes. After the mid 1850s women and children figure less prominently in the Merthyr statistics. For instance, where the larceny figures had once shown an even balance of male and female committals, by the late 1850s the ratio was 10: 8 in favour of the former. Unfortunately the ages of those who attended the Police Court are rarely given. At the quarter sessions and assizes the stated average age of Merthyr and Aberdare criminals in the late 1840s was in the mid twenties, moving very steadily upwards over the period. Perhaps the greatest problem, however, concerns the origins of these people, and the length of time which they had been resident in the town. A few individuals like John Griffiths, vicar of Aberdare, claimed that a stay in Merthyr turned innocent migrants into criminals, but H .A. Bruce and certain chairmen of the quarter sessions believed that crime was brought into the town. 'The great majority I of criminals] were vagrants, Welsh, English, and above all Irish', said Bruce, though his analysis of the 257 offenders in 1851 rather belied his statement. Of that total, 154 were Welsh, 79 Irish and 22 English, and of the Welsh 55 were natives of the place. He claimed that the Irish were responsible for a third of the indictable offences, and perhaps half of the assaults on the police . 15 For the purpose of this chapter, criminal activity in Merthyr can be divided into four main categories: crimes associated with poverty, the works, leisure and sex. Amongst the first group were vagrancy offences. Those formed a considerable proportion of the total crime figures in London, Birmingham and many other towns of this period, and they reflected the problems of poverty and bad housing, and the determination of authorities to control the streets and the activities of the unemployed. Despite Bruce's invective, the number of such

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offences in Merthyr was never very large, probably because the size of the vagrancy problem there was less serious than that in say Newport or Carmarthen. Those vagrants who did journey to Merthyr usually slept by the furnaces, or found temporary accommodation in 'the Cellars'. In certain years, such as 1847-51 and the mid 1850s, large numbers of beggars were attracted to this industrial town, and their arrival caused tension. In an effort to reduce the demands for casual poor relief, the police were appointed assistant relieving officers, and the workhouse was at last opened in 1853. The result was predictable; as the conditions of granting relief to vagrants became more strict, and as the prosecutions for sleeping in the open increased, so they turned to petty theft and broke shop windows in order to obtain a bed in a police cell. The latter became such a ploy of the Irish in winter months that visiting magistrates recommended in 1850-1 that offenders 'should be kept upon the lowest scale of prison diet ... and that means should be taken to make the confinement so distasteful as to operate as a real punishment' .16 Two other kinds of vagrants also annoyed the respectable. First, there were those who obtained money by false pretences, posing as diseased cripples, failed ministers, and travelling doctors. When 30-year-old James Richardson, who had a faked diploma from 'The Andersonian University of Glasgow', appeared before the assizes, every stagecoach in Merthyr was hired to carry his victims to court. Second, there were the unlicensed hawkers who injured local trade, and who were reported in large numbers by superintendent Wrenn in the summer of 1846. 17 The 'outsiders' who committed crimes in Merthyr were not generally poor vagrants, but rather the members of 'swell mobs' passing through the town, and other criminals from rural Wales and English towns who found sanctuary in 'China' and its environs. Gangs of young men and women from Bristol and the border counties made an annual pilgrimage to the coalfield, and they were responsible for much of the breaking and entering, highway robbery, wage-snatching and counterfeit coining in Merthyr. House robberies were comparatively rare in the town, although there were well-publicised outbreaks of this crime in the winters of 1841-2, 1846-7, 1849-50, and during the mid 1850s and early 1860s. Cases of making and distributing counterfeit coins also appeared in the court records and newspaper reports at irregular intervals. It is clear that the authorities were particularly concerned about this crime during the 'Hungry Forties', when Irish and Welsh families in the vicinity of Quarry Row manufactured their own money supply and competed with the more professional exploits of migrant 'smashers'. Like coining, pickpocketing was an offence committed both by outsiders and residents. It was, as we shall see, a popular activity in 'China', and it was also a speciality of gangs such as 'Cockney Bill's' who worked the shows, circuses, and fairs of this and other neighbourhoods . 18

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Contemporaries were fascinated by these crimes and these criminals, but in truth most of the crimes, at least outside 'China', were petty and rather ordinary offences against property, and those who committed them were frequently drawn from the poorest sections of the settled working population. Larceny was, of course, the outstanding property crime; at least 25 per cent of persons charged by the police, and 80 per cent of defendants at quarter sessions and assizes, were accused of this offence. Some two-thirds of larceny cases in the high courts involved the theft of clothes, coal, food, boots and money. Most of these crimes occurred at the weekend, and the main locations were shops, the markets, lodging-houses, public-houses and gardens. Stealing by men, women and children in Merthyr had distinct characteristics. For instance, adult males, especially labourers and boatmen, were usually charged with stealing food, clothing and tools, or were committed for poaching on the estates and open land close to the town. There were, as some observers rightly ins is ted, a core of regular male offenders, such as 1 Wil (Edmunds) Kendall' and Samuel Morris of Caedraw, who stole watches, clocks, jewelry and clothes with a view to pawning them. In 'China', where the 'bullies' were responsible for most of the recorded cases of larceny, thieves seem to have operated under the direction and protection of local receivers like Richard Matthias ('Dick the Thief') and Jenkin Rees. According to the Chief Constable who, like most policemen, exaggerated the planning and organisation behind crimes, some of the more daring thieves sent their plunder to receiving houses on the Glamorgan and Breconshire borders. 19 Women committed a high proportion of larceny offences at Merthyr, as they did in Liverpool and some of the other 'boom' towns of the early and mid nineteenth century. For some writers this situation was the clearest evidence of the breakdown of family life and morality consequent upon rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. The great majority of female thieves at Merthyr stole clothes, food and coal. A few of them tried to pledge or pawn the goods which they had taken, but most stole property for their personal use. Thus in the years 1860-2 Ann Jones and Mary Rowland were just two of many women apprehended whilst wearing stolen dresses. Although there were notorious criminal types, such as Gwenllian Davies, Eleanor Sullivan and Dinah Jones, female stealing was very much a matter of necessity and impulse, with loaves removed from pub counters, meat from stalls and potatoes from garden plots in the poorest areas of the town. There were also a small number of cases of servants caught taking property from their employers, in a bid no doubt to eke out the low wages which they received in this period. In fact, the parade of single women, unmarried mothers and widows through the courts is a vivid reminder of the vulnerable position of women in the new industrial world. Job opportunities were few,, illness was a catastrophe, and

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poor relief uncertain and meagre. Juvenile thieves in Merthyr attracted rather more sympathy. Some were forced into a life of crime by their parents or guardians. Poor Mary Ann Jones stole fruit because her mother allowed her to sleep at home only if she returned with money or goods in her bag. A similar situation existed in 'China' and Caedraw where, according to H .A. Bruce, orphans were 'harshly treated, ... stinted in food, poorly clothed, and made victims to the desire of their keepers to realise some profit out of their miserable pittance'. 20 Such anger, which runs through the righteous propaganda of reformers like Mary Carpenter, hides the bleak reality of the burden of young children on the economy of slum families. Professor Olwen Hufton 's study of the poor of eighteenth-century France can be used as a comparison here; the most destitute families had always sent their children out to fend for themselves, and it is no accident that illegitimate children figure prominently in the reports of juvenile crime in Merthyr. Such a person was Mary Davies who at the age of eight years was threatened with transportation for repeated larceny offences. 21 Although one cannot be certain of this, the records indicate that at least half the juveniles 'lived rough' for part of the year. Superintendent Wrenn claimed that some 150 children were homeless in Merthyr, and Bruce was certain that two-thirds of these existed entirely by thieving. In 1851, when the 'Merthyr Guardian' complained of hundreds of unemployed and uneducated children roaming the streets, Bruce alone dealt with 69 children at petty sessions. From their nicknames - 'Chief', 'King', 'Captain' etc. - one presumes that some of these held eminent positions amongst the youth of Merthyr, and there is usually in the recitals of their remarkable criminal careers a strong hint of rebellion, both at home and at work. The poor widowed mother of John Wylde, who became an 'Emperor' of 'China', said of her young teenage son that she 'could do nothing with him' . 22 The most professional juvenile criminals were usually male, operated in small gangs, patrolled markets, fairs and shops, were closely identified with well-known receivers, and specialised in stealing clothes and money. The stealing of clothes was particularly common in the late 1840s. Two typical examples here were James Thomas aged 13 years, whose parents lived in Monmouthshire and who had by 1846 already been committed as a rogue and vagabond for stealing a scarf and shawl, and Roger Williams who belonged to the 'Rodnies' gang which 'slept about the furnaces'. By the mid 1850s the 'Rodnies' had turned increasingly to pickpocketing. The 'Merthyr Guardian' stated in 1854 that 'there is scarcely a Saturday that we do not hear of one or more instances of this kind'. 23 Women were especially vulnerable to this crime, and there were celebrated incidents at Merthyr, Dowlais and Aberdare markets and on the road to church on Sunday evenings. Finally, for all juvenile offenders, food and drink were obvious attractions, and the youngest

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thieves were always to be found near stalls and confectioners' shops. Ginger beer, nuts, rock and especially bread were constantly taken from these places, and in some pitiful cases there is little doubt that stealing was a matter of warding off starvation. The authorities were much concerned with the motivation behind crimes against property. Captain Napier and the Merthyr magistrates drew a general connection between changes in the criminal statistics, especially of larceny, and fluctuations in the iron trade and levels of employment. During the comparatively prosperous years of 1833, 1846 and 1854-6 the larceny figures were fairly low. By contrast, in 1842 the Chief Constable noted the determination of Merthyr workmen to 'steal, but never starve', and again he noted a parallel rise in known larceny offences in the latter part of 1847 . 2" In the difficult years 1847-9 the Irish were frequently accused of petty thieving and poaching. Yet the striking feature of the statistics at such times is the moderate nature of these increases. It may well be that because of sympathy, intimidation and other factors, the statistics do not reflect the real nature of crime in periods of depression, but the consistency of the larceny figures over the years 1842-60 is still remarkable. Even during serious industrial troubles in the neighbourhood in 1850, 1853 and 1857-8 the incidence of petty thefts sometimes rose 'more than usual', but 'serious depredations' were few. 25 Inevitably some contemporaries took this as a sign that Merthyr's criminals were not motivated by poverty, but were the victims of their own innate criminality, of temptation, and of the wiles of their receivers and pawnbrokers. As in Cardiff, magistrates attacked masters and tradesmen for their 'exposure of ... property', and claimed that 'if there Were nO rsawnbrokerS I ShOpS there WOUld not be half SO many thieves'. 6 The court records, however, suggest that although Merthyr's dozen pawnbrokers handled stolen goods, they were sometimes effective police informers. The second major category of crimes in Merthyr were those associated with the works. Stealing from the works was common in the early years, and wood, rope, tools, iron and coal were the primary targets. We know that workmen resented paying high prices for fuel, and large amounts of firewood and coal disappeared without trace. It appears that thefts of coal from tips and trams sometimes assumed massive proportions, especially during the winter months and in periods of distress when employers and magistrates issued various threats and cautions in a vain bid to stop the practice. In 1848, 1850, 1852 and 1854, for instance, almost a hundred persons from Merthyr and Aberdare were charged with the indictable offence of taking coal from the Guests, Crawshays, Powells and Waynes, and it is evident from newspaper comment and the reluctance of some masters to prosecute every known offender that this figure hardly does justice to the size of the problem. The great majority of charges were brought by the Dowlais Iron Company.

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There were two main reasons for this. First, parts of the extensive works and large sections of the private Taff Vale railway line were unprotected, and second, the Guests employed vigorous watchmen and police constables. The first point was a source of great annoyance to chairmen of the quarter sessions, and there was a long and angry debate in 1850-1 between John Nicholl and Henry Thomas on the one hand and H .A. Bruce and E. J. Hutchins on the other. Nicholl, at the Epiphany sessions in 1850, directed the jury to ignore bins concerning coal stealing, and made the Dowlais company pay some of the legal costs. Hutchins, on behalf of the company, claimed that coal was stolen by two distinct groups, namely workmen who wished to supplement their wages, and others, unconnected with the works, who carried on a trade in stolen coal about the town. In part his analysis was correct, for a few court cases refer to gangs of young Welsh and Irish women who collected coal and then sold it in the marketplace. Significantly, most of the persons who appeared in court were children and women. The Dowlais Company prosecuted some very young children; an 11-yearold boy, for instance, was given six months imprisonment in 1852, two previous convictions having been proved against him. As one would expect, it was said that some of these children were trained in the arts of stealing and selling by 'notorious characters'. They often began their 'work' in the early hours, sometimes placing stones on the lines, collecting the fall from passing trams, and then carrying the coal to those streets of Dowlais where cheap fuel was always in short supply. Yet it is clear that the criminality of coal stealers was more complex than the authorities admitted. Offenders who were sometimes described in the newspaper as 'of respectable appearance' and ' good character' argued, for example, that employers had promised them free coal, that the season's allocation of cheap coal had not arrived, and that there had been arbitrary changes in company policy. Where the Taff Vale railway passed over common land local residents claimed customary rights to gather fallen wood and coal. There was also a pathetic side to some coal-stealing cases, with 'very indigent and wretched' female ex-employees collecting their old allocation in bags and baskets, and women without male support trying to stock up for the cold nights ahead. Amongst the hundred cases were several elderly widows, and the 'scruffy, pregnant and emaciated' M.A. George who had four young children at home. Company policemen who arrested such people were sometimes subjected to abuse and threats by workmen. 27 Another group of crimes connected with the works concerned wages, contracts and discipline. By the mid century it was acknowledged that such offences had declined considerably, especially at Dowlais where the new and cautious management of Hutchins had reduced tension between masters and men. The exceptions to this general trend occurred in certain difficult

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months in 1849, 1851 and 1857, and in a few periods of very high wages. In the early years of the century, however, the courts had been regularly used, together with fines and dismissals, in an effort to impose work discipline and company morality. One source of trouble then, and later, was the practice of skilled workmen increasing the iron make, and their wage-packet, by producing slightly inferior metal. A few men were charged in the 1840s and 1850s with throwing scrap into the furnaces. A second problem, which greatly taxed company agents, was that of absenteeism caused by illness, drunkenness, or simply a preference for leisure. The absence of skilled men was particularly serious; Merthyr employers had put a great deal of money and machinery into the iron-making process, and tales of their best puddlers sampling the alternative delights of racing and cock-fighting threw them into a frenzy. In the Dowlais Iron Company Letters there are angry reports of furnaces lying idle, coal being stockpiled, and horses underused for want of men to move them. Some men who appeared in court always took a good holiday after 'the Long Pay' day. Much depended on the state of trade; when wages were as high as they undoubtedly were early in 1847 it was said that drunkenness and absenteeism increased 'to a very great extent' and managers took the worst cases before the magistrates. In some of the court proceedings there were interesting discussions as to what constituted 'a fair week's work', and there were instances of young lads sabotaging machinery in order to bring work to a stop so that they could attend the races. Conflicts over wages and contracts were a somewhat different matter, but here again there are s:igns that as the problem of obtaining and retaining skilled labour grew easier, so the obsession with punishing breaches of contract declined. In the period covered by this article it seems that employers took legal action over breach of contract either to stop a large exodus of good workmen in prosperous years or as a weapon during an industrial dispute. Use was made of the latter, for example, in the puddlers' strikes of 1834, 1846 and 1864. For their part, workers very occasionally commenced proceedings against their employers for non-Psayment of wages, notably in the troubled years 1848-51. 8 Sometimes industrial differences in the Merthyr area took on a serious and intimidating aspect. Illegal activities at such times included the mass begging of 1842 and 1849-50, the destruction of company property, as at Penydarren in 1834, and attacks on fellow workmen and their homes. With some exceptions, the last form of criminal activity occurred on the perimeters of the Merthyr Police District, especially at the Aberdare sale-coal collieries, and it was traditionally associated with the Scotch Cattle. In 1843, during the Gellygaer colliery dispute, strikebreakers from Dowlais were driven back by gangs of women, and a contractor was forced to swear on a frying-pan that they would not engage any more. Fourteen years later, in the

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Aberdare Valley, the Scotch Bull intimidated blacklegs, in spite of the presence of troops and extra policemen. This is a translation (from Welsh) of one of 'his' letters :29 Notice. Remember that the Bool is one the rode every night, he will catch you at last. Then strangers, poor men, shal be kilt, every dam one. Be on your look out next wig Mr. from Braman Boys. Remember this is the last notice. You may believe it, whoever will be seen within this work shall die in his blood, either in his house or on the way. 0 madmen how long will ye continue in your madness. This from your obedient servant , Mr Bool. The climax of illegal strike activity was reached in the winter of 1849-50 when, in the same district, shots were fired into the lodgings of blacklegs, and 44-year-old John Thomas was killed when a bomb exploded in his home. ~ 0 From the various cases of verbal and physical intimidation that came before the Merthyr and Aberdare petty sessions in these years, it is clear that one element in the story was racial conflict. In 1850 English and Irish families suffered; the former, on being temporarily imported into Aberdare, were soon attacked by a mob of 50-150 Welshmen. The Irish were assaulted on a number of occasions; not only were they segregated from the Welsh by nationality, district and religion, but those who were unemployed in Dowlais proved useful fodder for masters intent on wage reductions. An angry clash in a beers hop in the summer of 1850 led to three days of ferocious rioting and looting in Atkin's Court. The minister of Bethania Welsh Independent Chapel pleaded with mobs of over 500 Welsh workmen to be merciful to their Irish brethren, and Superintendent Wrenn, who also interfered, was knocked on the head by a large stone. These workmen had contributed towards relief for the starving Irish immigrants in 1846-8, but three years of competing for falling wages and living close to the filth, squalor, and disease of Irish Dowlais had taken a heavy toll. Yet we must not be hypnotised by such remarkable displays of collective violence. Compared with the Merthyr of the pre1836 era and the contemporary mining communities to the southeast, the town in the 1850s and 1860s enjoyed a fair measure of industrial peace. Already in the 1840s instructive comparisons were being made between Merthyr and other Welsh industrial areas, and these were underlined by the 'prudence' of her puddlers in the strike of 1844 and of all her ironworkers in the disputes of 1853 and 1857. Direct action had lost some of its appeal; under the guidance of John Owen, 'the People's lawyer', and leading Chartists and unionists of the town, Merthyr's workmen increasingly relied on constitutional machinery to defend their rights. One can exaggerate this change - rioting and brutal intimidation were not unknown in the 1860s - but

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the shift is significant. 31 The third class of crimes were those associated with leisure. In the first years of its existence the 'Merthyr Guardian' printed several hysterical outbursts on the subject. This one is from the edition of 7 May 1836: We question if London with its dense population, its human corruption accumulated in masses with all its temptations and its power of concealment, presents so many cases of drunkenness and disorder as Merthyr, or that so many warrants for assault consequent upon drunkenness have been issued from the police officers of the metropolis as are served by the constables of this place .... The register of the police office is one of the most disgusting chapters in the history of human corruption. As we saw earlier, the crimes of drunkenness and disorderly conduct formed an increasingly important element in the Chief Constable's statistics; by the late 1850s and early 1860s as many as 1 in 5 persons apprehended in the district were charged with the offence. Unfortunately the interpretation of these figures is notoriously difficult; not only were there changes in the compilation of these statistics, but there were also periods when magistrates and police made special efforts to curb the 'evil'. We know, too, that some policemen adopted a much more tolerant attitude to drunks than their comrades. Given such limitations, however, it is interesting that the pattern of the statistics still brings into question the contemporary assertion that prosperity, heavy drinking and drink offences ran together. In fact, some of the worst conviction figures, in 1847 and 1857, were at the onset of a depression, and there is no evidence that drinking habits were more controlled in 1842 than in the much better year of 1845. Sometimes high wages and heavy drinking were the norm , but H. A . Bruce, commissioners and employers made too much of the 'proverbial improvidence' of workmen with money in their pockets. To say that 'the workman is as little to be trusted with money as the Red Indian with drink' (Bruce) was simply justifying low wages. 32 Most arrests for drunkenness took place between Friday and Tuesday, and especially on Saturday nights and Sundays. It was suggested that the Act of 1849, which prohibited the sale of drink on Sunday mornings, had a beneficial effect in the town, except 'at the low brothels and Irish lodging houses at Pontystore House and Caedraw, Merthyr, and at some of the villages where navigators and other parties employed on the Railway are located'. 3 ~ Some cases of drunkenness in these districts were truly prodigious, with unconscious men losing their lives under horses, on lines and in canals. Apart from this weekend drinking, there were also certain other periods when policemen anticipated trouble. Pay-day was one, not least because company subcontractors often had a share in public-

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houses. For young miners this day developed into one continuous drinking session, reaching an inglorious and often fractious climax in a 'China' brothel. Frequently the men did not return to work for a week. Other occasions for heavy drinking were Christmas, Easter, St Patrick's Day, weddings, funerals, fairs and benefit society celebrations. During the Spring Cefn fair in 1843 and 1846, up to a hundred people, many of them young workmen, 'perambulated the streets, reeling, vomiting, and quarrelling, in defiance of the distressed state of the times, the restraining of the law, and the precepts of Christianity'.~ Drunkenness in Merthyr was associated with particular people and areas. A good number of cases occurred in 'China' and Pontlottyn, but the newspaper sample of 1834, 1847 and 1862 reveals that a large number of people were also apprehended in Dowlais and Merthyr High Street. Pubs and beerhouses in these districts, like the 'Three Salmons', the 'Wheat Sheaf' and the 'Cambrian', were regularly watched by the police. Some of these pubs were known as 'disorderly houses' or 'the resorts of bad characters', and several attempts were made to close them down. Merthyr magistrates, sometimes influenced by English developments, took a real interest in the licence question in the mid 1830s, 1841-2, 1845-7, 1849-51, and 1856-7. During these years hundreds of beerhouse-keepers and publicans were cautioned by the police, and people like Mary Davies and Elizabeth Powell were regularly fined for selling alcohol during closing hours or for operating without a licence. Each salvo against the 'Drink Interest' was greeted with cheers from the Puritans of the town, but in 'China' and Caedraw as one cwrw bach was closed down so another opened. The court records provide clues to the kind of persons most likely to be arrested for drunkenness. First, many were young people aged 14-18 years who were apprehended at fairs and during police raids on pubs like the 'Dyffryn Arms'. Second, those who appeared before the magistrates were usually male; in the first quarter of 1853, for example, 27 men were committed for drunken behaviour and only 2 females. Other evidence, however, leads one to conclude that female drunkenness was quite common in 'China' and Dowlais, notably in years such as 1843, 1848 and 1853. Commissioners like Seymour Tremenheere were much impressed by the sight of young women consuming large quantities of beer in the pubs of the South Wales Coalfield and certainly any list of the worst drunks at Merthyr would have to include 'Brecon Jane' Powell, 'Snuffy Nell' Sullivan, 'Saucy Stack' Edwards, Mary ( 'Penydarren ') Williams, and Ann Green. On one occasion it took three men to remove Williams to the lock-up. Third, most of those before the courts had Welsh surnames and were employed at the ironworks, but as the years passed so an increasing proportion were Irish, and to a lesser extent, English persons. Judges and magistrates readily blamed alcohol for two-thirds

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of the crimes in Merthyr and they drew a very strong connection between heavy drinking, gambling and assault. As if to prove their point, the 'Merthyr Guardian' proclaimed in the summer of 1855 that it was 'a sad spectacle to see some drunk, and others playing "pitch and toss" on the [Hirwaun] common surrounding the village, nearly every Sunday throughout the year'. 35 The passion of the workmen for gambling was often commented upon, and, despite the efforts of police patrols, magistrates, religious organisations and 'improvers' , it remained strong throughout these years. Organised gambling was, however, increasingly confined to the 'low' areas of Merthyr, and especially to its borders. Thus cock-fighting, to which there are few references after 1843, took place to the north and east of the town, whilst 'thimble-rigging' and 'pitch and toss' were common Sunday games in certain 'China' and Dowlais streets. As the years passed a great deal of the men's enthusiasm and money was channelled into foot and horse races, run at or above Cefn. Mondays and fair days were perhaps the most popular racing days, and irate employers tried hard to remove them from the workmen's calendar. For the religious and some of the 'respectable' such events were no more than an invitation to immorality. 'It [the race-meeting] was simply a scene of debauchery and crime'; ran a typical description, 'an exhibition of some of the worst vices that degrade and ruin the human character.' 36 Races and fairs attracted notorious gamblers like David Davies and Thomas Jones ('Tom Bench'), professional 'thimble-rigmen' from 'China' such as Rees Jenkins ('Rees Trecastle') and Benjamin Morgan ('Ben the York'), and strongarm men. Prize fighting, though illegal, was common at Cefn and in 'China', and there are humorous accounts of hundreds of spectators fording rivers and railway tracks in an attempt to evade the police. Gambling, like drink, bred violence, and few places had a greater reputation than :v.Ierthyr for assaults, manslaughter and murder. In the 1830s, when riotous behaviour was endemic 'all over town', it was not uncommon for 40-50 persons to appear before the Police Court on Ash Wednesday or Easter Tuesday on charges of breaking the peace. Although by the 1860s the proportion of recorded assaults to certain other crimes had fallen considerably, common assault remained the largest entry in the criminal register. Common assault and assaults on the police accounted for between a quarter and a third of all charges. Moreover, many cases were not reported to the police; 'China bullies' often intimidated their victims, and Bruce claimed that a large number of male assaults were settled out of court. The newspaper sample for 18a4, 1847 and 1862 indicates that most of those arrested were Welsh males, and most were miners, colliers, hauliers, puddlers, innkeepers, carpenters, boatmen and navvies. Classic types were collier Evan Williams ( 'Ianto Dwr'), who unwisely attacked Superintendent Wrenn in 1848, Thomas Lewis, one of the 1831 rioters, who was later trans-

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ported for 'cutting and wounding', and three Dowlais roughnecks, one-armed Thomas Thomas, Edward Thomas ('Pretty Pant-y-waun '), and James Sumpton, who, in September 1856, faced his fifth serious charge in two years. By the 1850s the authorities were very concerned about the behaviour of boatmen in Lower Merthyr who assaulted miners, policemen and one another with almost indiscriminate abandon, and about the Irish generally. In 1851, according to Bruce, half the assaults on policemen were the work of the Irish. The amount of female violence is a difficult matter; in 1851 almost 20 per cent of those committed for common assault were women. Many of these were 'riverside women', the Dowlais Irish, and 'China' prostitutes like Julia Carroll, 'the heroine of a hundred brawls'. In certain years, such as 1834, 1856 and 1864, reports of clashes between these females were very common, and magistrates gradually lost their temper as pair after pair of pouting 'China' prostitutes filed into the courtroom. Of the victims of assaults, one can estimate from various samples that well over half were male, and at least a fifth of these were policemen. Most of these victims were, of course, Welsh, but it is interesting that a high proportion of the remainder were English rather than Irish. By common consent, the Irish were well able to take care of themselves! Finally, the criminal statistics of assault follow to a certain extent the committals for drunkenness, and in some instances gave substance to the growing contemporary fear of a correlation between affluence, cheap drink and violence. Yet the correlation was not an exact one; a high level of assault cases was also at certain times an index of rising social tension and a reflection of changing police and prosecution policies. 38 The nature of assaults changed somewhat over the years, as the knife superseded stones as a weapon in parts of the town, but the occasion and place of violence remained very much the same. The court records contain a small number of references to husbands and wives fighting over the children and drink, and to angry exchanges between men and their in-laws. The family element also extended outside the home, for a regular source of public-house and street brawls were insults about a man's wife and children. The works were another place of violence, and here quarrels over trams, blacklegs, and racial tension were a major part of the story. Workmen were wounded by knives, burnt by coals and lost ears and noses. Three other centres of conflict were the pub, the pawnbroker's shop and the street. Drunken adventures in 'China' and Caedraw sometimes turned into brawls involving barmaids, police and bystanders. Beer glasses were smashed and windows pushed out. Two strands run through many of these fights: a racial pride and the virility syndrome. Both can be seen in the half-dozen cases of manslaughter and murder recorded in Merthyr and Aberdare in 1858, 1860 and 1862. Young miners and hauliers leaving pubs were challenged to a fight and beaten unconscious.

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Sometimes gangs representing different nationalities fought pitched battles, causing serious injury to themselves and bystanders. Mammoth street-versus-street rows were also commonplace in the worst areas of the town like Bethesda Gardens, Quarry Row, Pontlottyn, Penderan Fach and Longtown (Dowlais) , and here families from opposite corners of Ireland met each other literally head-on. Policemen were often attacked when they sought to end such rivalries, and prisoners were taken from out of their hands. Indeed, such was the uncompromising behaviour of the Irish residents that by the early 1860s the authorities were ready to place much of the burden for all the violence in Merthyr on Irish men and women. The last major class of crimes in Merthyr were those associated with sex and the family. Of particular importance here was stealing from the person, for this was traditionally the crime of the prostitute and its locale was 'China' and its environs. In fact, 'China' was built on prostitution and female crime. Estimates of the number of prostitutes in the town were rarely given, but the evidence of criminal records and diaries provides us with minimum figures of 60 in 1839-40, and 40 in 1859-60. We have detailed information on 35 of the second group; 23 of these were Welsh, 6 were English and 6 Irish. Some of those who had been born in the Principality came, like Hannah Williams, from the neighbourhood of Merthyr, whilst others had travelled from Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Pembrokeshire. From a fascinating diary written in 1860 it appears that these prostitutes were a mixture of battered wives, deserted fiancees, unmarried mothers, orphans, and young females casually employed in the forges and 'sand shops' or reduced to charring and washing clothes. Some were driven by poverty and despair, and the lack of employment opportunities and low wages in the town, but others were clearly attracted by the excitement and money of their new occupation. 39 Prostitution was, therefore, here and in other large towns, both a reflection of the plight of females in a new world where traditional religious and family controls on males had been seriously weakened, and also an institution which provided them with an unusual degree of independence and control over their lives. Rather than exist as servants, or enter the workhouse, many young women preferred to exploit the typical sexual imbalance of a frontier town. 40 The age level both of prostitutes and their 'bullies' seems to have risen over this period, until by the mid 1850s a good number of them were over twenty-five years of age. A few, like 40-year-old Ann Jenkins and Maria Williams, had spent more than ten years in 'China'. Even so, the turnover of prostitutes was rapid; of those mentioned in 1860 less than 20 per cent had fig·ured in the criminal records of a decade previously. Unlike their Cardiff counterparts, the Merthyr authorities rarely summoned women for being 'disorderly prostitutes' or for the related crimes of indecent behaviour and exposure. They

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were more concerned with the problem of stealing from the person, for this had become a major activity and source of income in parts of the town. In 1840-1, and again in 1844-5, when £100 was taken from a moulder, magistrates expressed genuine alarm at the situation. The next two years marked the climax of an attack which they and the police had been mounting against 'China' since 1843. In the twelve months May 1846-May 1847, 50 residents of the 'Celestial Empire' were apprehended, 39 of them committed for trial, and most of these were transported or given fairly heavy prison sentences. More committals quickly followed and, to the great delight of the respectable, the Emperor and Empress of 'China', Benjamin Richards and Anne Evens, were sentenced to transportation at the summer assizes. The 'Merthyr Guardian' concluded, in its customary mocking tone, that the 'dynasties of the Wylds, Hudsons and Blackstones, is no more' . 41 After the mid 1850s fewer 'China' prostitutes appeared before the courts charged with stealing from the person, and the diarist in 1860 writes of their faded glory, poor business, falling charges, a sharp drop in respectable clients and a growing dependence on uncouth 'half-idle boatmen'. The impression given by the reports of petty session cases in the early 1860s is that an increasing number of these prostitutes, such as Hannah Davies, were turning to other work and other crimes. An examination of the criminal records of 1846-7 discloses some interesting points about stealing from the person. Firstly, the amount stolen was fairly considerable, with £2 being the average figure. Secondly, the victims were generally Welsh, and about half of them were employed at the works. Miners with money to burn were a common sight in 'China'. Prostitutes also took money from shoemakers, carpenters, weavers and dealers and travellers of every description. Some of these came from neighbouring towns and countries, but amongst the most pathetic dupes were 'simple fellows' from Montgomeryshire and Pembrokeshire with harvest money in their boots. Prostitutes accosted their prey as they were passing the entrance to 'China' late on Saturday and Sunday or led them from inns and beerhouses in the district to nearby brothels. In 1841 Mary Davies and a friend attacked Daniel Phillips in 'the Cellars', hitting him, kicking him, and finally jumping on him in a bid to get his wallet. In time women like Sarah Davies, Lousia Davies and Maria Williams developed an uncanny knack of selecting the best victims and of knowing precisely where their wages were hidden. Once inside the brothel it was common practice to wait until the man was naked or drunk. For 'Big Jane' (Thomas), 'Big Nell' (Eleanor Watkins) and the 'Buffalo' (Margaret Evans) the rest was easy, but for other females their 'bullies' were conveniently close. In several instances bewildered clients managed to fall downstairs with watches, wallets and trousers in their hands, only to lose them to the young men waiting at the bottom. Thirdly, it is clear from the court cases that in 'China', as in Liver-

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pool and parts of London, stealing from the person was a major part of the prostitute's business, and once this source of income declined they were likely to move on to different areas. In the 1860s the prostitutes of 'China' said that the 'golden days' of high-spending miners and poor policing had gone forever. At this time new brothels were opening to the south, in the riverside district, and a greater number of victims were now boatmen, sea-coal colliers and outsiders, especially from Aberdare. Crime in 'China' can only be fully understood in the context of the society which produced it. Lewis Thomas, a poor carrier, recalled that the first prostitute arrived in Pontystorehouse in about 1825, and that she was soon joined by scores who saw the profits to be made in such a rapidly expanding frontier town. Gradually they took over, at exorbitant rents, many of the houses in the area, especially those owned by Mrs Davies. 42 Two or three prostitutes sometimes occupied one house, and they were often 'managed' by brothel keepers like Mary and Margaret Davies and Tom Robbins ('the Navvy'). Many of the younger girls had 'paramours' who acted as protectors ('bullies') and lived off legal and illegal gains. Some of these 'bullies', who were usually Welshmen in their late 'teens, worked part-time on the canal or at the ironworks, whilst others travelled across South Wales in search of easy 'pickings'. They were often expert pickpockets and 'thimble-riggers', and when in 'China' they were notorious for their drunken and violent behaviour. Amongst the most formidable 'bullies' were the Hudsons, Wyld(e)s, William Thomas and Jack Jones ( 'y Joiner'). Each period had its outstanding partners who were, according to the 'Merthyr Guardian', recognised as the leaders of the 'Chinese' community. These were Thomas Davies ('Tom Tit') and Jane Miles, transported in 1841, Benjamin Richards and Anne Evans, who suffered the same fate six years later, and their successors as 'Emperor' and 'Empress',. John Wyld(e), and Ann Evans, who emigrated in 1852. The 'IVIerthyr Guardian' records the disappearance of the last pair in this manner :43 EMIGRATION - The tide of emigration still continues to flow, but a recent lot of emigrants demand special notice. One night last week, a grey whiskered pigeon, flush in cash, visited the Celestial Empire, and was plucked of £70 for his pains; with the money so obtained the natives have had the good sense to meditate a trip across the Atlantic; and accordingly on Monday last, the Empress ... Emperor ... and several of the female mandarins turned their faces to the far West. With these people we come nearest to a possible sub-culture in nineteenth-century Merthyr. The people of 'China' were rejected by society at large, yet they had a remarkable degree of self-respect and independence, and were united by selfinterest and family bonds. Moreover, in this 'no-go' area of the town they tried to impose and enforce their own values,

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rules and organisations. They battled long and hard against those outsiders who came under the banners of 'Reform', 'Respectability' and 'Control'. In fact, do-gooders who entered Pontystorehouse never quite realised just how much they were being used; bibles were taken and sold, and prostitutes fled protesting and mocking from jobs and homes found for them. Entering the White Horse Inn which was full of 'singing, dances, curses and swearing', a religious missionary was accosted by a girl who offered to attend his meeting when she was sober. In court the attitude of 'China' criminals was striking when compared with that of other prisoners. 'Thank you, sir', said Hannah Goodwin on being sentenced to a year's hard labour, 'that will save me paying lodgings for twelve months', and Anne Evans hurled a boot across the court at her prosecutor."" William Hudson requested a pint of beer in his cell, and 'Emperor' Benjamin Richards, on his last public appearance in Merthyr, made a long defiant speech which ended with a trenchant attack on Superintendent Wrenn :45 that gentleman is determined to have me, right or wrong. He is never better pleased than when he gets a poor fellow from China .... But never mind, they may transport or hang me if they like. I '11 die like a chip. At the trial of his successor, John Wyld (e) , in 1850, a few of his supporters used the occasion to pick pockets in the courtroom! Here, then, we get closest to the contemporary nightmare of an alien, organised, hereditary, non-industrious and immoral criminal class. The activities of the 'bullies' provide further insights into the 'Chinese' attitudes towards the law and its upholders. One of their first duties was to prevent the arrests of prostitutes, or, as often happened in the mid 1840s, to rescue those taken by the police. On occasions as many as a hundred people turned out to help the criminal; 'Emperor' Richards was taken only after a shopkeeper with a life-protector had come to the aid of the besieged policeman. Policemen in 'China' were subjected to horrific threats, and there were some significant encounters between massive John Jones ( 'Shoni Scuborfawr') and Sergeant Davies in 1843, and between John Wyld(e), John Hudson and Wrenn three years later. In front of scores of 'Chinese' supporters, Wyld(e) threatened to 'kick (Wrenn's) guts out', and he took a mason's hammer to the superintendent before eventually succumbing. Wyld(e) was wanted by the police because he had rescued a girl from their hands. When policemen did succeed in taking prostitutes to the station, Wyld( e) and his friends turned their attentions t.o those men who had been courageous enough to press charges against their female assailants. One approach, much favoured in the mid 1850s, was to offer prosecutors money in exchange for a withdrawal of charges; another was outright intimidation. In 1848, 1850, 1851, and

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1862 many of those who had been robbed in brothels did not appear in court to support their case. Ann Green, for example, was dismissed from the court three times in 1850 after prosecutors failed to arrive. The residents of 'China', however, attended the court in large numbers and provided evidence on behalf of their friend. Perhaps their very presence frightened witnesses for the prosecution, for they suddenly became uncertain about the identity of the accused. Quick discharges were common; no wonder Superintendent Wrenn was given to deep sarcasm in the witness box. Occasionally this world of 'China' forms the backcloth to a variety of other crimes associated with sex, namely bastardy, deserting the family, rape, incest, suicide and the killing of young children. The last four of these were, as Bruce pointed out, impossible to quantify. No more than a handful of such cases were reported to the police. Court records and newspapers simply give us impressions and motives, and hint as to what lay beneath the surface of working-class life. In Merthyr the old committed suicide because of sickness, fear of the workhouse, and the bereavement of their partners, whereas the young, with few exceptions, seem to have ended their lives over matters of love and pregnancy. 46 Alternatively, desperate young unmarried mothers solved their immediate problems by smothering, strangling and especially drowning unwanted babies. There are reports in the early 1840s and early 1860s of people finding dead children on the river bank, in rubbish and cinder tips, and in a toilet , but only in a few instances was the identity of the victim established. One six weeks' old baby, who had been placed in a rabbit hole, was traced to unmarried Ann Williams; she told the Merthyr magistrates that she was quite unable to support the child. 47 The incidence of rape and incest is perhaps even more difficult to estimate, not least because the victim was often reluctant or too young to prosecute. Magistrates in rape cases were anyway usually biased against the unfortunate girls; those females who could not find witnesses to prove they had resisted the attack could expect little sympathy from the Bench. Most defendants were found not guilty, or the charge of rape was changed to common assault and returned as such in the criminal statistics. When a charge was proved, the sentence was usually 3, 6 or 9 months' imprisonment. In 1852, for example, a 31-year-old Merthyr coalweigher who gagged and raped a widow was sent to gaol for 9 months, a punishment which was exactly the same as that handed out to a 34-year-old Hirwaun housewife who uttered counterfeit coin to the value of 6d. By contrast, the very small number of persons convicted of incest received severe sentences. As reformers never tired of telling us, both crimes often involved young people living in overcrowded houses. A typical case was that of a Dowlais lodger who was accused in 1855 of assaulting the young girl with whom he shared a room. 48 Two other theatres of sexual assault were the works, and - especially

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during fair days - the deserted countryside. Like rape and incest, offences of bastardy and deserting the family never formed a high proportion of the total crime figures, though again it is probable that many instances never came before the courts. From the files of the 'Merthyr Guardian' one has the distinct impression that the last two crimes were considerably more common in the early days of the town and certainly the official figures were still fairly high in the economic crisis of the late 1840s. Over our period as a whole there is a gradual decline in the number of cases concerning bastardy and deserting the family, notably after the mid 1850s. According to Bruce, the Irish did not figure prominently in paternity suits; and certainly the newspaper evidence suggests that most culprits were young Welshmen. Deserting the family seems to have been more popular amongst somewhat older people, and it often occurred as a result of family feuding and adultery. The small statistical increases in this offence during the early 1850s was attributed partly to the emigration fever which offered many discontented husbands the prospect of instant disappearance. In some of these cases involving family loyalties and sex the views of the working-class community reached the courts. 'Community law' and discipline in moral matters remained fairly strong in Merthyr during the first half of the century. Generally the community, embodied in the mob, intervened on the side of women, upbraiding wife-beaters and punishing adulterers. After a bastardy case at the Police Court on 19 July 184 7, 'men, women and children ... left their worships alone in their glory, and followed the unwitting father and his witness up the High Street in considerable numbers', shouting and harassing them, until the two 'sought a refuge within the walls of a beer shop' . 49 Robert Thomas, a married man found penniless in 'China' in 1845, was placed in a chair, carried on the shoulders of four men, and publicly humiliated and lectured. Occasionally, outside 'China', the crowd turned on the temptresses of the town. Anne Evans, the 'Empress', was beaten on the way to Georgetown from the Police Court because it was popularly believed that she had been responsible for the death of a young man, whilst William Jones, a Dowlais shoemaker who kept 'women of disreputable character' in his house received the unwelcome attentions of 4-500 persons. 5 For ordinary working people 'China' was all right in its place. In this melee Jones's doors and windows were broken, and policemen and prostitutes attacked. Reports of mob rule, forms of ceffyl pren, wife-sales, and the like, are, however, rare after 1848, which may indicate that in the field of morality, as in industrial relations and politics, community law was being replaced by new patterns of behaviour and a greater acquiescence in formal procedures. By the 1860s and 1870s there was a general, almost unstated assumption that Merthyr, once the frontier town of the industrial revolution, was becoming a more settled and peaceful community. As far as serious disorder is concerned, one has

°

112

The conquering of 'China'

the impression that here, as in Oldham and parts of the Black Country, the mid 1840s marked a significant turning-point. In 1848 the threat of a Chartist rising or General Strike seems to have been much exaggerated. Crimes of drunkenness, assault and larceny were still common, but the world of 'China' and industrial violence, of sabotage and mob law figures less prominently in the writings of newspaper editors and speeches of urban leaders. One can perhaps compare this transformation with that in towns like Derby and Nottingham, and like them it was both a reflection of certain economic and urban developments and the result of a conscious political and social process. Ironically Merthyr became a town in the full sense as its prosperity was diminishing. In the 1860s it acquired a town hall, extensive gas lighting, and a proper water and sewerage system. There was, too, in the mid-Victorian period, a greater concern with the environment; regulations regarding overcrowding were tightened, houses in districts like Troedyrhiw were improved, and High Street shops were embellished. In institutional terms, the Merthyr middle class developed a wide range of organisations andl propaganda agencies, whilst the working class formed new political and union societies. Even in 'China', political leaders of some permanence were beginning to emerge. Set against this, however, was the fact that regions like Aberdare and the Rhondda valleys were gradually supplanting Merthyr; the frightening debacles at Dowlais and Penydarren, and the sudden surges of emigration from the town indicated the direction of the economic wind. Population growth fell away sharply in the years 1851-71. Significantly, Aberdare, one of her closest rivals, now appears to have taken on many of Merthyr 's old criminals and criminal problems. In the 1870s coal stealing, violent assault and prostitute crimes were common in Aberdare . :l Within the town there was a strong feeling that the economic ills had rather less to do with the favourable changes in criminal behaviour than the good sense of its authorities. Policing in Merthyr had improved markedly by the 1860s, under the initial enthusiasm of Captain Napier, and the immediate supervision of Sergeant Wrenn, promoted to Superintendent in 1846. Policemen in Merthyr exaggerated their impact on crime; for much of this period the ratio of officers to population meant that they were fully stretched. In the early days they were obliged to concentrate on public order crimes. Indeed this was the mandate given to the force when it was established; and the high level of crimes of violence, assault - often on policemen - and disorderly conduct in the town possibll reflected their attempt to set new standards of public order. 5 In the early 1840s the police kept a close watch on seditious activities, industrial unrest, and the more exuberant forms of working-class recreation. Throughout these years one can see them moving into some districts for the first time, often in the face of considerable intimidation. They closed down sleazy beer houses,

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arrested suspicious characters, and insisted on better behaviour in the streets. In 1846-8 Wrenn and Constable Thomas Vigors carried out their own private war in 'China', and won the admiration of middle-class residents and the press. Their work was supported by magistrates like T. W. Hill and H .A. Bruce. By the 1850s the supremacy of the Queen's writ over other forms of law had been established in the town, and the proportion of convictions to discharges in crimes like drunkenness had increased significantly. Magistrates were not always in agreement over judicial policy, especially in relation to coal stealing, but ,.. hen they were, and the law allowed them discretion, they could be ruthless in their efforts to stamp out certain forms of behaviour. 53 Thus, in 1846-8 stealing from the person in 'China' was punished more severely than any other crime, and, from time to time, harsh penalties were imposed on juvenile thieves and 'low publicans'. The same magistrates occasionally joined the middle-class elite of the town in an effort to reform possible or actual criminals through the application of self-help and sobriety 'the only remedy for distress' ( T. Stephens, chemist). 54 Three groups in particular excited their interest: children, prostitutes and drunkards. One feature of the social climate from the mid 1840s to the 1860s was a demand for better education for working people. Here alarmists like the vicar of Aberdare and proud workmen were at one with middle-class reformers. Under the auspices of the Anglicans, the nonconformists and ironmasters, new schools were rapidly established in some of the most deprived areas of the town, and complementing these were a plethora of Sunday Schools, young men's Christian societies and winter night schools for adults. During the late 1850s and 1860s it appears that many of the poorest Irish children entered the formal education system for the first time. Indeed, there was a deliberate policy, vigorously encouraged by the 'Merthyr Guardian', to provide a minimum schooling for street urchins and young criminals. After several delays a Reformatory School was built at Neath in 1857, and most young boys were sent there after their first or second offence. In the next decade Merthyr's magistrates tried hard to involve the parents of such children, both financially and otherwise, in this work of reformation. For a variety of reasons, a delighted assize judge in 1859 exaggerated the contemporary fall in the number of juvenile offenders, but Bruce and others claimed that the continued rise in the age structure of criminals confirmed the success of the above policy. There was less conviction over the treatment of prostitutes and drunkards. In 1860 the Reverend J. Griffiths admitted that, 'horrible to say', Merthyr's prostitutes often refused to be reformed. 55 He was speaking at the end of more than six months' Anglican endeavour in 'China' and Caedraw. Their campaign was the latest in a line of missionary exercises dating from the Wesleyan Methodist 'China' meetings of 1843. The

114

The conquering of 'China'

prostitute was, of course, a classic New Testament target, and religious reformers bombarded her with prayers, visits and public meetings. Some women were persuaded to leave the depraved districts, or alternatively, to marry their latest lover. Others were found jobs, placed in the workhouse or sent to religious homes. The setting up of a House of Refuge for Distressed Women at Llandaff in 1862 was the climax of this evangelical effort. Some of Merthyr's prostitutes were sent there, and quickly established a reputation for being ungrateful and rebellious. Hard-headed businessmen in the iron town had long suspected this, and kept their charity for better purposes. Temperance reform seems to have attracted wider support in the Merthyr community; by the 1860s there were a large number of local and branch temperance and total abstinence societies. From the early days of the movement, thirty years previously, temperance had been closely attached to the chapels. The Independents and Wesley.ans, who elected the famous lecturer Robin Ddu to the Zoar ministry in 1860, were particularly active here, and chapel temperance meetings in Pontmorlais and Dowlais during the early 1840s were very large indeed, but enthusiasm was always difficult to sustain. In the mid 1850s the movement received a further boost as liberal tradesmen and employers put greater weight behind it; the activities of Bands of Hope and Catholic temperance groups were now strengthened by the formation of temperance recreation groups and the building of a bigger and better temperance hall. Temperance reform in the town was also associated with the various campaigns mounted by the Merthyr magistrates against drunkenness, not least because some of the police authorities regarded the penalties for this crime as both inadequate and ineffective. Significantly, perhaps the largest petitions from Merthyr in the postChartist period were those of the early 1860s calling for greater local control and action over the licensing laws. It is important to realise that temperance reform was only one item of a general programme to change the 'habits and ... indulgences' of the working class. Behind this formidable cultural ambition was a small and dedicated group of people, composed of religious leaders like the Reverend R. J. Campbell and a larger number of professional and business men. Amongst the latter were the chemist Thomas Stephens, magistrates J. C . Fowler and H .A. Bruce, the radical James family, Morgan Williams, the Chartist, and the Guests. These cultural missionaries established a complex network of institutions to promote their ideas and spent many hours lecturing to the 'better class workmen'. At meeting after meeting they advised working people to improve their personal hygiene, appearance and discipline and to throw away traditional recreational and drinking practices. Attacks on the extravagances of fairs, races, friendly societies and weekend relaxation flowed freely from the pulpit and lecture hall after the mid 1840s, complementing the police action described above. It is virtually impossible to discover whether

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this propaganda had the tacit approval of some members of the working class or whether it seriously influenced others to any marked degree. However, by 1857 the 'Merthyr Guardian' felt confident enough to say that the 'brutal and brutalizing pastimes of our ancestors are now gone, never to return; and the Puritanical fanaticism which discountenanced them is now happily relaxing its vigour'. 56 The second part of the quotation hints at the other aspect of this cultural campaign, namely the provision of alternative leisure interests and organisations. Here the years 1845-7 and 1856-8 were enormously productive. In the first period chapels and works began to organise mass tea parties, picnics, fetes and excursions, and by the late 1850s hundreds of workmen were travelling as far afield as Fishguard on annual trips. These pleasures can be compared in spirit and purpose with new sports like works' cricket and organised athletics, football, and fireworks displays. For the 'better class of workmen', the apple of the improver's eye, there were also eisteddfodau and shows of every kind. Running through all this was the sound of music, which the Merthyr progressives and Lady Guest regarded highly as a civilising influence. Brass bands and choirs, attached to works, chapel and temperance societies, dancing classes and Saturday-night concerts became by the mid 1850s part of the new model way of life in Merthyr, and helped to transform traditional celebrations. Libraries, lectures and winter discussion groups completed the picture. Most of these activities were organised by the same group of people through organisations like the Library Association, the Temperance Recreation Association, and the Early Closing Association. Amongst their chief targets were the young. During the years 1840-60 there was a small explosion of Young Men's Improvement Societies, Young Men's Christian Societies, Juvenile rifle corps, and the like. Not all of these organisations were successful, but an examination of them highlights many of the interesting strands in the cultural and recreational activities of the period: the concern to occupy usefully the increasing leisure time of young labourers, the wish to instil discipline, order and respectable behaviour into the consciousness of Merthyr's workmen, the need to inculcate respect for the works, the church, their 'betters' and the Queen, and the realisation of the importance of closer class involvement and harmony. When, early in 184 7, Richard Crawshay allowed miners into the Cyfarthfa Castle Ball, in stockinged feet, the 'Merthyr Guardian' could begin to breathe again. In the 1860s relief gave way to pride. Already in 1850 the 'Morning Chronicle' observer had noted an improvement in the 'human condition' of the town. Cc;>mparing his impressions with those on a visit a dozen years previously, he now regarded the workmen as more disciplined, temperate, peaceful and educated. 57 Bruce, in his lectures over the next few years, began to measure the change and congratulated the rulers of

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The conquering of 'China'

the town for having 'a wiser and more humane policy'. The 'Merthyr Guardian' of the 1860s claimed that 'habits' had improved, that prostitution was on the wane, that certain parts of the town had become noticeably quieter, and that the general propensity to commit crime had diminished. 58 So far as one can tell, these comments reflected reality rather than simply a change in sensitivity. Of course, as indicated earlier, it was by no means a complete victory; in the worst districts there were signs of indifference or even opposition to the conservative cultural forces beating down on workmen elsewhere, whilst crime and violence were changing in character and being redirected both within Merthyr and over industrial South Wales. Still, the world of 1868 was different from that of 1831; Merthyr was no longer quite the 'Vision of hell', the 'cauldron of crime and revolution'. In truth, 'China' had not been conquered, but the confidence of the 'Merthyr Guardian' was not entirely misplaced. 59

5 CRIME IN LONDON: the evidence of the Metropolitan Police, 1831-92

Much of the recent work on the history of crime has been concerned with London and the adjoining counties. This is hardly surprising, for the English capital was the largest city in the world and its response to crime, particularly the appointment of stipendiary magistrates and the establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829, was envied and copied in many countries. The Metropolitan Police had the task of preventing and detecting crime outside the old City boundaries. Their District was extended in the winter of 1839-40 to cover a radius of fifteen miles from Charing Cross, and an area of some 688 square miles. The population of the District grew from 1, 523,875 in 1831 to 5,810,759 in 1892, and the number of police similarly increased from some 3, 000 to 15,000. Every year the Metropolitan Police produced their own returns of crime and criminals in the District, and these are deposited in the Library of New Scotland Yard. They are one of the best and most consistent sources for the history of urban crime, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, and yet historians have strangely ignored them. For example, David Peirce in his recent important study of London crime since 1800 relied on the returns of committals to trial and convictions in the county of Middlesex and, for the period after 1856, on the Judicial Statistics in the Parliamentary Papers. He claims, incorrectly, that the 'only offence of any kind for which statistics are available throughout this history of the M.P. D .... is drunkenness'. 1 The Metropolitan Police Criminal Returns (MPCR) provide us with much more than this. They grew in size from six tables in 1831 to twenty-two in 1848, and they began to contract somewhat after 1887. Throughout these years detailed lists were made of the number and offence of persons taken into custody, discharged by police magistrate, summarily convicted, and committed for trial. As the years went by, more information was given on sentencing, the character of the offenders, the number and cost of known felonies, the number of suicides committed and prevented, and a host of other matters. Those returns which bore testimony to the growing duties of the police included the number of persons reported lost and missing, the number of fires reported and dealt with by the police, and returns under the Common Lodging Houses and Smoke Nuisances Acts. These police returns must be regarded with respect and care.

117

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Crime in London

First, they are subject to the deficiencies of all criminal records. The number of persons taken into custody is considerably smaller than the number of offences known and unknown. From other sources it is clear that in the case of indictable offences, for example, apprehensions in mid-Victorian London were only a third of known crimes, though a police list of thirty-five 'principal offences' committed against persons and property later in the century reveals a proportion of twice that figure. 2 The table of felonies affecting property in the MPCR also shows that the number of persons apprehended rose from 48. 2 per cent of known offences in 1866 to 69.2 per cent in 1892. As this table indicates, the proportion was especially low in the case of certain crimes like fraud and breaking into property, though police chiefs rightly argued that one burglar taken into custody represented several known offences.~ There are also in the MPCR common technical problems over the definition and classification of offences, notably with regard to drunkenness, larceny, housebreaking and burglary. 4 Basic rate: per 100.000 of population

L-~~--L-l__L~--L--L~--~-~--L-

183035 40

45 50

55 60 65 70

75 80

85 90

Number of persons summoned by police officers for offences by public-house and other proprietors, by stage and hackney carnages, etc., for miscellaneous offences. and lor offences under Smoke Nu1sance and Common Lodging-houses Acts ---- Number of summonses applied tor to magistrates by private individuals and served by the Metropolitan Police

Figure 5.1 Second, the returns of persons taken into custody and subsequently released or sent to court are not a complete record of the people charged with a criminal offence. Compared with the Judicial Slatistics in the Parliamentary Papers there is a shortfall in the MPCR figures of one-fifth in 1860 and two-fifths in 1892. The major reason for this is self-evident; not all criminals were taken into custody, a circumstance which becomes more prevalent in later years as new statutes were passed covering everything from smoke nuisance to education. From 1839 onwards the MPCR include lists of the persons summoned by the police

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for some of these offences, and the number of these rose from 1, 550 in 1838 to 10,604 in 1866. In the following year the number of summonses applied for to magistrates by private individuals and served by the police were added to the table, and here the increase was from 39,621 in 1867 to 85, 024 in 1892. The rates per head of population are given in Figure 5. 1. As an example of the extent of the practice of serving summonses, it is interesting to note that in 1891 some 18,000 persons were required to appear before the courts for breaches of the Elementary Education Act. In the case, however, of drunkenness, offences against the Vagrancy Act, and many crimes against property and the person, the figures in the Judicial Statistics and in the MPCR are reasonably close. 5 To sum up, in the area of traditional criminal behaviour, the returns at the New Scotland Yard are a rare and useful source for the social historian.

Basic rate: per 100,000 of population

........... ",...._\

'\ \

~----,/-~,

'~­

',-

...._...... Felonies affecting property - - Persons taken into custody ---- Persons committed for trial or bailed to appear at Sessions (rate x 1 0)

Figure 5.2 It is my intention in this chapter to make some preliminary observations on the crime rate in London, the nature of criminal activity, the character of offenders and the administration of the legal code. Figure 5. 2, compiled from the MPCR, confirms the impressions given by both contemporaries and historians of a declining crime rate. In the early years of the force, police zeal, a heightened interest in working-class delinquency and good documentation all contributed in part to the high figures. It seems probable, however, that the falling rates reflected a

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Crime in London

real reduction in criminal behaviour, though it is worth noting the differences in the indices of decline. The slowest decline may well have been in the actual number of reported offences. From information provided of persons taken into custody we are also able to calculate the rates of decline across the sexes and different age groups. These variations will be discussed later. Looked at in a wider perspective the crime rate in the capital appears to have risen considerably in the early nineteenth century, notably in the post-war years, and reached peaks during the periods of Chart ism and the first and second Reform crises. Thereafter, the rate fell until the 1930s. 6 We noted above that the actual decline in crime rates in the MPCR is exaggerated in the later years when the returns excluded large numbers of technical offences, but contemporaries were nevertheless delighted by the evidence before them. This is Dr W.C. Taylor, writing as early as 1839: 7 That crime has thus proportionately decreased is undeniable. There never was a period when persons and property were more secure in England. Who now sleeps with pistols beneath his pillow or hangs a blunderbuss within reach of his bolster? How many Londoners deem it necessary to spend a mortal half hour every night in bolting, barring, and chaining doors and windows? Forty-three years later the Director of Criminal Investigation echoed these sentiments: 'A comparison of the statistics, which are prepared by an independent service with a scrupulous regard to accuracy, with those of foreign cities, shows that the Metropolis of London ... is the safest capital for life and property in the world. '8 Reports of the Commissioners of Police contained similar boasts, and they pointed out that increases in the total crime rate in years such as 1872 and 1875-6 often reflected little more than a rise in the figures for drunkenness and disorderly behaviour. Clearly, therefore, London was an early and outstanding example of the rise and the decline in urban crime rates which was to characterise the social development of nineteenth-century Europe and America. 9 On the nature of criminal activity in the British Metropolis, the MPCR are an incomplete but fascinating source. Over the sixty years covered by them some two-thirds of the persons taken into custody each year were charged with the offences of drunkenness, larceny and assault. Most of the remainder were apprehended for being disorderly characters, vagrants, suspicious characters and disorderly prostitutes, for being in unlawful possession of goods, and causing wilful damage. The proportion of crimes in these categories did not change greatly over the period, though, as we noted earlier, offences such as those under Education and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Acts did make up an increasing share of the total London crime

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figure. In the view of Edwin Chadwick and A.C. Hall, this reflected the changing role of the police and the march of civilisation in Britain . 10 During these years considerably fewer people were taken into custody for offences against the person than for offences against property. The difference varied from one-third to twothirds. A ratio based on these figures suggests that the level of violence in the capital relative to property crimes was higher in the second half of the century (see Figure 5. 3). One can compare this with Howard Zehr's findings on the theft-violence ratio in urban districts of France and Germany, and David Philips's work on the Black Country . 11 It seems that the ratio in London was considerably different from that in new urban and industrial centres. Even so, it is worth stressing that crimes of violence in the capital were less than 25 per cent of the total crime figure, and they were on the decline. In 1831 378 persons per 100,000 were taken into custody for murder, manslau~ter, assault, etc. , whilst sixty years later the rate was 216. Basic rate: per 100,000 of population

1830 35 40

45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90

- - Persons taken 1nto custody for offences against the person ~

Theft-violence ratio

---- Persons committed to trial or bailed to appear at Sessions for offences against the person (rate x 1 00) • Persons taken into custody for common and, after 1886, indecent assault (rate x 1 0)

Figure 5.3 Let us look at the character and incidence of crimes of violence in a little more detail. Eighteenth-century London had a reputation for being a violent city, and the available statistics indicate that the level of assaults was particularly high in the second, third and sixth decades, and at the every end of that

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Crime in London

century . 13 In our period the police rate of crimes of violence falls into two halves, with the mid 1860s being a distinct turningpoint (Figure 5.3). The level of arrests for common and indecent assault was especially high in the 1830s, though the rate of persons committed for more serious offences also reached sharp peaks in the years 1844--8 and 1864-5. 14 This statistical evidence provides some support for the optimism of the late 1830s, and certainly for police chiefs' comments on the quieter streets and improved conduct of the population in the last decades of the century. At the same time, they help to explain the popular fear of a rising tide of serious violence in the 1840s and 1860s, and they form an interesting background to the passing of the Garotters' Act of 1863. In 1862 an outbreak of violent street robberies produced an extraordinary wave of parliamentary and newspaper anger. What is perhaps impossible to discover is whether such anxiety was the result or cause of an increase in police activity and criminal behaviour. From the graph it seems that the greatest increase in committals at the higher courts actually followed the passing of Adderley's Act of 1863. Much of the violence in the capital city consisted of attacks in such districts as Clerkenwell, Covent Garden, St George's and Stepney by the unemployed, labourers, sailors, carpenters and tailors on fellow workmen, drinkers and family. Up to half of those arrested were in their twenties. The incidence of violent death was, however, always low in the Metropolis, especially in the second half of the century. On average only fifteen persons per year were apprehended on a murder charge and only forty-nine for manslaughter. Typical cases were those in Stepney in 1873, when a man killed two children in a fit of depression, and a drunken brawl between two gangs of youths which ended in a stabbing. Women were perhaps the most vulnerable group in the capital; in the police reports alone there are scores of references to common-law and married wives seriously injured or murdered in the dockland areas. 15 The comparative figure of arrests for attempted suicide was 295 per year, though of course the actual level of this particular offence was much higher. So far as was known to the police the number of suicides attempted and committed rose from 504 in 1864 to 1, 079 in 1892. In this period policemen were specially detailed to prevent suicides from the banks and bridges of the Thames, but in 1876, for example, 101 bodies were still removed from the river. Probably the most hidden form of violence, however, was infanticide. Several superintendents claimed that it was an everyday occurrence and yet, in spite of rewards for information, 'not one case in a thousand comes to light'. In 1877 the head of Hampstead police division stated, without additional comment, that sixty-nine dead bodies had been given in charge to his men during the previous year, the majority of which had been those of infants newly born. The famous trial a few years earlier of Margaret Waters, Sarah Ellis and Mary

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Hall for allowing children in their charge to expire only highlighted the worst aspects of child care in the nineteenth century . 16 Two interesting elements of the story of public violence were rioting and attacks on the police. Significantly, one of the main reasons for the acceptance of Peel's Police Act of 1829 was the growing fear of political disaffection and mob rule. The years 1831-2, 1839-40, 1842, 1844-50, 1854-5, 1860-2, 1864, 1868, 1876, 1882-9, and 1891-2 saw the highest number of persons taken into custody on a charge of riot. Many of these periods coincided, as we shall see later, with general outbreaks of political and economic agitation, but there were other kinds of disorder, like the anti-police riots of the 1830s and 1840s, the pro-Sunday trading demonstrations of 1855 and the 1870s, and the popular attacks on the Salvation Army during the 1880s. The Reverend Henry Solly was one of those who held an abiding fear of London mobs, but from an investigation of Home Office papers and police reports it appears that on only a few occasions were the forces of law and order dangerously stretched. By the mid- Victorian years there was a growing belief that a London crowd 'would immediately break up before the determined attack of a band of well-trained men who know and have confidence in each other' . 17 The police were, however, subjected to constant assaults by the public. In 1882, for instance, 3, 581 persons were arrested for such attacks, and a large number of these lived in the Stepney and Fins bury police divisions. The following report came from the latter division: At 11.45 p.m., 28 July, Police Constable 318 went to quell a disturbance at Chequer Alley, St Luke, when he was struck in the face by a woman, whom he apprehended, but upon doing so he was assaulted by a number of roughs, one of whom took his truncheon from the case, struck him on the head with it, and threw it on the ground. The Police Constable picked up his truncheon, when it was immediately wrested from him by a man, who struck him on the head with it and knocked him down, and whilst he was on the ground, struck him on the mouth, knocking out four of his teeth and loosening several others. Police Constable 143 came to the assistance of Police Constable 318, when he immediately received a blow behind the ear which rendered him insensible, and both Constables were taken to Old Street Station in a state of unconsciousness. On the 1st of August a Detective Police Constable apprehended a man, who was identified by private persons as the assailant; he was tried at Middlesex Sessions 28th August, and sentenced to 5 years penal servitude. The Police Constables were sick 54 days and 68 days respectively. Both Police Constables were presented by Sir Thomas Henry with a cheque for £7 from the Bond Street Police Court Reward Fund.

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Crime in London

Arrests for assaults on the police fall into two distinct halves: a high plateau until the mid 1860s, with high peaks in 1840, 1846, 1851 and 1857, and a lower one thereafter, with two smaller peaks in 1872 and 1881. In a police report for 1872 it was estimated that each Metropolitan officer was injured once every two years, whilst in the early 1880s anger at the death of two policemen and the growing use of firearms by burglars in the suburbs prompted the authorities to double patrols in exposed districts and to issue pistols to those night policemen that requested them. In the last third of our period, when the rate of attacks was at its lowest, Commissioners of Police believed that two reasons for the improvement were the threat of more severe punishments and the growing effectiveness of the Licensing Act of 1872. 18 Perhaps, too, it reflected the emergence of 'a fragile toleration' (to quote Wilbur Miller) of policemen by the working class. Crimes against property were, so far as one can tell, more common than crimes against the person, the former comprising up to a third of the total figure of persons taken into custody. As other writers have pointed out, the statistics of property offences must be used with great care, for legislation in 1847, 1850, 1855 and 1879 removed a large number of these offences from higher to lower courts . 19 This helps to explain the sharp drop after the high peaks of 1847 and 1854 of persons committed for trial or bailed to appear at sessions for serious offences. Another factor which affected the statistics was the decision in 1880 to enter in the returns all 'petty articles described by the losers as lost or stolen' as 'petty larcenies'. Even so, the tables in the MPCR leave us in no doubt as to the general movement of property crimes. Recorded incidents of felonies affecting property fell from 57 5 per 100, 000 of the population in 1843 (the first year of these statistics in the MPCR) to 331 in 1892, with an exceptional rise in the late 1860s which was probably due both to an increase in criminal behaviour and to greater sensitivity and better reporting on the part of the public and police. The value of the property stolen during these years rose from £28,284 to £139,018, a minute fraction of London's wealth and further proof of the petty nature of nineteenth-century crime. 20 In the case of persons taken into custody for these offences, especially larceny, the rate of decline from the high level of the 1830s was even more marked (Figure 5. 4). The only significant but small reversals in later decades were in the late 1860s and early 1880s. The chief property crimes included larceny, burglary, breaking into houses, shops and warehouses, robbery, animal stealing, embezzlement, forgery and fraud. Larceny was by far the largest category, and the most common forms were larceny from shops, stalls, and vehicles, from houses (especially by lodgers and servants), and from the person. Some districts were notorious for the number of such crimes

Crime in London

125

Basic rate: per 100,000 of the population

- - Persons taken into custody tor offences against property ~ Persons comm1tted for trial or bailed to appear at Sessions for

offences against property without violence (rate x 1O) Persons taken into custody for larceny from the person (rate x 1 0)

Figure 5.4 that came to the attention of the police. One commentary on the figures of 1836 and 1837 ran thus : 21 Highway robberies, burglaries, house and shop-breaking, occur most frequently in the suburbs, as in Whitechapel, Southwark, Lambeth, Mile End, and Poplar. Larcenies in a dwelling house were most numerous in Whitechapel in 1837, and in the Borough in 1836. Larcenies from the person occurred most frequently in Covent Garden during the former year, and in Shadwell during the latter, which may be accounted for by the number of prostitutes haunting these two districts. Over the years, as London grew and changed, so other patterns emerged. By the last decades of the century garden robberies were a feature of Islington district, horse and sheep stealing were common in Hampstead, and robberies from the person and from carriages occupied much of the attention of police and detectives in St James's. In Marylebone police division most of the larcenies were committed by servants, lodgers and workmen. 'For instance, ' explained George Draper in 187 4, 22 a clerk absconded from Sir Samuel Scott's bank, stealing £1,500; £200 worth of plate &c was carried away from 7, Sussex Place, either by servants or workmen, during the

126

Crime in London

absence of the family; and a servant absconded from 10 Southwick Crescent, stealing plate to the value of £250. These are items which swell the total to an unpleasant amount, while larcenies by lodgers are almost innumerable. From the MPCR it was clear that larcenies were par excellence the crime of juveniles, and, to a lesser extent, of adult labourers, laundresses, milliners and the unemployed generally. When the rates of property offences were high or rising, much of the blame for this was placed, sometimes literally, at the door of the victims. In 1880, when almost 24,000 felonies were recorded, well over 2, 000 of them involved the 'indefensible practice of exposing goods for sale without any effectual watch over them'. 'People of the lower order may walk along the streets with no particular intention to steal anything,' said Superintendent Eccles, 'but seeing boots, linen-drapery provisions, &c openly exposed, with no one looking after them, every inducement and fadlity are offered to steal the goods and get away. '23 Like many other policemen he was afraid that such practices contributed greatly to juvenile delinquency, and made the task of detection and identification almost impossible. There was annoyance, too, at the ease with which stolen goods could be disposed of in the two hundred or so 'flash houses' of the capital, and at the comparative immunity of receivers such as William Simpson, alias Miles Ambler. Eventually, however, it was claimed that police cautions and legislation like the Prevention of Crimes Act of 1871 helped to minimise these difficulties. 24 Three other kinds of property crime deserve special notice. The first of these was larceny from the person, a typical urban crime and one which Charles Dickens immortalised. The rate of persons taken into custody for this crime differed somewhat from that of common or simple theft, with mountainous peaks in 1833 and 1838, a high plateau from 1846 to 1856 and a dramatic decline after 1868 to a very low level indeed. This crime was often carried out by hungry juveniles, prostitutes and their 'bullies' in the Holborn and St James's divisions, and the victims were rich shoppers, respectable churchgoers and drunken males. The impression given by the Select Committee's report of 1834 was that street robberies of all kinds had been even higher in the years before the establishment of the Metropolitan Police, and certainly one of the reasons for the improvement in the 1870s was the combined operations of police and detectives in the most notorious districts . 25 Another class of crimes which caused periodic concern were called 'offences against property with violence'. These offences, burglary, breaking into property, robbery and sacrilege, were usually dealt with at the higher courts. Figure 5. 5 shows that the rate of persons taken into custody for these crimes differed from that of non-violent property crimes. The rate in 1892 was very similar to what it had been in 1831. The rise in later

Crime in London

127

decades, which runs counter to the general pattern, is especially pronounced in the case of burglary and breaking into property during the daylight hours. This does not simply reflect better policing because the known incidence of these offences was also high for much of the 1880s and 1890s. Perhaps, in view of the strengthening of the detective force, people were now more ready to report such crimes. 26 One contributory factor, noted in the police reports of 1879 and 1880, was the reclassification of what constituted burglary, house-breaking and serious larceny. 27 Bas1c rate: per 1 00.000 of populat1on

1 830 35 40 45 50 55 60 65

70

75 80

85 90

- - Persons taken mto custody for offences aga1nst property comm1tted with v1olence ~ Felomes committed: burglary and break1ng into property Persons taken mto custody for embezzlement. forgery and fraud (rate x 1 00) -- - Felon1es comm1tted: embezzlement. forgery and fraud

~--•

Figure 5. 5 The authorities, however, put more emphasis on the increased opportunities for these robberies, whether they were from warehouses and jewellery shops in the centre or from big houses on the fringes of the capital. 'The miles of suburban streets which exist are most difficult to guard with the small number of men at our disposal,' wrote the Superintendent of Islington division, 'whilst the inhabitants appear to be less careful than in more densely populated neighbourhoods.' Half of these crimes were effected through open windows and doors, or from houses left unattended and unoccupied for long periods. Sunday evening was always a popular time for larcenies from houses. In 1873 Joseph Dunlap noted 886 cases of 'neglect' in his (St James's) division. 'In each of these cases larcenies might have taken place had it not been for the vigilance displayed by the

128

Crime in London

men on duty.' 'In some of the cases', he continued, 'the discovery was accepted with thanks, in others with a grumble at being disturbed, and some positively refused to get up either to examine the premises or secure them.' Police warning notices were regularly dropped through the letterboxes of householders, and night patrols of detective officers were instituted in the 1870s, but the high summer and winter months still witnessed a rash of burglaries and, as we have seen, these were increasingly carried out by armed men. 28 By this time the police had become convinced that a large proportion of these offences were the work of a few highly professional criminals who regarded the law and shorter sentences with contempt. 'At no former period were the means in operation to secure the "identification" of criminals so thorough or so successful,' wrote the Commissioner in 1892, 'but short sentences even of penal servitude fail to deter hardened criminals. '29 In 1878 detectives managed to secure the arrest of a gang who had 'infested' South London for two years, and thirteen years later the City Road burglars were convicted of eighty--six separate charges of housebreaking and burglary. 30 A third class of property crimes which attracted some attention at the turn of the century was embezzlement, fraud and forgery crimes usually committed by clerks and tradesmen. In this class, as one might expect, there was a marked difference between the rate of known offences and the number of people taken into custody (see Figure 5. 5). Whereas the former was consistently high in the later 1860s, 1870s and 1880s, the latter was at its peak in the 18aOs. This statistical analysis, which reflected in some degree shifts in sensitivity and perception, does not fully bear out the claims made by two historians. David Peirce claims that there is 'no pronounced decline evident in the indicators of ... these offences until after 1870'. And Ms Sindall argues in a recent thesis that the rate of decline for such 'middle-class crimes' in later nineteenth-century Britain was not as severe as that of working-class property offences. The police records in this period refer frequently to frauds committed by sham Loan Societies, unscrupulous advertisers and company secretaries. The losses were considerable; in 1884, for example, embezzlement and fraud accounted for at least 20 per cent (£21,774) of property stolen in the Metropolitan Police District. 'Crime of the footpath stamp is passing away, the little remaining being but the remnant, it may be assumed, of ignorance,' wrote JamE~s Thompson, one of the most perceptive of police officers in 1884. 'The education laws are beginning to make themselves :felt now, and I strongly incline to the view that rapidly will coarse crime diminish, making room, no doubt, for the more refined offenders, misusing their education and turning to fraud, forgery and endless schemes of dishonesty. ' 31 To sum up at this point, it appears from the above evidence that , with the exceptions of only a few serious property crimes,

Crime in London

129

the Commissioner of Police was justified when he argued that 'there was greater security for the person and property in the Metropolis during 1890 than in any previous year included in the Statistical Returns'. One group of offences which did receive considerable publicity in mid- and late-Victorian London were those labelled 'crimes of morality' - sexual crimes, bastardy, prostitution, drunkenness, vagrancy, gambling, etc. Figure 5. 6 shows the similarity in the rate of many of these offences, namely a very sharp fall from the peak of the 1830s and a much more gradual decline thereafter. This trend, which was at variance with the major indicators of crimes against person and property, confused many contemporaries. Their anxiety at the apparent stability of these 'moral statistics' was increased by the upward shifts (see Figure 5. 6) during the last thirty-five years of the century. Basic rate: per 100,000 of the population

1 B30 35 40

45

50

55

- - Vagrants taken into custody ~

Disorderly prostitutes taken into custody (rate x 1 0)

---- Persons taken into custody for being drunk and disorderly - - Persons taken into custody for sex crimes, indecent assault and exposing the person

Figure 5.6 In this section we shall be examining the special problems of drink, prostitution and vagrancy. In parts of London, notably Stepney, Finsbury and Whitechapel, public-houses and beerhouses were thick on the ground, and in some parishes like St George's East there were complaints of long weekends of drink, music, dancing and brawling. Apprehensions for drunkenness and disorderly conduct always accounted for a third or more of total arrests, and were regularly blamed for important

130

Crime in London

fluctuations in the general crime rate. Those arrested were usually described as labourers, sailors, tailors, carpenters, clerks, laundresses, milliners and servants in their twenties and thirties and, contrary to some impressions, as many appeared before the courts in winter as in summer months. Figure 5. 6, showing those taken into custody for this crime, reveals a high rate in the 1830s, prior to the appointment of Sir Frederick Roe as chief magistrate of Bow Street and changes in the procedure of arrests, and smaller rises in the mid 1840s, early 1850s and 1870s. In the early 1870s drunkenness in the capital was described as 'a sort of epidemic'. At such times there was much discussion of the effects of prosperity and workingclass standards of behaviour, but in 1876 the Commissioner of Police offered a more detached analysis. He claimed that very little reliance could be placed on the statistics prior to 1843, and he found no evidence in subsequent years of a great increase in debauchery amongst London's prostitutes. Rather, the figures reflected recent legislation, notably the Licensing Acts of 1872 and 1876 and greater police activity. Similarly, at a later date, a decline in the number of arrests was attributed to greater regulation of licensed premises and to the new instructions on the method of bringing drunkards to court. Whatever the reason, at the end of the century it was still true that 'the offence for which Londoners were most likely to be arrested, and convicted, was drunkenness'. 32 Unlike drunkenness, prostitution was not an offence. Police estimates of the number of 'fallen women' in the Metropolitan Police District reached as high as 10, 000 in the early Victorian years (a third of some claims), but by the end of the century estimates were nearer half that amount. By occupation many of these prostitutes had been or were servants, needlewomen, laundresses and milliners., and they carried on their profession in the old City, in the doekland areas, and increasingly in the West End and the Paddington-Euston district. The morality of their trade concerned the police less than the problems of order in the streets and stealin!~ from the person. After all, most prostitutes were arrested on charges of disorderly, drunken and indecent behaviour. Even here, however, the police faced considerable difficulties. One officer wrote in 1872: 33 It is a matter of great regret, that these women receive so

much encouragement from gentlemen who resent the slightest interference of police, and the law, in its present state, prevents any independent action of the constables, and demands that the person annoyed shall come forward and substantiate his complaint , which is a public duty few are willing to perform.

The rate of persons taken into custody for being disorderly prostitutes declines sharply from the beginning of our period but there are some intriguing fluctuations. After the sudden

Crime in London

131

drop from the early 1830s to 1847 t-here was a subsequent rise to a peak in 1857, and a smaller recovery after the trough of 1875 to another peak in the mid 1880s. As we shall see later these fluctuations can be partly linked to economic conditions, but those in the second half of the century often reflected the actions of angry ratepayers, anti-vice societies and the police. The unusually low figure of 1875 was attributed by the police to the early closing of public and refreshment houses and to the suppression of night houses in the Haymarket. 34 And the rise of 1883-7 was directly related to the new policy of convicting prostitutes under the Vagrancy Act of 1824 on police evidence alone. From time to time, especially after the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, parish authorities took action against organised prostitution only to see it spring up somewhere else in a somewhat different form. 'This question seems to me a parallel one to the traffic,' said James Thompson in 1887, 'and the action of the police similar - a little more hopeful, perhaps, from the spread of education, and an approaching better condition of existence, possibly amongst the masses.' 35 Vagrancy was another perennial problem, though as the Figure 5. 5 shows, arrests were especially numerous in the early 1830s and, to a lesser extent, in the next fifteen years. During the remainder of the century there was a further rise in the late 1860s and two hiccups in 1883 and 1888-9. Most of these people were apprehended for begging, and the police reports are full of complaints of respectable shoppers being accosted in Regent Street, Bond Street, etc.~ Of the thousands of beggars in the capital, some like blind Mary Crawley and the young criminal Thomas Walker had always lived there. Others were Irish immigrants, ex-sailors and army men, cotton workers from the north and agricultural labourers from the south, casual dock labourers, the sick, the old and the unemployable. As Henry Mayhew tells us, London was the centre of the poor man's 'Grand Tour', which involved hundreds of vagrants leaving the city in the spring and returning in the autumn to its Houses of Refuge and workhouse wards. In 1818 the London Mendicity Society was formed, and it was responsible for the committal of well' over 20,000 beggars over the next forty-nine years. Its work was reinforced during the mid-Victorian years by that of the Charity Organisation Society and a host of new mendicity societies. In addition, the police in this period were given greater supervisory powers over beggars and migrants in their capacity as assistant relieving officers and executors of the Pedlars' Act. In certain years, such as the late 1860s and late 1880s, the police made great efforts to remove beggars, vagrants and prostitutes from the main streets, and this undoubtedly affected the crime rate. In the 1870s officers reported quieter streets and fewer beggars. 'The reign of this fraternity is well nigh over, as instances of mendicity in any flagrant form are comparatively rare', was one such comment. 'This is in my opinion', wrote Robert Walker of No.2 District, 'one of the

132

Crime in London

greater changes observable in the metropolis, and contrasts wonderfully with the sights seen everywhere, East End and West End, of beggary, unblushing and shameless to a degree, that was common in our streets 40 years ago.' 37 Even so complaints of the activities of tramps and beggars still came in from other areas, and the renewed attack on them at the turn of the century indicated that the problem had not disappeared. To conclude this section, the graphs of the major 'morality crimes' suggest an earlier fall in the rates than was evident in regard to offences against persons and property. This could have been caused by a variety of factors, from changes in authority and policing to real changes in public behaviour. The mid and late Victorians were, however, more impressed by the fact that in an age of declining crime rates, so many people (from a third to a half of the total) were apprehended for such offences. It often escaped their notice, though not that of the police, that by enacting new laws against 'anti-social' habits and mounting special campaigns against popular leisure pursuits or betting houses they were helping to re-draw the balance and intent of criminal legislation. 38 The MPCR provide us with some details of the character of criminals, their sex, age, literacy and occupations. The deficiencies of this kind of information are well known, but in the case of London we do have an unusually long run of statistics and fairly consistent categorisation. Over the sixty years covered by the records, twice as many males as females were taken into custody, thou€~h the ratio did vary somewhat, with the highest female component being in the 1850s and early 1830s, and the lowest in the 1880s and 1890s. The most typical female crimes were being drunk and disorderly, being a disorderly prostitute, larceny - simple and from the person, common assault and breaches of the Vagrancy Act. On the ages of offenders, the evidence is especially interesting. From Table 5. 1 it is clear that in later decades the proportion of male offenders over 30 years of age taken into custody did increase considerably. In the 1830s and 1840s there were reports of a score of juvenile gangs in the city, a third of the persons tried and convicted at the higher courts were under 20 years of age, and a considerable proportion 'of relapses occur, or at least are discovered, among juvenile offenders under 20 years of age'. 39 Yet there were fewer very young children taken into custody than some writers and novelists intimated, and my colleague, Mark Pen warden, has calculated that, allowing for changes in the size and the age structure of the population, the proportion of males under 20 years of age who came into police hands fell by as much as 50 per cent between 1841 and 1881. The outstanding aspect of the statistics of the mid century was the number of male arrests in the 15-25 age range. As for females, the trend is more obvious and consistent. In 1837, 46.1 per cent of those taken into custody were under 25 years of age, but

2.5

1.7

2.2

8.5

8.1

10.3

8.0

10.7

9.3

8.4

9.0

7.2

6.6

1847

1852

1857

1862

1867

1872

1877

1882

1887

1892

1.3

1.7

1.5

1.2

2.0

2.7

2.8

2.3

5.0

1842

5.2

f

4.1

m

Under 15 years of age

16.7

17.5

19.3

16.0

16.4

20.0

17.3

20.5

18.1

20.3

20.9

13.2

m

15 years and under 20

6.0

7.2

8.6

7.5

9.7

10.7

12.4

15.9

13.6

15.7

23.4

15.0

f

17.2

17.4

18.6

19.2

18.3

20.5

20.9

20.6

21.8

20.7

22.4

27.3

m

20 years and under 25

13.8

15.6

16.4

15.6

15.9

19.1

21.3

22.2

21.9

22.1

22.2

25.9

f

15.1

15.1

14.7

14.3

13.9

13.8

15.2

14.3

15.1

15.9

16.5

18.4

m

25 years and under 30

Ages of persons taken into custody, in percentages

1837

Year

Table 5.1

18.4

17.7

17.3

16.8

16.6

18.5

17.2

16.7

17.7

19.5

15.0

19.9

f

21.7

21.6

19.1

19.9

19.6

17.5

19.3

17.6

19.6

19.3

17.5

18.2

m

30 years and under 40

29.0

28.0

27.4

27.3

25.2

24.1

23.3

21.9

23.0

21.5

15.9

19.1

f

22.7

21.2

19.4

22.2

22.5

17.5

19.3

16.7

1'/. 2

15.4

17.8

18.8

m

40 years and upwards

31.6

29.8

28.8

31.5

30.6

25.4

24.1

20.7

21.0

18.7

21.2

14.9

f

w w

.....

0. 0 ;:;

;:;

0

t"'

s·

(1)

.... §"

0

134

Crime in London

by 1892 some 59.6 per cent were over 30 years. Unfortunately we do not know the sex of those summoned by the police, but it seems likely that, with the possible exception of the first decades, women turned to crime at a later age than men. We know from o~her research that contemporary information on the literacy and occupations of offenders is inadequate and sometimes inaccurate. There is a marked decline over the years in the number of those who could neither read nor write, 40 but even in 1886, the last year of these returns, 87.6 per cent of males and 90 per cent of females could read and write only imperfectly. The occupational tables are perhaps more difficult to use, for a large share of male and the majority of female offenders were returned as having no trade or occupation. 41 Between one-fifth and two-fifths of males were classified as labourers, and less than half that number were called carpenters, shoemakers, sailors and tailors. Other prominent trades were coach and cabmen, painters, and general and marine store dealers. Of the small number of women with known occupations, the largest and growing ~~roup were laundresses, followed in descending order by servants, milliners, tailoresses and shoemakers. Sadly the tables in the MPCR do not allow us to comment on the concept of a criminal elass, so beloved by contemporaries and described by Dr J .J. Tobias in his two books on nineteenthcentury crime. 42 Many writers believed that crime emanated from an alien, hereditary and organised criminal class. If such a class existed, London was surely its natural home. After the 1830s there is information in the returns on persons recognised as having been in custody more than once for felony. Only a small number fell into this category, and a large and increasing proportion of them had been in custody only twice. A system of inspecting prisoners under remand was instituted by the CID in 1878, and from this it appeared that one in four had previous convictions. Other evidence given by the London police on the number of known thieves, depredators, receivers of stolen property, prostitutes, vagrants and suspicious persons suggests a hard core of some 10,000 criminals in the 1830s, and perhaps less than half that amount a generation later, when fears of violence and new legislation like the Penal Servitude Act of 1864 and the Habitual Criminals Act of 1869 again raised the spectre of a distinct class of delinquents. Such a group was located by the police chiefly in the 'old haunts' of Lambeth, Westminster, Whitechapel, Holborn and Stepney. 43 Unfortunately these police returns are subject to so many qualifications as to render them almost valueless; often they seem to be recording that vague body known as the 'dangerous class(es)' rather than a criminal class as such. 44 Of course, there were professional criminals such as the City Road burglars and some of Henry Mayhew's prostitutes who made a living from illegal gains, but the authorities had not succeeded in creating 'a separate illegality' (to quote Michel Foucault). In this great metropolis of casual

Crime in London

135

labour most convicted offenders who committed the occasional petty crime were little different from the rest of the working population. The police returns and reports also give us some information on the way in which law was administered. From the beginning the cost and neutrality of the law was a matter of debate in the Metropolitan District. A Commons Committee of 1838 stated that the 'statute book is crowded with provisions and penalties for the protection of public and private rights, but they are most expensive and distant, and they involve in their pursuit both a sacrifice of time and money'. 'For this reason,' it continued, 45 the wrongs and injuries of the poor man are too frequently unredressed, and the law being little known to him as the guardian of his property, or the protector of his rights, it becomes associated in his mind with impressions of oppression or revenge. The fact that by 1892 some 85,000 summonses were served by the police on behalf of private individuals suggests that in some respects, at least, the legal system had become more accessible to the public. In the Metropolitan District the law was administered by the Central Criminal Court and by boards of stipendiary magistrates. In 1846 there were eleven such police courts, but it is clear from the correspondence of the time that the number and opening hours of these courts were already inadequate. Much of the pressure for new courts came from Wands worth, Hammersmith and the suburbs which grew so rapidly in the 1880s and 1890s. So far as one can judge, the MPCR give a comprehensive account of the number of people who came within the law and of their subsequent fate. Prior to 1884 the police had to conduct their own cases in court, often without legal or financial assistance, and partly because of this it is possible that they let off some petty offenders with a caution. The London police had considerable discretionary powers, not least to arrest people on suspicion and for obstruction and assault, and there was pressure on them in the early years to be more careful in apprehending possible offenders, notably if they were from a respectable walk of life. Once people were taken into custody, however, Joseph Fletcher tells us that in the Metropolitan Police District , though not in the City, it was the practice to send them all before the magistrates. 46 What happened at this point is documented in great detail. The proportion of those persons taken into custody and then discharged by magistrates fell dramatically from a half in 1831 to a quarter in 18 92. 47 The proportion summarily disposed of, or held to bail, grew from some 45 per cent to 70, whilst the proportion committed for trial did not vary significantly, except for a notable rise in the years 1842-8. All this reflects, to a consider-

136

Crime in London

able extent, the greater reliance on, and expansion of facilities for, summary jurisdiction in our period. Here the Criminal Justice Act of 1855 and the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879 were particularly important. Of those cases summarily disposed of by magistrates in the years prior to 1857, just over half the females and just under half the males were discharged, whilst three-quarters of the persons committed for trial throughout our period were convicted and sentenced. One writer in 1838 was struck by the large number of acquittals for larceny offences. 48 This is chiefly to be attributed to the four following causes: 1st, In cases of robbery by prostitutes, to the parties declining to appear; 2nd, In cases of a trifling nature, to the parties not being willing to prosecute; 3rd, To the friends of the prisoners arranging· with the person robbed; and 4thly In cases of goods exposed, to the magistrates frequently discharging the offenders. By the 1860s the rate of acquittals for those charged with larceny at the higher courts had fallen sharply; policemen were now more careful about whom they arrested and about the presentation of cases in court. Sentencing policy can also be established from the returns. For those summarily convicted the major change was in the treatment of females. Almost half the convicted women in 1839, when these details were first included, were given gaol sentences, whereas in 1892 over two-thirds were fined instead. Most of those fined had committed 'morality offences' or crimes against the person. Other developments in the later nineteenth century worth noting were the greater willingness to recommend whippings, especially for cases of petty stealing, and to send youngsters to reformatory and industrial schools. At the higher courts the sentencing trends are complicated by the ending of transportation and the adoption of penal servitude. There is, however, a significant reduction in the numbers sentenced to death and in the severity of punishment generally. In 1832, 47.2 per cent of convicted males and 41.9 per cent of convicted females were sentenced to death or transportation, whilst sixty years later only 14. 0 and 6. 0 per cent respectively were condemned to death or penal servitude. Correspondingly there was during these years a considerable increase in the proportion of convicted persons sent to gaol, especially for periods exceeding six months. Sentencing poliey did, of course, vary from year to year; some robbers and burglars received harsh treatment in the 1860s and the life sentences imposed on the Muswell Hill housebreakers in 1889 sent a shiver through the underworld. As a footnote, one can add that the poliee in the late Victorian era frequently bemoaned the 'leniency' of the law, not least in relation to robbery and assaults on the police, and were frustrated by the difficulties of administering legislation governing 'immoral' and drunken behaviour. 49

Crime in London

137

In the last paragraphs we intend to move outside the main purpose of the chapter and make some general comparisons. It appears that there were correlations between economic and crime indices. David Peirce, basing his analysis mainly on statistics of indictable crime, makes the following claim: In the period 1820-73, both property offences and crimes against the person tend to be lower when industrial production and real wages were high - and vice versa .... In the second period 1869-1931, there is a dramatic reversal of relationships. When industrial production was high, rates of all types of crime except fraud were significantly higher. The same was true, though to a lesser extent, when real wages were high. There were only slight and insignificant relationships between high unemployment and short-term increases in crime.

1830 35 40 45

50 55

~ Nurnber of pol1cernen per head of populat1on

- - Persons taken into custody for cornrnon or s1rnple larceny Persons taken into custody for riot and unlawful assernbly Average price of bread m London (to 1849) Food prices 1n Brita1n (1850 onwards)

Figure 5. 7 Further, in his examination of the rates of vagrancy and prostitution offences, he states that 'the fluctuations in the London data are not visibly correlated with economic conditions ... nor with the changing intensity of social and political tension'. 50 Yet these claims are not fully substantiated by the statistics in the MPCR. Over the period covered by them there is generally an inverse correlation between real wages and the total number of persons taken into custody. This correlation is not absolute;

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Crime in London

in some police divisions in the 1880s superintendents noted that crime totals were falling despite trade depressions and unemployment. But the relationship is striking when one isolates property offences, and especially the incidence of common or simple larceny in the early and late years of our period. When food prices were high and real wages low, policemen rightly anticipated a high level of these crimes (Figure 5. 7) . 51 Significantly, most offences of petty larceny occurred in the autumn and winter and least in the spring and early summer. The rate of apprehensions for embezzlement, forgery and fraud is less obviously related to the movement of real wages, and in the case of burglary, robbery and other violent attacks on property there is no such correlation. 52 As for the connections which contemporaries drew between drunkenness and attacks on persons, the seasonality of arrests was close, and there were some parallel crests in the two rates before the 1860s. In the same period these rates were often high when real wages were high, but, notably in the case of drunkenness, the subsequent years witnessed a much more varied pattern. Finally, the rate of arrests for being a disorderly prostitute, vagrant or suspicious character increased sharply when unemployment was at its worst and real wages low. If socio-economic conditions provided an interesting background to changes in the crime rate, so also did developments in legislation and policing:. In the 1820s and 1830s the criminal law was recodified and the recording of statistics improved. Later legislation like the Hackney Carriage Act of 1838, the comprehensive Metropolitan Police Act of 1839, the Metropolitan Streets Act of 1867, and the Licensing Act, all had a significant impact on the criminal returns. Moreover, Bills were brought before Parliament which were intended to increase the powers and efficiency of the law and policing, notably in respect of exconvicts, and these were generally welcomed by the Metropolitan Commissioners. They included the Habitual Criminals Act, 1869, the Prevention of Crimes Act of 1871 and the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. As we have seen, changes in the administration of certain laws had a marked effect on the levels of some crime figures. Moral pressure groups, ratepayers' societies, zealous magistrates and policemen undoubtedly influenced the returns under the headings of 'Education Acts', 'Vagrancy', 'Gambling', 'Drunkenness' and 'Disorderly Prostitutes'. In fact, much of London's total crime rate in the late nineteenth century reflected the passing of new legislation for a modern and mechanised urban community and contemporary efforts to regulate conduct and manners. The precise impact of the police on criminal behaviour and crime rates was, and remains, a matter of controversy. 53 London had the first truly professional police force in the world. Founded in 1829, Peel's Metropolitan Police was, despite much criticism, well established by the late 1830s. The size of the force was increased from some 3, 000 in 1831 to 15,000 in 1892, a small

Crime in London

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increase per head of population (Figure 5. 7). The highest ratio of police to population in the mid century was in the divisions of Whitehall, Wandsworth and Westminster and the lowest in Whitechapel and Lambeth. At the same time the heaviest concentration of police per square mile was in StJames's, Holborn, Whitechapel and Finsbury, and the lowest on the perimeters of the capital. 'Where the propertyless and the propertied rubbed elbows' , writes one historian, 'the bobbies were most visible.' The first stations were built on sites 'conveniently situated for Police duties', and 'for the purpose of maintaining the peace in a locality where it was likely to be broken', and the geography of arrests duly reflected this fact. 54 Some of the new stations of the second half of the century were also built in difficult areas; that erected at Notting Dale in the mid 1870s, for instance, was intended to curb the activities of vagrants, gypsies and prostitutes. Yet there was in the siting of stations and policemen some tension in these later years between the two related tasks of supervising the 'dangerous class(es)' and protecting property. Demands for attention rained on the police authorities from the residents of Hampstead or Beckenham, and when they were given extra beats and detectives there were public dinners and subscriptions by way of gratitude. Although there was much debate at the beginning as to whether the new police actually prevented crime, there seems little doubt that they became more orderly and efficient as the years passed. Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne, the first commissioners, were strong disciplinarians and took great interest in the recruitment, marital status, conduct and placing of the men in their force. Administrative reforms were instituted in the 1830s, conditions of ser vice and training improved, and the rate of losses from the force declined significantly after the mid century. At the same time the Metropolitan police in the second half of our period received technical aids like telegraph communications and photography, and developed new methods of supervising 'habitual criminals' and patrolling notorious districts. It is also worth noting the reduction in open hostility to the new police from press, populace, radicals and firemen, the greater middle-class support after the Reform Crisis, and the demands for greater police protection in the later years. On the other hand, police chiefs did have difficulties in recruiting, lodging and keeping the right kind of young men. 'Although the rate of pay is now much greater than formerly,' wrote Superintendent Eccles of Paddington Division in 1876, 55 the service does not appear to be an attractive one to the class of men that is most required, i.e. to men who have received a fair education, and whose mental and physical powers are alike good. The duties of the Police, as is well known, are multifarious, and it requires a man of calibre to understand them and carry them out. New Acts of Parliament are constantly being framed, entailing still more work

140

Crime in London

on the Police, and it is next to impossible to instil in the minds of men who chiefly join, who are very young, and drawn from the agricultural and labouring classes, when they must act and when they must not, and it requires unremitting care and attention on the part of the officers to keep them from doing too much or vice-versa. Certainly many new clerical and administrative duties were imposed on the police force during the century; in particular they became social inspeetors, fire and smoke-nuisance prevention officers, traffic controllers and child and dog catchers. For example, 12,379 lost persons were found by the police in 1892, over twenty times the figure of 1838. One wonders just how this extra load affected their efficiency as crime fighters. Unfortunately, as we have seen, it is impossible except in the cases of indictable offences to establish just how many arrests were made per known offences. From the MPCR there seems to be some support for the commonly-held view that the new professional police in Britain had a double impact on the crime rate. They helped initially to increase the returns of street and violent crimes as they established new standards of public order, but they had a more gradual and long-term effect on offences like stealing. The key Acts regulating police conduct in the early decades were 10 Geo. IV, c. 44, and 2 & 3 Vic. , c. 94. These instructed the Metropolitan police to prevent obstructions of the highway, to control public-houses, coffee-houses and cookshops, to limit gaming, bear-baiting and cock-fighting, and to prohibit drunken behaviour, soliciting and a variety of other street offences. In later years, especially in No.2 District, there were famous attempts to 'curb the excesses' of music-halls and theatres and to control the activities of costermongers and Sunday traders. Less well known perhaps, but more persistent, was the battle against street music, weekend shooting, and unlicensed stalls, street markets and fairs. 'The day has now gone by for fairs and suchlike meetings, to be considered in the light of public amusements' , commented one missionary policeman in 188i. 56 The graphs of the number of persons taken into custody for common, indecent and sexual assault, for vagrancy offences, drunkenness, and for being disorderly prostitutes all show a very high rate in the early 1830s and a substantial drop thereafter. Yet as late as 1877 the Superintendent of C Division warned his superior that police campaigns to keep prostitutes in check made the task of protecting property that qmch harder. As for property offences, although there was much dispute about the value of the new police as detectives, the balance of the literary evidence suggests that in the early years of the Metropolitan force more offences were recorded and more prevented than previously. 57 The rate of persons arrested for simple or common larceny was very like that for public-order crimes, but in the case of more serious and violent attacks on

Crime in London

141

property the trend was different. We are told in the Select Committee report of 1834 that the arrival of the new police quickly reduced the incidence of larceny from the person, robbery and burglary, but from evidence later in that decade it seems that comparatively few people were arrested for these property crimes, that almost all of them were taken at the time of the offence, and only about a tenth of the goods were recovered. The first commissioners were indeed wary of the idea of the police being used as detectives. Perhaps, then, there was some substance to the claims of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Sir Peter Laurie that the early police force was unable sufficiently to intimidate and track down the organisers and skilled proponents of such property crimes. 58 The graph of arrests for these offences indicates that, for various reasons, the real turning-points came later, especially in the late 1860s. It is very difficult to determine how much these changes were due to more or better policing. One notes, for instance, that the size of the Metropolitan force was increased by over a thousand men in 1868, and about the same time four district superintendents were appointed, more care was taken over training and drill, and the system of fixed points was begun. In addition, under Colonel Henderson, the detective force was at last raised to a substantial level, placed in divisions, and used in the fight against burglaries and other serious crimes. By 1872 the CID was arresting some 6, 000 persons and obtaining convictions against two-thirds of them. 59 One can only conjecture about the impact of these, and later improvements in 1878, 1883, 1885 and 1887, on the rate of offences against property and persons, 60 but there is no doubt that in the case of 'morality crimes' the police were used effectively to increase the level of prosecutions. In 1869, when the Commissioner reported that 'the most persevering efforts were made in the year to suppress the appearance of these classes in the streets', 7, 280 prostitutes and 6, 996 beggars, rogues and vagrants were arrested, a figure which greatly exceeded that of the previous years. At other times special police campaigns were organised against betting houses, the sale of obscene literature and suggestive cabaret, though alternatively there were periods when cautious or angry policemen ignored soliciting prostitutes and drunkards. 'At the best the police can only make clean the outside of the platter,' warned the Commissioner in 1870, 'the improvement of the morals and manners of the people must be left to higher agencies, and practically the Police cannot hope to do more than prevent a certain proportion of crime in such an enormous aggregation as London. '61 Like his predecessors, Henderson was well aware that intensive police activity in connection with Sunday closing or prostitution only increased public hostility towards the force. The last comparison worth considering was that between crime, political tension and public disorder. Messrs Gatrell and Hadden suggest that in England and Wales, especially during the first half of the nineteenth century, 'political protests were merely

142

Crime in London

the surface manifestations of social tension and frustration which can be quantitatively assessed in terms of the incidence of certain kinds of criminal activity. '62 The rate of persons committed for indictable offences in London, and, to a lesser extent , the rate of. arrests for common or simple larceny, were high in the years of popular agitation and unrest . The peaks in the former category were in the years 1839, 1842-3, 1847-8, 1860 and 1865-9. On the whole, the rate of persons taken into custody for non-indictable offences against the person, including the police, did not coincide with such periods. Yet it would be wrong to make too much of these comparisons because of the possibility of alternative explanations. All one can say is that , especially prior to the 1870s, the rate of serious crimes, some lesser property offences, and, of course, that of riot and unlawful assembly, follow closely the indices of civil protest (Figure 5.7). To conclude, the MPCR confirm the pattern of a sharp rise and decline in the British crime rate during the nineteenth century, though the chronology of this trend was different in the capital from that in many other areas. In general, the battle for private and public safety was won early in London, and the Metropolitan police earned a daunting reputation as controllers of riots and disturbances. If, as historians like Victor Bailey and Gareth Stedman Jones assert, London alone could be regarded as the real home of the 'dangerous class(es)' and incipient rebellion in the second half of the century, there was little in the crime figures to cause the authorities much concern. The 'Bloody Sunday'-type unemployment and political demonstrations of the 1860s and 1880s were a somewhat different matter. 63 The events of February 1886 and November 1887, especially the ferocious clashes between the police and public in Trafalgar Square, certainly worried the government, and prompted a number of major changes in police organisation. As for property crimes, here again it seems that with the exception of burglary much had been achieved by the 1870s. After the mid century, and in some instances even before, the mood in the capital was one of optimism. Although there were occasional fears over outbreaks of muggings, assaults on the police, thefts and robberies in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s and the constant griping of moral reformers, there were no panic changes in law, punishment or policing. To a large extent, the governors were prepared to leave matters in the hands of 'the best police in the world'. 64 It would be tempting, but wrong, to assume that the fluctuations in London's crime rate were simply the responsibility of a police force whose size per head of population did not vary greatly throughout our period. Other conditioning factors included, as we have seen, social and economic conditions, changes in sensitivity to crimes, new legislation and administrative decisions, and possibly the level of political tension. One particular source of pleasure to police chiefs in later years was

Crime in London

143

the effect of the demolition of slums and changes in housing policy. 'The gradual extinction of the low neighbourhoods is going on', said one officer in the 1880s, 'and London begins to look like Napoleon's Paris.' In the last resort, however, there can be little doubt that the long-ter.m trends in the MPCR bear witness to a real change in traditional criminal behaviour. It is possible that many Londoners who had been accustomed to commit petty crimes with some impunity now decided to change their lifestyle. The improved recording of crime, greater police efficiency and a possible rise in the detection rate all reinforce this poim about an actual decline in property and violent offences. It was a decline which continued, so we are told, until the second quarter of the twentieth century, when its reversal undermined much of the confidence, reforms and predictions of the Victorian era. 65

6 CRIME AND POLICE IN MANCHESTER IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Crime in Manchester deserves study for several reasons. As A sa Briggs reminds us, Manchester was the shock city of the mid nineteenth century, the home of economic and political ideas, of technological change and great social problems . 1 It was indeed one of the largest urban centres of our period, expanding in population from well over 70,000 in 1801 to half a million at the turn of the century. Until the last two decades, when the area of the city was extended threefold, its population growth was a mixture of natural increase, migration and immigration. At the time of the census of 1841 it was estimated that about one fifth of the inhabitants were of Irish extraction, and most of the remainder had been born outside the town, chiefly in neighbouring communities. Some notion of the attraction of this metropolis can be gained from a police estimate in 1841 that 40,000 persons arrived weekly by coach and train. 2 There were slightly more women than men in the town, and three out of ten persons were under twenty years of age. From a fairly early date Manchester was characterised by the residential separation of classes and its notorious slum districts. Two famous visitors, William Cooke Taylor and Leon Faucher described how the rich and respectable sought to escape from the dirt and disease. Already by the mid century the rate of population growth of the centre of the town had stopped, and the pressure was on suburban development, especially towards the south. Those left behind tended to congregate in the poorest areas, like Angel Meadow to the north or 'little Ireland' close to the river Medlock, districts of filthy courts and cellar dwellings. Here the realities of life and death were well summed up by a Medical Officer of Health:~ Imagine a lake sixteen times the size of St Ann's Square and about five feet deep, in the centre of the city, filled with the contents of cess pools, seething and fermenting ... the people dwelling around i': pale and emaciated, prostrated from time to time with fever,. and dying from its poison at the rate of six or seven hundred a year. 144

Crime and police in Manchester

145

For many observers the result of all this was demoralisation, a weakening of the spirit and a decline in morality. In 1832 James Phillips Kay was already documenting the level of pauperism, drunkenness, immorality, irreligion and crime in areas such as Ancoats and Newtown, and over the next two generations journalists, doctors, clergymen and the enthusiasts of the Manchester Statistical Society added further information on Deans gate Street, Charter Street, etc. 4 In such regions was to be found the Reverend John Clay's classe dangereuse of unemployed alcoholics, prostitutes, beggars, hawkers and the 'deceitful Irish'. 5 'To be born and bred in such a region, and exposed to such influences,' commented W. B. Neale in 1840, 'what is it but to be predestined to a life of poverty, ignorance, misery and guilt ? 16 In the opinion of Charles de Motte it was these people, and society's view of them, which determined the pattern of crime in Manchester, and which explains why 'even in the later part of the centur1, there was hardly any reduction in the amount of crime'. There was, however, another aspect of Manchester life which merits attention in any crime study. By the early Victorian period it had become the trading heart of the great north-western cotton district. It was also an important centre for the woollen and worsted industries, and later for engineering and chemicals. But this reputation of being one of the spiritual and economic capitals of the new industrial world was matched by its notoriety as the home of much class conflict, industrial tension and violence. Luddism, trade unionism, Owenism and Chartism all flourished there. It was, therefore, not surprising that Manchester became a focal point of the well-publicised debate over the morality and effects of industrial capitalism. The pessimists claimed that the new factory system destroyed communal life and close family ties, produced dubious business practices, encouraged improvidence and promiscuity, and fostered delinquency in the young. The sharp fluctuations of the new economic order also undermined personal security and morality. The best, perhaps even the only quantifiable, index of this decline was the rising level of crime. 'If the demoralisation of the worker passes beyond a certain point,' said Engels, 'then it is just as natural that he will turn into a criminal - as inevitably as water turns into steam at boiling point. '8 The optimists replied with two main arguments. They insisted that the level of immorality, delinquency and crime (especially against the person) in a place like Manchester stood comparison with that in other urban and especially rural areas. 'Crime is no more common in manufacturing towns and districts', wrote Peter Gaskell in 1836, 'than in other equally populous localities. '9 The factory system imposed greater order and discipline on the workforce, and demanded a 'higher morality' from masters and men alike. Secondly, it was argued that the incidence of immorality and crime owed much to the degraded immigrant and floating population. 'It is not manufacturing Manchester, but

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Crime and police in Manchester

multitudinous Manchester,' declared Clay, chaplain of Preston House of Correction, 'which gives birth to whatever criminality may be imputable to it. '10 The final reason for choosing Manchester as a case study is that it casts some light on the relationship between crime and policing. It was, after all, one of the largest towns in Britain and there was much concern over its government and the machinery of law and order. Until 1838, when it became an incorporated borough, Manchester was still under the control of the old Court Leet, with many local government functions being carried out by the Police Commissioners and their officers. II t the critical year of 1839 Edwin Chadwick and his friends used Manchester as an example of the necessity for establishing a professional police force, and an anxious government put Sir Charles Shaw in charge of the town's watchmen. For the next three years there was confusion and acrimony, and then in October 1842 the Borough Council at last obtained a uniform police force under their nominee, Captain Edward Willis. Thereafter, at fairly regular intervals, there were claims that Manchester had too many or too few police officers and the best or worst crime rate in the country. In 1880 an angry deputation from the Council protest,:=!d to the Home Secretary about the 111any criticisms, and the century was to end ingloriously with an official inquiry into corruption within the force. Manchester, therefore , deserves the notice of social historians, and the purpose of this chapter is to examine some of the questions raised about the extent, character and roots of its crime, the nature of the offenders, and the developments in policing, punishment and control. The evidence for the historian is comparatively good and varied. Amongst the newspapers covering this period the best include the 'Manchester Courier' and especially the 'Manchester City News' with its regular reports of police proceedings in both Manchester and Salford. There is also a small collection of pamphlets and books, notably Criminal Manchester' ( 1874), A. Aspland's 'Crime in Manchester' (1868), 'Odds and Ends' (vol.1, 187 5) , and reminiscences by Joseph C aminada and others. In the Public Record Office, Manchester Town Hall, and the Central Library there are important series of legal and council documents, including petty session convictions and files on juvenile offenders, vagrants, drunkards, etc. 11 In some senses the most complete and consistent records are the underused police reports. During the 1830s these were located in the brief statements of the Watch, Nuisance and Hackney Coach Committees, but from 1843 onwards the Council received from the chief constable detailed annual comments and statistics on crime in their town. There were special circumstances which reduced the validity of these tables in 1842 and 1856, and there were important changes in compilation in 1856-8, 1874 and 1886, but overall the Manchester police records are some of 1

Crime and police in Manchester

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the most comprehensive and valuable in existence. From time to time the Borough Council had reason to bemoan this fact . 12

CHEETHAM

ARDWICK

IRELAND

\

CHORLTON

Figure 6. 1 Manchester in 1850 The difficulties in using such records are well known. The most obvious one is that they did not claim to represent the total crime committed in the town. From the beginning the new police reports included the number of persons taken into custody, yet even this does not tell us the actual number of arrests . 13 Many people were quickly released by policemen before being placed in

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Crime and police in Manchester

a cell and others for various reasons never came before a magistrate. Several thousand offenders were also summoned to appear in court, and after 1844-5 the police reports do include the number of summonses and warrants granted. The most important additional information, however, came in 1846 and 1857, when new tables gave the number of felonies or robberies reported and the number of indictable crimes known to the police . 14 Sometimes there are hints in newspapers or even from policemen about the amount of crime that lay undetected, but such impressions are infrequent and cannot be relied upon. In the final resort, the real value of the police records is that they reflect society's changing perception of erime and even perhaps long-term changes in criminal behaviour. It is important to remember, of course, that all police statistics are subject to unnatural fluctuations. A number of these can be identified and corrected. In 1885 and 1890 the police district was greatly extended by Acts of Parliament, and throughout the century there were, as we have seen, changes in the nature of compiling statistics and classifying crimes. Other elements are more difficult to evaluate. One of these was the effect of legislation on the pattern of crime. The removal of crimes from indictable to summary courts has been well considered by historians, but the impact of Local Acts and of national legislation such as the Licensing Act of 1872 or the Education Acts is a difficult matter. Arthur Redford tells us that the Manchester Corporation had obtained some sixty Local Acts by the end of the century, and two of the earliest, the Police and Improvement Acts of 1844, gave officers new and wide powers of arrest . 15 In Manchester, unlike some towns, prosecutions under Local and Police Acts were included in the criminal statistics, and these had a significant effect on the total. Another factor, to be considered later in the paper, was the influence on crime figures of the changes in control, numbers, efficiency and discretion of the police. At various times, for example, the Watch Committee authorised vigorous campaigns against certain offences and the chief constables issued elear directions on apprehensions and summonses. 16 All in all, however, there are reasonable grounds for using police evidence as the basis of our study. Let us begin with the general picture which emerges from an examination of the police statistics. From the outset it must be emphasised that prior to 1840 the statistics are onl~ a very tentative guide to the incidence of crime in Manchester. 7 They suggest substantial increases in criminal and/or police activity at the turn of the century, in the years 1815-20, 1826- 7 and the early and late 1830s. Thereafter the graphs of felonies and indictable crimes known to the police reveal high figures, possibly in the early 1840s, and certainly in the mid 1850s and late 1860s, dropping sharply to a plateau for most of the 1870s and then falling away again. The graphs of those apprehended, summoned, and proceeded against for indictable and summary

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crimes give a somewhat different picture: a dramatic collapse after the high level of the early 1840s, a steep rise in the late 1860s, high figures again in the 1870s and early 1880s and a decline thereafter (Figure 6. 2) . Basic rate: per 100,000 of populatton

- - Police strength per head of population - - Number of felonies committed ---- Persons taken into custody or summoned -

Persons taken into custody

Figure 6.2 We shall be considering the differences between these two patterns later, but for the moment it is interesting to compare the comments of contemporaries on these changes. Although much of this evidence has a clear moral or political purpose, it does indicate that life and property in the early-nineteenth-century town was insecure and that the position only began to alter significantly after the commercial crisis of 1837-42. Twenty years later John Berry Torr was delighted with the continued improvement of the manufacturing districts, whilst an anonymous journalist concluded in 1874 that there were 'few large cities that can compare with [Manchester] ... in the systematic suppression of viciousness in all its forms. '16 There were alarms in the midVictorian press about waves of violence or serious property crimes, but there was also an awareness of the increasing dominance of lesser or technical offences and an optimism in the last years that outweighed anxieties over police troubles and the massive extension of city boundaries. Apart from providing evidence on the incidence of police and criminal activity, the police records also give clues to the geography and seasonality of Manchester's crime. For much of the period 1840-92 most people were arrested in Police Division A,

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Crime and police in Manchester

the central part of the town to the west and south of the Cathedral church. This was the home of 'low lodging houses', brothels and beerhouses and here a large number of 'reputed thieves' and policemen were to be found. Later in the century Police Division B, the northern district of central Manchester, came to equal and surpass Division A in the number of arrests. Looked at in another way it is clear that for at least half our period, some 70 per cent of apprehensions were made in six town wards: Collegiate, New Cross, St Michael's, StJames's, St John's and St Clement's, whilst the respectable suburbs of St Luke's, Cheetham and Ardwick had the lowest number. So far as we can now tell, ther•~fore, the police force and the criminal activity which society most feared were concentrated in central market and business areas, and in the worst slum districts. 19 On the seasonality of crime in Manchester it appears that most serious offences in the second half of the century were reported in the winter quarters, October-December and (to a lesser extent) January-March, but arrests for all offences were spread fairly evenly over the year. About half the reported indictable crimes were executed between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. , and an even greater proportion of offenders were apprehended by the day police. Finally, the statistics indicate that much crime, certainly burglaries and disorderl"y conduct, was committed on Saturdays and Sundays. The other general but infrequent statistics in the records relate to the position of Manchester in relation to other major towns. Tables of indictable crimes reported to the police in these places during the early 1860s reveal that Manchester had the worst rate of such crime and perhaps the lowest proportion of apprehensions, but, as we have seen, it is wrong to attach too much importance to such figures. A similar table in 1871, of the number of persons proceeded against, indicated that Manchester had, with Liverpool, mueh the highest rate outside the City of London. Such returns confirmed the worst fears of the Royal Commission on the Constabulary Force in 1839, and provoked a series of Council enquiries, but by the end of the century anxiety had been largely replaced by pride. 20 Probably the most interesting contribution of the police and legal records is the information which they supply on the character of crime in the town. In the early decades of the century Manchester had a deserved reputation for being a place where most arrests were for minor offences against property. 21 During the rest of the period the number of such offences was much greater than offences against the person, the changing comparison being given in Figures 6. 2, 6. 3 and 6. 4. The major change in the composition of the total crime figures, however, came from offences entered under Class VI (drunkenness, disorderly conduct, breaches of the Vagrancy, Poor Law Acts, etc.). By 1890 four-fifths of the persons taken into custody were charged with these misdemeanours. After 1860 between a third and a half of arrests were for drunkenness and disorderly conduct,

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and a rising proportion of the remaining criminals in the town were summoned or apprehended for breaches of Police, Local, Education, Highway and other Acts which reflected Britain's advance as a modern industrial nation. Despite the above it is significant that writers and historians have been greatly intrigued by the level of personal violence in the new towns. Charles de Motte, for example, believes that there was an 'extraordinary amount of violent crime in nineteenthcentury Manchester' and Leon Faucher and Archibald Prentice recalled times when it had been unsafe to be out in some parts of the town, especially after dark. 22 Yet by the mid century newspapers and police reports indicate a change. Queen Victoria's comment on visiting the town in 1851 catches the mood: 'Everybody says that in no other town could one depend so entirely upon the quiet and orderly behaviour of the people as in Manchester. '23 Figure 6. 3 shows that there were grounds for such optimism, though ironically only a few years after her Majesty's visit there was much concern about violence in the 'lower quarters' of the town, and the police statistics begin to rise gradually to the last peak of the early 1870s. In the last years of the century there was less open violence in the town, for it seems improbable that the declining rates in Figure 6. 3 reflect just a reduction in sensitivity, reporting and policing.

l

Baste rate: per 100,000 of population

~r

[

I 1840 45 -

I

50

55

60

65

I 70

I 75

I 80

I 85

I 90

Persons taken into custody or summoned for assault

- - Persons taken into custody for assaults on police ---- Theft/ vtolence rat to (assaults/assaults

Figure 6. 3

+ felonies x 100)

152

Crime and police in Manchester

An examination of these violent crimes suggests certain patterns. First, the persons who committed the offences tended to be males in their twenties who gave their occupations as labourers, factory hands or 'No Trade'. Until the 1870s about a third of them were of Irish nationality. They frequently broke the law at weekends and especially during the months May-September. Second, the amount of serious violence to the person was comparatively small. The number of persons taken into custody for murder, attempted murder and manslaughter was normally well under thirty a year, and the reports of maiming and stabbing were less than twice that amount. 24 Third, there were nine main forms of violence in the Victorian age: against oneself, sexual assault, attacks on members of one's family, attacks on others especially neighbours - in public-houses and the street, juvenile (gang) violence, violent robberies from the person, religious or ethnic conflicts, violence as a form of protest, and attacks on the police. Although the first three forms of violence are notoriously difficult to detect and estimate, a description of the evidence provides an interesting commentary on the fears expressed by Engels and Gaskell in regard to morality and family life in the new town. From the coroners' inquests covering 1843-92 suicide deaths varied from fifteen to forty-eight per year, but it is possible that the true figure was higher than this. From 1840 to 1857 an annual average of seven persons was taken into custody for attempted suicide, whilst in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s the police reported slightly more than three times that figure. A considerable number of cases were of young persons, sometimes unemployed and often in a position of loneliness and tension. Typical was Margaret Casey who tried to drown herself and child in the Pomona Gardens in 1880. 25 As elsewhere in Britain the police statistics of sexual assault are very low. Between 1840 and 1892 less than fifteen persons per year were apprehended for sodomy, bestiality and rape. Cases of rape, the main offence, were often thrown out in court or changed to misdemeanour, but there are documented examples of young servants assaulted and women attacked on the roads leading out of the town. 26 So far as one can tell from newspaper and other evidence, there were few sexual assaults at the place of work, despite the obvious readiness of contemporaries like Peter Gaskell to seek it out. The most dangerous place in nineteenth-century Manchester was the home. There were conflicts between children, in-laws, cousins, and especially male assaults on women and children. Between 1857 and 1892, as society became more concerned about family violence, an average of fifty-six persons per year were taken into custody and proceeded against for aggravated assault on women and children. This, of course, was only part of the story, as a glance at James Bent's 'Reminiscences' or the columns of 'Manchester City News' show. Editorials in the 1860s and 1870s bemoaned the brutality of drunken male savages, and

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underlined the ferocity which sprang from irreconcilable marriage and tense common-law relationships. At the Assizes in 1880, one man was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, and several others were given very severe sentences for less serious assaults by Lord Justice Bramwell. 27 Children were attacked by both parents, and there are bleak descriptions of their cruelty by the Reverend John Clay and others. Yet these observers rarely grasped the problems which children posed for some working-class families. In the cases of cruelty by women the victim was frequently an illegitimate child. 28 Every year there was a handful of reports to the police of child desertion, child stealing, concealing the birth of a child and infanticide. The actual number of violent deaths was clearly greater than this, as Mr Herford admitted before a Select Committee in 1871. In 1873, for instance, when no police returns were made, the coroner's inquests indicated that five new-born children were found dead 'under circumstances admitting of no traces whatever' and for which the juries returned verdicts of 'wilful murder against persons unknown'. Thirteen years later the deputy-coroner reported that 124 children under twelve months were discovered dead in bed, yet only four cases of infanticide were noted in the police returns. Some children were overdrugged, and doctors sometimes signed certificates without seeing bodies. 29 Outside the home violence was a common method of sorting out differences, especially between neighbours. Arguments grew out of minor incidents, such as a remark about one's wife and problems at work. 30 Angry comments between drinking companions or protests over closing time often turned into serious affrays, with persons cut and bruised. The public-house was, of course, a good venue for settling debts; a stabbing incident at the 'Blue Bell', Roger Street, in 1869 was the third episode of a long-running Irish conflict. Sl Sometimes, notably in the first half of the century, such battles spilled out into the street, and there were several incidents where permanent injury and death resulted from spontaneous 'prize fights'. In 1840 big Thomas Fletcher received eighteen months' hard labour for killing William Wall worth in one of these bitter confrontations. s2 As the years went by contemporaries directed more of their attention to the ill effects of juvenile violence. In the mid century W. B. Neale and others complained of young people obstructing the pavement, harassing shopkeepers and throwing bricks and stones. Fifty years later James Bent described how 'for some years passed', the police in the 'lower parts' and borders of the city had been much troubled by gangs of boys and youths who with knives and leather belts 'wa~e war against any person or district that they may fix upon'. 3 In the early 1850s, and again in the early 1860s, there had also been concern at juvenile participation in violent robberies or garotting. James Bent tells us that twenty-three persons were sentenced for this crime to penal servitude and the 'cat' by Justice Lush in 1865, and fairly

154

Crime and police in Manchester

soon thereafter - as the statistics bear out - the number of such robberies fell dramatically. 34 Three other forms of violence deserve special notice. The first of these was religious or ethnic conflict. In Manchester the Irish were an important element in the story of violence. They usually lived together in the poorest areas of the town, and were disliked by other inhabitants for all manner of economic and social reasons. The 1840s saw several mass confrontations between Irish and English workmen, sometimes encouraged by employers and politicians. Early police officers feared an Irish mob more than any other, and expected trouble on the days when Orangemen or Catholics paraded. In the 1850s and 1860s the general anti-Catholicism and the particular activities of William Murphy on the one hand, and the Fenians on the other produced an explosive situation in parts of the town, and for the rest of the century there were spasmodic attacks on Catholics and battles between rival gangs of juveniles. 35 Over the years one has the distinct impression, from both literary and statistical evidence, that the amount of riot and serious public disorder declined in Manchester. In the first decades Peter Gaskell likened the situation to 'civil warfare' and James Kay recounted the long list of turnouts, violent picketing, destruction of machinery and arson. 'The police form , in fact, so weak a screen against the power of the mob', he wrote just after the events of 1830-1, 'that popular violence is now, in almost every instance, controlled by the presence of a military force. '36 In 1839 and again in 1842, during the Chartist and Plug Plot troubles, mobs were out, property was attacked, two policemen were killed and hundreds of troops were stationed in the town. Within a short time, however, gnawing despair about the tranquillity of the working population had turned to remarkable self-confidence, though even the chief constable had to admit that the disturbances in the spring and summer of 1847 and 1848 stretched police resources. 37 Later difficulties, including breaches of the peace at the time of the political and industrial troubles of the 1860s and early 1880s, caused less concern. The 'good sense' of Manchester people and the efficiency of her police force passed into national folklore. One index commonly used to evaluate the level of violence in nineteenth-century Manchester was the number of assaults on her police officers. The graph of persons taken into custody for such offences has two peaks, one in the early 1840s and a second in the late 1860s-early 1870s when seven or eight hundred persons were apprehended for assaults, obstructing constables on duty, and rescuing prisoners. In the early decades the watchmen, and later Captain Willis's new police force, had considerable difficulty in establishing their authority in districts such as New Cross or Angel Meadow, and their attempts to clear the streets, check drunken behaviour and control violent pastimes were much resented. By 1847, however, Captain Willis was able to claim that his men 'can go alone, with no danger of molestation

155

Crime and police in Manchester

to apprehend an offender in any part of the town' and the public 'were ready when called upon to support the police'. sa Yet in the late 1860s, when the policeman was used more vigorously against the people and places associated with 'crimes of morality', they still found it dangerous to serve summonses or make arrests in the slum and Irish quarters of the town. 39 Various measures were adopted to combat this anti-police feeling, including patrolling in larger numbers, and the reports of assaults did become fewer as the century came to a close. There were perhaps four or five times as many known offences against property as against the person, and Manchester had, as we have seen, a reputation for being a nest of thieves in the early decades. Unfortunately there are considerable difficulties in estimating the actual number of property crimes and for that reason the graphs should be regarded with caution. In the case of ordinary property crimes there is evidence of a high rate in the early 1840s, mid 1850s and later 1860s, but where such offences were committed with violence the graph is significantly different. One thing is common to both: a declining rate in the last two decades, confirming the optimism of many contemporary writers (Figures 6.4 and 6.5). Basrc rate. per 100,000 of populatron

1840 45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

---- Persons taken rnto custody for offences against property, committed without violence Felonres reported -larceny ~

Felonres reported -larceny from the person

Figure 6. 4 Once again a close study of the statistics reveals some interesting patterns. First, the amount stolen in the robberies reported to the police varied from £5, 593 in 1887 to £33, 758 in 1865.

156

Crime and police in Manchester

The most lucrative crimes were breaking into and larceny from houses, larceny by servants and from the person by females, and sometimes embezzlement and forgery. On the other hand, well over half the robberies involved sums of less than £1. Second, about a quarter of these robberies were committed between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. , and, certainly in the case of simple larcenies, a large number of offences were reported in the winter months October-March. Third, the most typical offenders were young English males and females, who were often described as 'known thieves', 'prostitutes' and 'suspicious characters' or who were employed and unemployed factory hands and labourers. Fourth, different types of criminals tended to operate in different areas: the pickpocket in the heart of the city, the 'commercial thief' in the streets of warehouses, and the burglar in the suburbs. 40 Basic rate: per 'I 00,000 of population

,~

I

I

I

1840 45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

\

I

I

I

I

I

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85

90

- - Persons taken 1nto custody for offences against property, with violence ---- Felonies reported- burglary, breaking into, and stealing ~

Felonies reported- robbery from the person by force or threat

Figure 6.5 The most common property crime was larceny and this had several forms. The main ones were larceny from markets, shops and stalls, from carts and carriages in the street , from houses and gardens, from industrial and business premises, from canals and railways, and from the person. It was a common practice for small gangs of boys to invade Shudehill market hall or the shops in London Road, and whilst one of them distracted the seller's attention, food and cigars would vanish or a hand be placed in the till. Women, too, were often convicted of taking food and clothing from such places and from handcarts in the

Crime and police in Manchester

157

street. The police kept a close watch on notorious female shoplifters like Ellen Reece or Mary Anne Morgan and followed them until they were caught in the act of stealing. 41 It was an arduous task, and occasionally, as in London, the authorities became very angry with the custom of exposing goods for sale. The second popular form of larceny was stealing of property from outside and inside houses. There were on average 210 reports per year of clothing stolen from hedges and lines, and to this can be added 'gardens ~lundered, dogs stolen, and henroosts and dove-cots invaded'. 2 Gypsies and vagrants were traditionally blamed for these crimes but young residents and neighbours like old Mary Pettit in Osborne Street were at least equally responsible. 43 Those thieves with more courage than the others actually approached the houses, and where these were untenanted or unoccupied, took away hinges, locks, taps, lead pipes and even doors and windows. Another class of offences which worried the middle class and witnesses before government committees was the purloining of raw material from factories, mills, warehouses and yards. This was done by both outsiders and insiders and, despite the Reverend John Clay's claim to the contrary, it appears to have been a common offence. 44 There were many reports of young lads combing the industrial premises in Peter, George and Mosley Streets for cloth and calico, and some famous instances of textiles, wood and iron being taken off barges, boats, trains and carts. In the winter of 1879-80 the police finally cau~ht a gang of thieves who had rifled lorries for their contents. 4 Sometimes, as when storekeeper Henry Lingard transferred £300 worth of felt to receivers outside a warehouse in Peter Street, the practice became big business, but much of the stealing was done by men, women and children hiding small amounts of material on their person at the end of a day's work. No one doubted that for much of the nineteenth century there was a large 'black market' for textiles in the Manchester area. 46 Every year about one in ten reported robberies were committed by lodgers, servants , clerks and employees of every kind. Newspapers criticised the temptations placed in their way, and the misplaced trust, especially in young people. A typical case was that of 1843 when a small gang of teenagers absconded with clothes and boots belonging to Edward Clark, lodging-house keeper. Thefts by employees were viewed more seriously, and it was a matter of some concern that the number of reported cases held up well until the mid 1870s. These offences ranged from a charwoman stealing earrings and domestic servants absconding with valuables to young employees taking petty cash for gambling purposes. Quite a number of them were wrongly arrested; as James Bent ~ointed out, masters were too ready to blame their servants. 7 It is now impossible to establish how all these crimes of larceny were organised and how the criminals disposed of stolen property. As we have seen, such offences were usually committed by one

158

Crime and police in Manchester

person only, but sometimes families and gangs were involved. Juvenile gangs tended to specialise in a particular kind of crime, and had recognised leaders or even a guru like the 60-year-old Alexander described in W.D. Neale's booklet . 48 The police estimated that there were two or three hundred reputed thieves in the town, and another two hundred known to steal occasionally. 49 These were closely watched by the police, and, after the ending of transportation, the chief constable wanted greater powers to search and arrest them, especially after dark. There is some evidence that gangs from Liverpool and Birmingham operated in the Manchester area, but most thieves were resident in the town. 50 What is certain, however, is that the network for the disposal of stolen goods was a wide and successful one. 51 Booty was taken to the 'low lodging houses' and pubs of Deansgate or Angel Meadow, and there was also a long list of both shady and respectable receivers: dealers of every kind, stall holders, pawnbrokers and prostitutes, like Joe Hyde, Bob McFarlane and Patsey Rearden. In time, the police licensing and inspection of dealers and brokers became more searching, and these people were sometimes the means by which daring thieves were finally apprehended. Three other property crimes warrant special attention: larceny from the person, violent offences against property, and embezzlement, fraud and forgery. The first was a common crime of the major cities and it belonged especially to the years prior to 1870. Faucher tells how in the early years of the century extra police had to be employed to keep pickpockets at a distance, and in 1841 seven hundred of them were taken into custody. 52 Twenty-six years later there were two thousand reported cases, and losses valued at £8, 897, but by the 1890s the number had fallen to a few hundred. The most common offenders were persons under the a~e of thirty, and about a third of their victims were intoxicated. 3 Juveniles stole from the person in the street, in parks and gardens, at bus and train stations, at markets, fairs and races. In the 1860s and 1880s, for example, this crime was mostly committed in the main thoroughfares, and the ideal mixture was a gang of young boys and a large crowd. The Royal Commission on the Constabulary Force in 1839 and W. B. Neale describe the varied family background of these young thieves, as well as the skilful techniques used and the irregular earnings made. Teenage gangs and even family groups made a seasonal living following the races, fairs and wakes across the county and beyond. In 1843 at least thirty Manchester teenagers were accused of taking handkerchiefs, watches and other valuables from spectators at the Kersall Moor, Eccles and Barnes Green race meetings. The Reverend John Clay estimated that fifteen of the most notorious pickpockets cost the public £26,500. 54 Women and especially prostitutes committed larceny from the person not only in the streets but also in the public-houses,

Crime and police in Manchester

159

beerhouses and brothels of Police Divisions A and B . Sometimes two or three women worked together, or used a male companion to distract the attention of the often inebriated victim. According to prostitutes like Ellen Reece and Jane Doyle this was a very profitable line of work, and the police statistics indicate that every year businessmen, clerks, sales representatives and others lost several thousand pounds worth of clothing, jewellery and cash. Not all of them had the courage to press charges, and this makes it difficult to estimate the extent of the crime. However, it was widely believed that better employment and education, together with a more rigorous system of policing and punishment, had helped to reduce the real incidence of this offence by the end of the century. A similar verdict was made about crimes against property committed with violence. Two of these will concern us, the first being robbery from the person by force or threat. By all accounts this was a common crime in the early years, but in our period only the early 1850s and especially the later 1860s saw exceptions to the low police figures. From evidence in the second half of the century it seems that four out of five offences were committed by males, and the average amount stolen was £3. Most offences were carried out in the streets of Police Division A; it was unwise to be out alone after dark in the area, especially if gangs of youths were about. In the early 1850s unfortunate pedestrians were knocked unconscious, half strangled and smothered with a chloroform pad. 55 And throughout the century the outlying parts of Manchester were the scene of 'daring highway robberies'. Visitors to the town were fair game, as were females with cash in their possession and people muddled with drink. In the public- houses and spirit vaults they would be confronted by prostitutes and their 'bullies'. Poor William Jones, a fustian finisher of Newton Heath, went to a potato cellar in Ancoats and, as he was leaving, William Burke and another teenager knocked him on the head and ran off with four shillings. 56 Contemporaries generally believed that such offences were the work of professional criminals, and the same was said of breaking into, and burglary of, houses, shops and other buildings. A distinction was made between these last crimes and ordinary larceny, and Figure 6. 5 does suggest that the rate was subject to greater fluctuations. Years like 1848, 1857, 1862 and 1868 witnessed sharp peaks in the number of recorded 'breakins'. The average amount stolen was only £4 or £5, but there were some outstanding exceptions. In 1865, for example, £3,000 and £11,000 were taken from jewellers' shops, entry having been obtained by false keys. In one case, two men were convicted 'one of them being employed as a painter by a respectable firm in the City'. 'In the other case', reported the chief constable, 'the Police have not hitherto succeeded in tracing the perpetrators, although there is little doubt that the robbery was committed entirely by expert London thieves who came to Manchester especially for the purpose. '57

160

Crime and police in Manchester

By the mid century the use of 'force and violence' in these robberies had been replaced by 'artifice and stealth'. 58 A great number were skilfully executed, entry being obtained through back windows, cellar and coal grids, and loose-fitting doors. 59 Every year the police records show that several thousand houses were left unoccupied or insecure, and in the quieter middleclass suburbs the result was often disastrous. The same could be said of business property, to which the police had limited access. A few unlucky thieves, entering warehouses in George Street, found watchmen waiting for them, but usually there was a good chance of working without interruption. Some serious outbreaks of burglaries in the later nineteenth century were the responsibility of only a few clever operators, and it needed much pressure from angry ratepayers and all the intelligence of the growing detective force to control them. 60

Bas1c rate: per 100,000 of populat1on

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I

I

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I

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I I

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I

I ~,1

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1840 45

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I

\

I

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/ 'J

II

I

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

- - Persons taken into custody for forgery and offences against the currency ---- Persons taken into custody for embezzlement

Figure 6.6 The last group of property crimes which caused unusual problems for the police and society generally were embezzlement, forgery, fraud and certain currency offences. The making and passing of counterfeit coins was a common activity in the early years, but after the mid 1850s there was a notable decline in arrests. Later counterfeiters like Robert Saynor who worked in Deansfate had to combat coin detectors and greater police vigilance. 6 On the other hand, all the indices for embezzlement, fraud and obtaining goods by false pretences give high figures for the 1870s and early 1880s (Figures 6. 6 and 6. 7) 62• These

Crime and police in Manchester

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were , of course , more secretive crimes , but so far as one can tell the money obtained in this way was considerable and the main offenders were clerks, cashiers, agents and commercial travellers. In 1845 the police recorded the largest embezzlement to date, a sum of £4,889. 63 Two further cases illustrate the essential character of this crime. In April 1869 Richard Neill, an old clerk, was accused of embezzling £300-£400 from his master, a coal dealer in Great Ancoats Street, and a few months earlier Charles Garwood and George Carr, employees of an insurance agent in Princess Street, were brought back from Nova Scotia to face a similar charge. 64 Fraudulent bankruptcies, the buying of goods on false promises of payment , insurance frauds, and the cheating of burial and relief committees were some of the other related crimes. At the beginning of the nineteenth century those found guilty of such offences as forgery could expect very severe sentences, but by the mid-Victorian years there was a growing and uncomfortable awareness that it was difficult to distinguish these crimes from doubtful business ethics and corporation scandals. 65 To sum up, by the 1890s the authorities had reason to be optimistic about the incidence of ordinary larceny, especially from the person, but there was occasional alarm at the much publicised outbreaks of housebreaking and burglaries and the hidden world of white-collar crimes.

Bas1c rate: per 100,000 of population

1840 45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

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- - Felon1es reported - obtammg goods by false pretences or fraud ---- Felomes reported - larceny by servants

Figure 6. 7 The other main group of offences were the so-called 'morality crimes'. These included sexual crimes (mentioned above),

162

Crime and police in Manchester

bastardy, desertion and neglect of the family, gambling, and offences associated with prostitution and vagrancy. In general these crimes made up an increasing share of the total police figures though in the case of non-payment of bastardy orders it was difficult to match the high statistics for years like 1817, 1819, and 1826-7. 66 During the period 1844-92 between one and two hundred summonses were granted each year against men who had fathered illegitimate children, and about a fifth of that number were taken into custody for ignoring the court orders. Over a similar period an average of 146 persons per year were apprehended for deserting or neglecting to support their family. Although many such cases never came before the magistrates, there is, nevertheless, nothing in the police reports to vindicate contemporary fears of a major breakdown of traditional marriage and family responsibilities. Manchester was a convenient place for the young factory employee who did not wish to marry his pregnant sweetheart or for freedom-loving husbands, and there were several instances in the newspapers of men emigrating and leaving wives and children 'on the parish', but it should be noted that the highest statistics for such offences frequently coincided with hard times. 67 Two other popular indiees of urban morality were the figures for gambling and drunkenness. Cooke Taylor and Leon Faucher give us the background to these 'crimes' . 68 Manchester in the first half of the century was a place where the land and facilities for leisure activities were strictly limited and where the working class enjoyed their own forms of relaxation and amusement. The streets of Deansgate and Angel Meadow and the outskirts of the town were, especially at weekends and on fair and race days, the scene of noisy prize fights, dog and cock fights, and all manner of games of chance. W. B. Neale was desperately worried by the allure of g:ambling for the young, its effect on family life and its connection with other crimes. 'Towards noon', he wrote, 69 they [juveniles] may be seen hanging in groups about the corners of the streets - some eagerly engaged in playing at pitch and toss, or some other game of chance; others diverting themselves with foot-racing, and similar sports; and others again in small knots, concocting some new robbery. In the early 1840s and again in the late 1860s the town leaders made strenuous efforts to eliminate brutal sports and to control gambling in the streets. When Sergeant Davies in April 1840 interfered with a dog fight in Rogers Street, Red Bank, two hundred spectators turned on him, but the officers in 1869 seem to have had greater authority. In June of that year a large number of boys from all over the city were fined and cautioned for playing pitch and toss. 70 Then later in the century, when gambling had become more institutionalised, further campaigns were launched against clubs or houses used for betting purposes.

Crime and police in Manchester

163

In 1885, for instance, the police descended on twenty-five 'socalled social clubs', arrested their managers and inflicted heavy fines. 71 Drunkenness was a more constant source of annoyance, and much of the invective of editors, police and prison officers and moral reformers was directed against this 'evil'. The Reverend John Clay believed that it was a major source of family instability and crime, and a large proportion of offenders and victims in nineteenth-century Manchester were inebriated. The graph of those arrested on charges of being drunk, incapable and disorderly reveals a high level in the early 1840s, and a staggering rise after the mid 1860s (Figure 6. 8). Thereafter the line remains high until the early 1880s, and then falls continuously. Such a picture owed much to technical factors. Although contemporaries claimed that there was a real increase in drunkenness after the Beerhouse Act of 1830, it was also true that one of the main objectives of the new police was to make the streets safer and more respectable, and the Police Act of 1844 was passed largely for that purpose. In the late 1840s, however, there is evidence that the police were adopting a more cautious approach, even escorting drunks to their homes. 72 Then, in the late 1860s and early 1870s, coinciding with the national campaigns over the licensing laws, the Manchester authorities encouraged more rigorous policing. Over the next decades, as we saw earlier, the level of their arrests greatly affected the total crime figures.

Basic rate: per 100,000 of population

'; I I

I

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,. . / \1 1840 45

50

55

60

65

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70

75

80

85

90

- - Persons taken onto custody and summoned for being drunk, incapable and disorderly ~ ~ ~ ~ Persons taken into custody for being disorderly prostitutes

Figure 6. 8

164

Crime and police in Manchester

It is difficult to estimate the drinking habits of Manchester's working population, but it is clear that the production and sale of alcohol was an essential part of the town's economic and social life. James Phillips Kay claimed in 1832 that there were 430 licensed taverns and 322 gin shops in the township, and eleven years later the police figures were 781 beerhouses and 502 public-houses. Fifty years later the police estimate had risen to 2, 530 and 524 respectively. n Many of these beer houses were situated in Police Division D and the public houses in Division A, and a few of them were licensed for music, dance and popular theatre. Each year, and especially in the mid 1840s, late 1850s, and late 1860s, several hundred complaints were made against these drinking establishments. In 1870 the chief constable was writing with some optimism about the operation of the new Wine and Beer houses Act ( 1869) and the effect of closer police supervision. There was, nevertheless, one source of drink which magistrates found more difficult to control. Gaskell tells us that the illicit distilling of spirits was very popular in the town, especially amongst the Irish. 7'+ Inevitably, on such a sensitive issue, there was much debate as to who exactly were the drunkards. The police statistics suggest that in the mid century between a third and a half of those arrested were Irish, with the proportion dropping sharply a generation later. About a third were females, and a third of these and up to half the males were under the age of thirty. 7., Typical female drunkards were prostitutes and servants like Bridget Connolly of Bengal Street who were repeatedly fined and occasionally imprisoned. Those males arrested were poorly educated, and gave their occupations as labourers, unemployed, factory hands, hawkers, joiners, sawyers, tailors, clerks and agents. Several hundred other males were also accused each year of being drunk in charge of horses and conveyances. And, finally, a large proportion of people were taken into custody on Saturdays and Sundays, and, to a lesser degree, on Mondays and Tuesdays. 'On Saturday evenings', wrote Engels, 'the whole working class streams from the slums into the main streets of the towns.' 'On such an evening in Manchester I have seldom gone home without seeing many drunkards staggering in the road or lying helpless in the gutter. '76 If drunkenness was widely regarded as the main evil of urban life in the nineteenth century, prostitution and vagrancy were not far behind. Leon Faueher and others claimed that the number of prostitutes in Manchester did not compare with that in London, or Liverpool, except in years of distress. The official estimates, well below the actual number, indicated that there were between five hundred and a thousand 'fallen women' known annually to the police between 1843 and 1883, with a much reduced level thereafter. The highest figures were during the years of Cotton Famine. Many of these women, and the brothels in which they worked, were situated in Police Division A , especially in Angel Meadow. These prostitutes, and their 'bullies',

Crime and police in Manchester

165

displaced streets of Irish and other poor dwellers. Some of Manchester's 'infamous trade' was secret, and apparently popular with Lancashire businessmen, but much of it was open, and on display nightly in Market Street and near the Exchange. Many of the women were young and of Irish origin, and, so far as one can tell, had been, or were, domestic servants, factory workers and dressmakers. Various refuges were set up in the town to reclaim them, but they proved to be hardened 'sinners' and criminals . 77 Prostitutes in nineteenth-century Manchester were arrested on a variety of charges under Vagrancy, Police, Improvement and Licensing Acts. Between 30 and 50 per cent of all females taken into custody were described as prostitutes, and every year between one and three thousand proceedings were begun against these 'unfortunates'. The most common offences committed by them included stealing from the person, accosting wayfarers and being drunk and disorderly. People like W.D. Neale's Little Martin and Jane Doyle enjoyed a happy life of theft, drink and sex. Some of them were undoubtedly violent, as passers-by and policemen testified, but the charge of 'disorderly behaviour' was a useful device to bring them within the arm of the law. The level of such arrests reached peaks, as Figure 6. 8 shows, in 1841-2, 1869, 1880 and 1883-4. In the early 1840s there were more prostitutes operating in the town, but many of the sharpest increases in 'moral statistics' reflected police campaigns against these women and their places of work. The year 1883 was a good example, as this extract illustrates: 78 The number of prostitutes apprehended for drunkenness was, 1,056, and for accosting wayfarers, 1,416, an increase on the previous year of 60 and 545 respectively. The greater activity on the part of the police in arresting these unfortunate persons was rendered necessary on account of their resorting in great numbers in some of the principal thoroughfares of the city, and by that means rendering it extremely unpleasant for respectable inhabitants to pass through them after certain hours in the evening, and it is satisfactory to note that considerable improvement is observable in this respect. The efforts of the police have also been largely directed to the suppression of disorderly houses, 182 persons - 57 males and 125 females - having been apprehended and charged before the Magistrates with this offence, 3 of them were committed for trial, 173 convicted, and 6 discharged, the convictions by the Magistrates being in most cases the full penalty authorised by the Act or the committal to prison of the person charged, without the option of a money penalty. The police have also removed 206 brothels and 3.0 houses of accommodation during the year. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 reinforced police powers in this area, and by the end of the century open prostitution at

166

Crime and police in Manchester·

least had been much reduced. Vagrancy was another social problem which demanded attention from time to time. In Manchester, as elsewhere, one of the primary duties of watchmen and parish constables in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was to harass the unwelcome itinerant. Poor-· law officers in the town claimed that a large proportion of vagrants whom they relieved were idle rogues or habitual vagabonds, but there were also people who were unemployed or who had suffered some personal tragedy. 79 Contemporaries were struck by the large number of street children, often of Irish nationality. 'Sent forth at an early age as beggars, and vendors of matches, tape, sand, etc. , they are early instructed to add theft to vagrancy,' said W. B. Neale, 'and even at this early period of life, shun the constable as the enemy of their race. '80 A survey fifty years later reveals that several hundred illegitimate and orphan children still lived off the streets. These vagrants slept where they could, in shop doorways, under arches and at the brick kilns on the outskirts of the town. Some of them hardly moved away from Manchester, others toured the manufacturing district, and some travelled much further afield. 81 At certain times, as in the economic crises of the 1830s and 1840s, early 1860s and early 1890s, or during the Irish hunger migration of the mid century, the number of vagrants in the town reached record proportions and the night shelters, houses of refuge, casual wards and 'low lodging houses' were full to overflowing. These places were, for some observers, the haunts of disease, degradation and crime, and the 200-400 tramp lodginghouses in the slums of Angel Meadow and Deansgate became the target for regular corporation and police inspection. The police also came into contact with the vagrants when they acted as assistant relieving officers, or when they had the task of forcing inmates of the casualty ward to perform a job of work. 82 Vagrants and beggars had alwa~s been blamed for many of the attacks on persons and property. ~ The officer appointed to deal with the problem in the early nineteenth century believed that the suppression of mendicity would greatly eliminate crime in the town. Certainly vagrants like Ann Wild and John Connolly were convicted of taking clothes off lines, illegal pawning and drunkenness, but it is interesting that very few of the persons taken into custody were classified as 'hawkers' or 'tramps'. Only about a hundred 'tramps' and 'vagrants' were each year proceeded against before magistrates in the second half of the nineteenth century, though one notes that another two thousand defendants were defined as 'suspicious characters'. In truth the vagrant was almost made a criminal. Offences under the Vagrant Act included begging and collecting alms, being a reputed thief or suspicious character, and wandering about or sleeping in outhouses. Significantly many vagrants were arrested for these crimes in the winter months. The rate of apprehensions reflects to a considerable degree the decisions

Crime and police in Manchester

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of the various committees on vagrancy and subsequent action by police officers (Figure 6. 9). In the mid 1830s and 1841-2 the Guardians called upon the Council to take stern measures against begging in the streets, and there was further pressure in the late 1860s and early 1880s. In March 1869, for example, William Perry and William Wilson were ordered out of the town, despite being found not guilty of loitering with intent, and eleven years later John Ireland and Peter Stafford were constantl~ hounded by the police for 'begging and gathering alms'.

Basic rate: per 100,000 of populatron

1840 45

75

80

85

90

- - Persons taken into custody for offences against the Vagrancy Act ----Persons taken into custody for begging and collecting alms

Figure 6. 9 In the later nineteenth century, therefore, there was clearly a shift in the concerns of society and the priorities of the police. As Manchester became safer for persons and property, so the 1 dangerous class' of beggars, prostitutes, gamblers and drunkards now felt the full weight of the law. By 1900 several residents maintained that the city, whilst still having pockets of resistance, had become more orderly and 'respectable'. No evidence on the character of the nineteenth-century criminals is satisfactory, and the police records have several obvious limitations, but they are the best source for comparative purposes. Of those taken into custody between 1840 and 1892, an increasing proportion of about three out of ten were women. 85 The graph of female arrests mirrors that of the males, but the decline in the second half of the century began at a later date.

168

Crime and police in Manchester

Female criminality was, as we have seen, a central theme of the critics of mass urbanisation and industrialisation. The number arrested was not as high in Manchester as in neighbouring Liverpool, though there was a considerable amount of female drunkenness, disorderly conduct, petty theft and larceny from the person. 86 Prison chaplains and governors highlighted the high rate of re-committals of Manchester women, and their stubbornly degraded character. On the ages of criminals the statistics indicate that in the early and mid century a quarter or more of the males arrested, and slightly less than that of females, were under the age of twenty. By 1890 the figures were 19.5 and 16.4 per cent respectively. There was, too, a marked fall in the number of those aged between twenty and thirty taken into custody, and a comparable rise in the thirty-fifty age group. Even though there were good technical reasons why the age statistics moved in this way, the figures do reflect the mounting protests over the juvenile delinquency problem in the early Victorian years. 87 Manchester society was as sensitive as that of London and Liverpool to the dangers of idle, unruly and illegal behaviour by young people but, partly because of the better economic situation, the actual number of juvenile criminals was probably smaller in the northern c:apital. Still, the pattern of juvenile crime was similar, with males committing vagrancy, stealing, malicious damage and violent offences (often in that order), and females being led into vagrancy, petty thieving and prostitution. All the analyses of the 1830s and 1840s suggest that a large number of delinquents were employed in the cotton mills; they complained of the boredom and irregularity of the work. Similarly, there were many very young delinquents, often Irish, who were sent out by their parents to fend for themselves or who lived rough. A considerable number of these had no parents or were from single-parent and broken homes. Each year the police returned hundreds of deserted and lost children to relatives, and sent others to shelters and ragged schools. The Reformatory and Industrial Schools Acts were passed with these children very much in mind. 88 Further information is supplied in the police returns on the literacy, employment and nationality of offenders. The dubious statistics on literacy reinforce the Reverend John Clay's celebrated strictures on the ignorance of male and especially female criminals in Lancashire. 89 In 1840, for example, 47. 6 per cent of males taken into custody and 58 .1 per cent of females could neither read nor write, and most of the remainder could do so only imperfectly. In a place which, by the 1850s and 1860s, prided itself on being a leading educational centre, this information was a striking blow, and helps to explain why the effort was put into building schools for the poor and why the compulsory attendance argument triumphed later in the century. By 1892 only 16.1 per cent of males taken into custody and 35. 9 of females could neither read nor write.

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The police and prison evidence on the occupation of offenders, which becomes continuous after the late 1840s, is even more difficult to use. From this it seems that in the 1840s and 1850s about half the males arrested and four-fifths of the females had no respectable employment. Female drunkenness, prostitution offences and assaults, juvenile and adult theft, and vagrancy crimes were the usual offences of the unemployed. 90 Over the next decades the proportion of out-of-work criminals declined in a fairly irregular manner, but in the late 1880s and early 1890s the figure rose again. Contemporaries, however, were more interested in the kind of occupations which acted as 'feeders' to crime. Unfortunately, the changing police classification of offenders' jobs makes it difficult to estab1ish a clear picture, but the result was not dissimilar from the occupational structure in the census returns. The male prisoners between 1846 and 1890 included a rising proportion of labourers and a declining one of factory workers, plus another 20 per cent of mechanics, engineers, workers in metal, carters, coachmen, joiners, other workers in wood, and hawkers. Another 10 per cent comprised tailors, shoemakers, porters, packers and dyers, and the final 10 per cent included clerks, shopkeepers, dealers, agents, travellers and servants. As for the females, about a third were returned as having 'no trade', another third as being prostitutes, whilst most of the remainder were housekeepers, factory workers, charwomen, needlewomen and domestic servants. The returns of nationality are more reliable. The first return was in 1844, and this revealed that 77 per cent of males and 73 per cent of females in custody were English or Welsh, 20 per cent and 25 per cent respectively were Irish, and the rest Scots and foreigners. By 1860 the proportion of Irish offenders had risen considerably, but in subsequent decades this fell away sharply. The Irish, who made up a great share of the prisoners in New Bailey prison, Salford, early in the century, were traditionally blamed for much of the pauper and criminal mentality in Manchester. From the official records it appears that they were committed for violent and drunken behaviour and for vagrancy offences, though Captain Willis and his predecessors were also convinced that English-born Mancunians of Irish parents were amongst the worst juvenile thieves and prostitutes. Inevitably, we do not know the proportion of total offenders born outside Manchester, though some evidence indicates that the figure, especially for young criminals, was much lower than Cooke Taylor and his friends claimed. 91 Finally, the police records do provide evidence on those two elusive contemporary bodies, the 'dangerous class( es)' and 'criminal class'. We have looked at the main elements of the former, the prostitutes, young delinquents, hawkers and vagrants, many of whom 'fall into crime through drink', and it is fascinating to see them described as alien people, with their own fraternities, customs, and even, in the case of wanderers, a language of their own. According to W. B. Neale and others,

170

Crime and police in Manchester

the 'criminal class' comprised those born to crime, who lived entirely by it, and who inhabited 'low lodging houses' , gambling joints, brothels and beer houses. There were undoubtedly families in the town which remained criminal for generations, and there were young organised gangs which existed mainly by robbery and pickpocketing. 92 Sometimes, too, in the Manchester story, one finds references to professional crooks from other areas being responsible for some of the more rewarding offences. The police, who often subscribed to the idea of a special criminal mentality, gave figures which suggested that in the 1840s and 1850s there were 200-300 thieves in the town, another 200-300 persons known to steal occasionally, 200-250 houses where thieves resorted, and 150-200 houses for the reception of stolen property. They also estimated that there were by the mid century up to three thousand depredators, offenders and suspected persons at large. In later decades this figure fell below one thousand, but by this time the classification had changed. During this period, too, new legislation and treatment of 'habitual criminals' required other police returns, and from these it seems that there were between one and two hundred convicts on licence and perhaps two or three times that number under police supervision. Other analyses of persons actually proceeded against in the second half of the century set this in context. Of those charged with indictable offences only a very small proportion were returned as 'known thieves', or 'habitual depredators', over a half had good or unknown characters, whilst the remainder were suspicious characters, prostitutes, vagrants and tramps. The table of persons proceeded against summarily becomes, unfortunately, less informative as the years pass. In 1858 some 31.5 per cent were of good character, 38 per cent were of unknown character and 30. 5 per cent were thieves, prostitutes, vagrants, habitual drunkards and suspicious characters. This can be compared with earlier tables on recommittals. Three-quarters of the persons taken into custody did not, so far as was known, have previous convictions. Such evidence is suspect, given the contemporary comment on the prodigious re-committal rate of some juveniles, women and drunkards, yet it does call into question popular and historical interpretations of crime and criminals in nineteenth-century Manchester. 93 One of the more interesting aspects of the story of crime in Manchester was the manner in which the law was administered. In this context it is important to distinguish between the ideological framework, the practical way in which law was brought into play, and the differing, sometimes hostile, role of the public, police and courts. Although, as Charles de Motte says, 'law enforcement in Manchester and Salford evolved from an illdefined protection of certain property interests to open harassment of the more unrespectable elements in the community by means of constant arrests for petty offences', it is important

Crime and police in Manchester

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to bear in mind the number of ordinary people who used and aided the law. 94 In the 1830s over 20 per cent of persons apprehended were given in charge to watchmen, and over the next two decades the proportion of arrests on charges made by the public ran at well over twice that figure. 95 There were many reasons for this, including reductions in the private cost of prosecutions, the extension of summary jurisdiction, and perhaps a growing appreciation of the police and legal system. 96 One other development, itself related to the confidence of, and in, the legal system was the increasing number of persons summoned rather than taken into custody, notably in cases of assault and breaches of Education Acts, Local Acts and the like. Not all summonses were, of course, actually served; for every ten granted, two or three were withdrawn or rendered void because differences were 'amicably arranged' between contestants, offenders could not be found, and both parties did not appear in court. The fortunes of those persons who were apprehended are rather difficult to plot as the police records do not give the complete picture. Superficially it appears that the proportion of persons discharged rose from about half in 1834 to almost three-quarters in 1840, after which it fell sharply to 39 per cent in 1850 and 18 per cent in 1892. The graph may well have been distorted, however, by changes in compiling the police table, for in later decades the considerable number of persons not sent before court for want of prosecution and other causes was excluded from the arrest-discharge ratio. 97 The high rate of discharges in the late 1830s and early 1840s was partly attributable no doubt to the problems of policemen in a period of some confusion and pressure, but there were other reasons for the embarrassing statistics, as Captain Willis explained in 1843: 98 of these [discharges] a large proportion are of parties charged with drunkenness, in which cases, except when occurring on Sundays within the township of Manchester, the Magistrates possess no power to commit. There are also numerous cases of disorderly conduct, such as broils, common assaults, and offences of a similar character, in which, although the Magistrate has not punished, the interference of the Police, in order to the maintaining of order, and the preservation of peace, has been absolutely required. It frequently occurs, when broils take place in the streets, that the parties quarrelling are being incited by their friends, as well as by the crowd, which quickly assembles, to fight; and the constables, in order to the restoration of peace and order, are compelled, although they have not actually committed a breach of the peace by fighting to take the parties into custody: and the discharges in such cases are very numerous. Again, parties are frequently taken into custody on strong

172

Crime and police in Manchester

and just suspicion of having committed a felony, and although remanded in some instances for several days by the Magistrates are ultimately discharged, not because improperly taken into custody, but in consequence of the Police being unable to obtain some link in the chain of evidence fully to substantiate the charge. It also frequently occurs that parties who have been taken into custody for felonies, which they are known to have committed, are discharged, because the prosecutors keep out of the way, and will not appear to give evidence in court; such cases, particularly in robberies by prostitutes, are extremely numerous. In other cases, which are not numerous, of petty offences by children, the extreme youth of the offenders has induced the Magistrates to give them up to their parents or guardians. Later, with the introduction of more effective legislation, greater police discretion and the use of summonses, 'many unnecessary apprehensions have been prevented'. 99 Those arrested for common assault, drunkenness and certain property crimes still stood a good chance of escaping conviction in the mid-Victorian years, but in the early 1870s Manchester's chief constable could argue that the rate of discharges was one of the lowest in the country . 100 It was a situation which owed much to careful policing and a willingness on the part of magistrates to hear and convict in the case of minor offences. Charles de Motte has described the extraordinary amount of work that fell upon judges, justices and other legal officers in the nineteenth century. In 1869, for example, 28,229 persons were proceeded against for offences of every kind, a much greater figure than that of thirty or forty years before. There was especially a marked increase in the cases dealt with at the local police courts. By 1892 nine out of ten persons prosecuted appeared before magistrates and were not subjected to trial by jury. And three out of four people at the police court would be convicted. In the mid century about half of those found guilty of minor crimes received gaol sentences of from three days to one month, and another quarter (including many prostitutes and vagrants) were given longer periods of imprisonment (up to three months). During the remaining four decades there was a much greater emphasis on fines, with 70 or 80 per cent of defendants being offered this alternative to gaol. On the whole female and juvenile offenders were treated more generously than their adult male counterparts. Every year several hundred criminals were sent for trial to the Quarter Sessions and Assizes. In 1839 Manchester was granted its own City Sessions; prior to that date serious crimes were often dealt with at the Salford Hundred Sessions. The conviction rate for those charged with indictable crime was high, though the chances of acquittal improved a little later in the century. For the guilty there was, of course, a major change in punish-

Crime and police in Manchester

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ment during these years. Of those felons tried at the New Bailey Court House between 1794 and 1838, 3,291 males and 459 females were given transportation . 101 In the mid century up to a quarter of the male and half the female convicts were sentenced to the same fate. Many had stolen only small amounts of property. Another 60 or 70 per cent of offenders were imprisoned for terms of one to twelve months, with females receiving slightly less severe terms. After the mid 1850s the position fluctuated a good deal, with, on average, one or two males out of ten being given penal servitude of from five to fifteen years' duration, three or four having prison sentences of at least a year, and another four being sent to gaol for periods of from one to twelve months. We do not know the proportion of sentences that were commuted or not fully served. What is certain is that those who were given transportation, penal servitude and prison sentences experienced tough and essentially purposeless regimes. Some of the hardened criminals lived in the terrible convict prisons, whilst ordinary prisoners were crammed into the New Bailey or sampled the delights of the treadwheel and separate system in the new City gaol. By the 1840s and 1850s Neale, Clay and others were questioning the value, especially for juveniles, of traditional forms of punishment, and the subsequent years saw experiments with corporal punishment, primitive kinds of probation, tickets-of-leave, and notably reformatory and industrial schools. Even so, despite the claims of reformers, only a third or a quarter of juveniles under sixteen years of age were actually sent to these schools. Aftercare for prisoners also affected only a small proportion of criminals, though in Thomas Wright, founder of the Discharged Prisoners Aid Society, Manchester had one of the most active pioneers. 102 Not all contemporaries approved of the changes. A few regretted the passing of transportation, more believed that the short gaol sentences and fining of vagrants, prostitutes and drunkards were counter-productive, and the police certainly welcomed the harsh sentences and physical cruelty imposed on some violent criminals during the 1850s, 1860s and early 1880s. Yet, at the end of the day, it was found impossible to establish permanent links between sentencing and criminal behaviour . 103 As we saw in the last chapter, police and legal records can be used for comparative purposes. First, both contemporaries and historians have claimed connections between economic developments and social protest. Engels, for instance, suggested that 'sheer necessity' drove people to beg and steal, and that there 'has been a constant relationship between the number of arrests and the annual consumption of bales of cotton'. 'Hunger', wrote Faucher, 'is a bad counsellor; the progress of crime follows that of poverty.' Even fervent apologists of the factory system acknowledged that the state of the labour market, especially for juveniles, had a bearing upon delinquency . 104 Yet those closest to the criminals were often suspicious of economic

17 4

Crime and police in Manchester

reductionism. The Reverend John Clay, for example, argued that stoppages, short-time work, and strikes, 'produced a great increase of young offenders' and a rise in female 'immoralitt, but a great decrease in the summary committals of adults . 10 Like Cooke Taylor, he believed that the Manchester workmen bore distress with great moral courage. Taking up this theme, Charles de Motte has written :106 During the periods of distress in 1842 and 1848 the number of arrests and convictions actually dipped from what they had been the previous year. As for the years of cotton famine in the early 1860s, the total arrests and convictions remained relatively stationary before increasing drastically after 1865. Clearly the majority of people remained honest despite enduring hardships and would seek entry to the workhouse, or even beg, rather than steal. The police reports can be set against all this, for chief constables often referred to the economic background to criminal activity. At times there was an acceptance that a high level of apprehensions, as in 1841-2, was due in part to trade depression, or a decline in numbers, as in 1859, mirrored the opposite economic trend. Yet the police chiefs were also aware of gaps in such a correlation. They believed, particularly in the later years, that the 'growing intelligence' and education of ordinary people, the activities of the 'criminal class', and the work of the police were having a much greater impact on the level of crime . 107 An analysis of the criminal and police statistics for the whole century does suggest that there were perhaps closer ties between the economy and crime than some people admitted. In general, despite de Motte's claims to the contrary, there was until the 1880s a fairly consistent inverse relationship between crimes reported, especially property crimes, and the graph of real wages and the business cycle. We noted that many minor property offences were committed in the winter months, and peaks of unemployment often coincided with, or just preceded, high figures for property, vagrancy and prostitution offences. Embezzlement and even burglaries were also popular crimes at times of business slump and wage reductions. On the other hand rates of drunkenness and violence to the person tended to follow the ups and downs of the trade cycle until the mid 1880s. The second comparison which historians have made is that between political tension and crime. It has been claimed that sharp increases in the crime rate, especially prior to the mid century, were merely the surface swell of mass discontent. Engels, we are told, at one point regarded crime as a 'primitive form of insurrection', and saw the offender as 'an unconscious and premature social rebel' . 108 It is true, of course, that rates of known crimes against property and the person were often high in years of general unrest, as in the years 1815-19, 1839-42

Crirr.e and police in Manchester

175

and the late 1860s, and some of these offences can be regarded as protest crimes. For example, in 1842, 1843 and 1848 at least 379 persons were taken into custody on charges of riot, sedition and conspiracy, and there were the 'outrages' of the brickmakers in the 1850s and 1860s. Other indices of tension, which must be used with care, include returns of serious assaults (especially vitriol - and lime-throwing attacks, and organised assaults on the police) , wilful damage and offences under the Masters and Servants Act. The last, which encompassed wage disputes and misdemeanours by workmen, were often most numerous in fairly prosperous years such as the mid 1840s and early 1870s. Clearly the relationship between crime and protest is a complex one In certain years such as 1848 and the early 1860s the number of reported crimes and arrests was less than some contemporaries expected, confirming perhaps the power and discretion of the authorities or even the many tributes to the 'moral courage' and 'loyalty' of cotton workers in times of great upheaval. Leon Faucher and Cooke Taylor, two propagandists for the factory system, were struck by the relative safety of property and the absence of a rebellion in the difficult years of the 1830s and 1840s.""" The third comparison which must be considered is that between the police and crime It was a common view, expressed forcibly by Joseph Fletcher, that in a place like Manchester, where the opportunities and temptations to commit offences were considerable it was necessary to establish and enforce a 'higher morality' o In the early 1830s the number of watchmen in the town was well under two hundred, but Sir Charles Shaw, the government commissioner who took charge of the force in October 1839, doubled its size and placed much emphasis on the night watch o110 Figure 6. 1 shows the subsequent strength of the police in relation to the population: the ratio in Manchester always remained slightly worse than that in Liverpool or London In the earliest years for which we have records it seems that just over a quarter of the force were of Irish nationality, with, after the mid century, the proportion falling to ten per cent and below, the Scots and Welsh making up the difference. Many recruits were from Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Cheshire and they had often been agricultural labourers. The average age of men in the force was 30-35 years, and the proportion of those married rose to three-quarters by the end of the century Dismissals, usually for drunkenness, and resignations were highest in the early 1830s and 1840s, although there were later periods, such as 1857-60 and 1865-71, when resignation figures rose sharply Explanations for this included competition from new forces, the difficulty of recruiting and promoting men in the face of higher wages outside, and the parsimony of the Borough Council. By 1880 the cost of the police department was £73,789, three and a half times that of Shaw's force in 1841-2o During the century the force did become more professional in character o The growth in size of the force after the mid 1850s 0

0

0

0

0

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Crime and police in Manchester·

was paralleled by a greater concern for the location, training, and detective work of the police. New stations were built and, by the mid 1860s, these and fire-stations had been linked by a telegraph network. At the same time officers were being increasingly used for specialist duties such as checking on known criminals or receivers of stolen property. 'How complete the power of the police! , ' exelaimed Junius Junior. 'The arm of the law has bent their strong and obstinate wills .... For the law, in the records of the police, hold their biographies in its iron grasp. rill From the outset those in charge of the new police were effusive in their praise. Chief constables spoke of the improving quality of recruits, the intelligence of their superiors, the discernment behind the arrests, and the general efficiency of prevention and detective departments. It is, of course , impossible to evaluate the preventive aspect, though Faucher and others had few doubts that the new police patrols intimidated robbers, and property owners in Shudehill or Charter Street were anxious to obtain police protection. There is also some evidence of growing appreciation of the work of the police, even physical support for them, from amongst the working class . 112 On detection, the available information on apprehensions suggests that in the second half of the nineteenth century one person was taken for every three or four known indictable offences and for every two or three reported felonies . 113 Crimes against the person were more likely to result in arrest than offences against property. For reported forgery offences, larceny by servants and even from the person,. the apprehension rate was fairly high, but in the case of breaking into houses and stealing from gardens, the police had a poor record. As they right1y argued, much of the responsibility for this state of affairs rested with property owners, though the activities of the growing number of plainclothed officers secured some famous arrests. 114 In general, chief constables believed that the number of arrests in relation to the size and cost of their force stood comparison with that in any major city, but others, notably Captain Elgee, the government inspector, stated that police presence and efficiency in Manchester had not grown in proportion to the extent and value of property and to the extra traffic and many other new duties imposed on the force . 115 There are some correlations between the graph of police numbers and that of certain crimes, yet there is by no means a consistent inverse relationship, as many police chiefs claimed. Undoubtedly, it was in the area of public order that the new police had most obvious effect. They enabled the Council in the 1830s and 1840s to put into effect prohibitions on unlawful hawking, street gambling, begging, brutal sports and disorderly behaviour. By 1848, when the statistics for these crimes were falling, Captain Willis declared that 'peace and good order have been eminently sustained; street broils, which were of frequent and of common occurrence some years since, rare1y ever take

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place, and when they do, are immediately suppressed' . 116 In later years, as we have seen, there were further police campaigns against drunken behaviour, gambling and open prostitution, but though these could be turned into satisfactory statistics they did 'materially interrupt that constant attention to their duties which is so necessary for the effectual protection of property and the detection of criminals' . 117 As we saw in the last chapter, unless the officers were on the spot at the time of robbery, comparatively few criminals were arrested and only a fraction of the stolen goods recovered. 118 From the beginning commissioners and chief constables realised that it was impossible to patrol effectively all the town in defence of property. It was largely a case of deciding, with the help of Council, employers and ratepayers, whose area and property to protect and of tracking down suspected persons and known criminals. As part of this policy Manchester policemen campaigned vigorously for fireater powers of search and control over doubtful characters. 9 To this extent, then, the police determined the place, character and perpetrators of crime. To conclude, one has the impression that Manchester by the end of the nineteenth century had become 'more civilised', its property, and inhabitants safer, and its police displaying more confidence in dealing with breaches of the peace. Although slum districts in Angel Meadow and Ancoats were still attracting attention in the 1890s, and although people were still fearful of the disease and attitudes in them, Manchester was no longer the shock city, and no longer held the prospect of rising crime rates and 'universal revolution' . 12 From the crime statistics it appears that the chronology of this change was different from that of London or England and Wales generally, but in the end the views of optimists like Thomas Plint had been largely substantiated. In so far as contemporaries defined and reported it, delinquency and criminal behaviour had declined. Traditional explanations for this situation in the later part of the century were a more settled economy, the expansion and diversification of Manchester's commercial and industrial base, urban improvement, new developments of public amenities and housing, changes in policing, imprisonment and treatment of offenders, and better education of, and 'better feelings' within the working-class families. Jerome Caminada, in his reminiscences of 'a Detective Life' written in 1895, believed that the improvement was a mixture of all these factors . 121 Undoubtedly, something was achieved by positive action, though we need to remember that there was also a decline in the sensitivity and alarm which had once brought fear of working-class crime, and new forms of policing.

°

7 THE VAG RANT AND CRIME IN VICTORIAN BRITAIN: problems of definition and attitude

THE VAGRANT Vagrancy was, as we have seen in previous chapters, a constant problem in the nineteenth century, and there were periods, such as 1815-19, the late 1840s, the late 1860s, and the mid 1890s, when it grew to alarming proportions. Angry ratepayers called public meetings to protest about the burden on their communities, and petitions were sent in scores to Parliament and the Poor Law authorities. A few individuals, like the judicious John Lambert, tried to demonstrate that the danger from vagrants was much less than it had been centuries before, and that a degree of mobility and homelessness was an inevitable part of the change from a rural to an urban and industrial society, but their voice was generally lost in the contemporary demand for urgent action . 1 In some ways this anxiety was not surprising, for the concern was not simply about numbers. To many Victorians the vagrant was the most glaring afront to the trinity of work, respectability and religion. He was the epitome of uncivilised self-indulgence, lacking in both 'industrious habits' and 'independence', and without a home in either the material or spiritual world. At a time when people were discussing the vote for working people, it seemed quite extraordinary that there were thousands who appeared to deny community, property and family values, and who lived only for 'sensuous enjoyment'. 2 In parts of nonconformist Wales and Scotland, the very term 'tramp' was synonymous with depravity. In fact, vagrants were placed very firmly within the category of 'the dangerous class( es)' by writers of the nineteenth century. They represented a certain physical threat, being carriers of disease and crime from town to country, preying on commercial trade, and constituting a potentially dangerous weapon during times of political tension. Henry Mayhew and the Reverend H. Solly were worried by the 'great mass of rough, unmoral and uneducated phrsical force' which lay to hand in years like 1848, 1866 and 1884, The social danger was more serious; the vagrant spread 'moral pestilence' amongst the lowly-paid, the paupers and the young. 'To a man who has to drudge at the docks, for instance, for three pence an hour', wrote James Greenwood in 1869, ' ... it is a dangerous experience for him to discover that as much may be made on an average by sauntering the ordinary length of the street, occasionally raising his hand to his cap."' There were repeated tales of agricultural labourers expressing 178

The vagrant and crime in Victorian Britain

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envy of the vagrant's life. A more persistent anxiety was that vagrants had twisted the carefully-built apparatus of relief and repression to their own advantage. The lodging-house, casual ward and prison had become 'breeding grounds of crime and seduction'. Although the relationship between society and the vagrant was essentially a clash over control and morality, it was also part of the continuing dialogue between the community and the outsider. Historically, the village community had been remarkably intolerant of newcomers. There were sound economic reasons for this, but there was also a convenient myth about the outsider as deviant and criminal. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the vagrant had been a popular scapegoat for the problems of society, and this remained true, as we have seen, in nineteenth-century Britain. The Royal Commission on the Constabulary Force in 1839 is crammed with accounts of the iniquities of migrants in general and vagrants in particular. The more isolated and undefended was the community, the sharper the confrontation. In this chapter we shall be examining this confrontation in some detail, using evidence mainly from Wales and the border and midland counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. The Welsh story is particularly interesting because of the additional religious and cultural dimensions. Most vagrants in the Principality were of Irish, English or Scottish origin, thus reinforcing the growing nonconformist, nationalist, judicial and literary myth of a respectable and innocent nation beset by irresponsible, divisive and criminal intruders. Contemporaries showed a greater interest in the vagrant than modern historians. Literary figures like Borrow and later Wordsworth highlighted the romantic aspect of the man who lived free 'in the eye of nature'. Then, in the mid century, the rapid increase in vagrancy figures and a preoccupation with the 'Labour Question' caused Mayhew, Dickens, S. P. Day, W. D. Boase and others to look more closely at our subject, even visiting his lodgings and taking interviews. Journalist James Greenwood in the 1860s was one of a new brand of social investigators; he disguised himself as a tramp and sampled the life for himself. His account of the rigours of life 'On Tramp' and of the culture and schemes of the inmates of the casual wards made a considerable impression on his contemporaries. Several individuals at this time also published pamphlets on vagrancy, and in 1887 Ribton-Turner produced his mammoth 'History of Vagrants and Vagrancy' . 5 The official interest is reflected in the large number of orders and Acts of Parliament on vagrancy between 1824 and 1882. These orders were often preceded by Poor Law and Select Committee reports into the extent and treatment of the problem. There were also complementary reports in the Victorian period on homelessness, the Irish poor, and the settlement and removal laws. The two most valuable and influential reports on vagrancy

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were those of 1847-8 and 1866. In the first of these, Boase, Andrew Doyle, Sir John Walsham and others presented papers on vagrancy to the Poor Law Board, and there were some fifty communications from clerks of various unions. Much of this evidence was on the situation in Cheshire, the Midlands and Wales. In the mid 1860s Doyle, Walsham, John T. Graves and seven others supervised a similar exercise. Doyle's report , which covered north Wales and the adjacent English counties, has a special importance because it was widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive surveys of the century. In the later decades interest in vagrancy revived, mainly because of the effect of the economic crisis of the mid 1890s, but despite considerable pressure the next major inquiry was delayed until 1906. 6 The limitations of this contemporary evidence are all too obvious. 'If we seem rather hard on the class,' said 'The Times' in 1865, 'let it be considered that we know nothing of it except from the reports of the police courts and statements of workhouse officials. '7 Most social investigators viewed vagrants from a distance, as a separate and inferior class, and even sympathetic observers were highly critical of their values and behaviour. Only someone like Mary Higgs, writing at the turn of the century, attempted to relate their plight to the economic and social changes of the period, but her solutions were as rigorous as those of her predecessors. 8 What is missing in all this is the voice of the vagrant and the views of the public. In the eyes of those who had ready access to the media, a vagrant had three outstanding characteristics. First, he was 'repulsive' by nature and appearance. 'No foreign heathen can compare with him ... ' , wrote Ribton-Turner, ' in his obscenity of language, and his utter brutality and filthiness of life and action', and partly because of this attitude, policemen, workhouse masters, and - more seriously - surgeons treated him with the minimum of respect. 9 The second characteristic was his destitution; in spite of constant claims that he was undeserving of help, he was generally found to be without any means of support, often ill and sometimes dying. A considerable number of those apprehended in the Midland and Welsh counties for begging and sleeping in outbuildings expired in police cells, and a much larger number succumbed to cholera and the 'Irish fever'. The third characteristic was their 'evil disposition', the vagrant being singled out as the most obvious and accessible criminal of the period . 10 Those searching for an hereditary criminal class found much to satisfy them here. 'They are, for the most part,' said one Poor Law officer in 1848, 'if not criminals, at least , on the verge of crime', an opinion shared by most contributors to the reports on the police force in 1839 and 1852-3. 11 This association with criminality compromised the treatment of vagrancy. Private benevolence and charitable institutions were sometimes abandoned at the very periods when they were most needed as a result of the adverse publicity from newspapers

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and chief constables. For most people, especially those in remoter areas, the problem of vagrancy was essentially one of control, and they increasingly looked to the central authority for assistance. The latter used the law, the police and the system of poor relief to deter and discriminate, but the vagrant had a remarkable capacity to frustrate the best intentions. In some respects, the 'abject, grovelling, tramp' proved to be as much a rebel as some of his more respectable and radical workingclass brethren. There are no accurate statistics of vagrancy in the nineteenth century. Poor Law officers and the police sometimes provided details of those relieved in workhouses and 1odging houses, but these lists contain innumerable technical problems. Moreover, it was often impossible to estimate the numbers who slept rough or were the recipients of private charity. In some districts of the north-western counties and Wales there was no documentation of vagrancy at all in the first half of the century, a reflection of, and in some senses a contribution to, rural apathy. Where we do have an intersection of evidence, as in the late 1860s, the police estimate was five or six times greater than the Poor Law return. The Poor Law tables, which contemporaries often used to describe shifts in the size of vagrancy, must be regarded cautiously especially when they indicate a sharp fall in numbers . 12 Indeed, those charged by the government with investigating the subject were almost unanimous in their suspicion of all the records that were kept. The Departmental Committee of 1906, which made a survey of nineteenth-century statistics, suggested that there were in England and Wales some 30-40,000 vagTants in periods when trade was brisk, and 70-80,000 when it was depressed. For reasons to be discussed later, many of these were to be found in the Home Counties, the North West, the west Midlands, the border counties and mid Wales. In Gloucestershire, for example, at the turn of the century a careful inquiry revealed that there were 'practically 30,000 people wandering about the county' . 13 The vagrancy problem here and elsewhere became especially acute during certain periods of the nineteenth century: the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the early 1830s, the early and late 1840s, the very late 1850s and much of the 1860s, and in the depressions of the late 1870s, early 1880s and mid 1890s. In the later 1840s vagrancy took on a new and frightening prospect. The situation, already serious because of widespread poverty, was aggravated by the Irish famine. Up to a quarter of a million people arrived at Liverpool, 'in a state of wretchedness which cannot be described', and, after a short stay, many set off for the Midlands and London. Others landed at ports further north and many followed a well-established route through the Principality. Clerks of Poor Law Unions in the path of this Irish migration complained of appalling overcrowding, rising crime rates, and the heavy burden on the rates. Somewhat

182 . The vagrant and c.rime in Victorian Britain ineffective efforts were made to return hundreds of these Irish families to their homeland, and, as an alternative, other unions denied assistance to the able-bodied members of this tramping army. The numbers of vagrants fell after 1848. Contemporaries were inclined to attribute this to a more rigorous system of poor relief and greater police activity, but much of it was due to better economic conditions. Within a year the number relieved had fallen dramatically, though in parts of north Wales and the North West the situation remained a matter of concern until the mid 1850s. At the end of the decade the official figures began to rise again sharply in some places, gathered momentum in 1862 and reached peaks in 1863 and again in 1866-9 when public meetings and petitions were the order of the day. In Chester, for example, in 1868 and 1869, some 11,000 of the 'casual poor' were relieved by the police . 14 In the middle of this 'unpleasant decade' Poor Law inspectors were required to make surveys of vagrancy in their own districts. From these one can detect new regional patterns of vagrancy; as Irish immigration subsided, so the position in the hinterland of coastal towns improved, and there were towns which remained comparatively free of vagrants until the 1890s. What caused concern now was the movement of tramps across central rural and industrial areas, and the extent to which these people were involved in criminal activities, especially arson. In places like Merthyr Tydfil and Stockport , which experienced severe economic dislocation, the number of vagrants given relief for one or two nights rose sharply in the 1860s. At the same time there were reports from the Lake District, Shropshire, Gloucestershire, and Mid Wales of rural parishes experiencing 'unprecedented tramping', some of which was due to the Cotton Famine. In Gloucestershire over 25,000 were given assistance by the Poor Law authorities in 1868 and in Radnorshire 3, 687, five times the number of four years previously . 15 During the remainder of the century there were three dominating peaks in the official vagrancy figures: 1880-1, 1889 and 1895. All three induced considerable shocks amongst officials and politicians who had either forgotten about the vagrancy problem or who, like John Lambert, had fondly imagined that the 'improvement of the working class' and a settled urban life would reduce tramping to insignificance. In 1882 Sir Baldwyn Leighton warned his Parliamentary colleagues that the number of men on the road had risen by over 300 per cent in some Midland and border county areas. Of course, the figures of this period should be set in the context of rising unemployment, and this is especially true of the years 1894-5. Reports from Wales, Staffordshire and the South West stated that 'many of our working people are on the move', and the Local Government Board was inundated with demands for action. During the next crisis of 1904-5, when official vagrancy figures broke all records, there were several major conferences on the issue, and a frank

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admission from government officers that 'we stand today where we stood forty years ago' . 16 The last crisis prompted the question - 'who are the vagrants?' The Departmental Committee of 1906 admitted frankly that the 'persons classed broadly as "vagrants" differ greatly, and it is extremely difficult to define what is, in fact, included in the term' . 17 In a recent study Raphael Samuel has underlined both the problem of distinguishing between the nomadic and settled population, and the complex composition of the former group . 18 Not all inmates of casual wards were vagrants. Some were the resident 'down and outs' of village and city in need of a free night's lodging. Others were genuine migrants, whom contemporaries frequently separated into two categories: a small number of 'honest wayfarers' and a large number of 'dishonest vagrants'. Throughout the Victorian years officials tried to discriminate between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' vagrant, but it was a difficult and thankless task. When the master of Newport workhouse put the 'clean' and 'untidy' into separate wards, the former proved more riotous than the latter! Unfortunately for the social historian, the term 'vagrant' was continually being redefined by contemfgoraries, whilst the legal definition was extraordinarily elastic. 9 All manner of persons were prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act of 1824. In the last analysis the only agreement among contemporaries was that a vagrant was mobile, homeless and almost invariably poor. Evidence on the nationality, sex and age of vagrants is plentiful but by no means accurate. It appears that , over the Victorian period, between 50 and 70 per cent of all vagrants were of English origin, with the Irish proportion reaching perhaps 40 per cent in the mid century. The sex and age ratios also fluctuated, often depending on the economic conditions of the time. Reports in the 1840s and 1860s indicated that between a sixth and a quarter of vagrants were females, most of them single women. At the turn of the century the ratio was probably nearer 1 in 10. As for the age of vagrants, most of them in the early Victorian period were between the ages of 15 and 40, but fifty years later a much higher proportion were over 35. The Departmental Committee of 1906 claimed that 70 per cent of people relieved in casual wards were within the 35-65 age category. We shall be concerned in this chapter with four types or groups of wayfarers, besides the Irish contingent. The first were men and women whose work entailed travelling, and who were to be found in 'low' lodging-houses and casual wards. Included in their number were certain kinds of grinders, tailors and painters, hawkers and showmen, sailors looking for a ship, and a wide range of seasonal workers. Harvesters, marketgardeners and hop-pickers, many of whom lived in London and the larger towns in winter, moved towards the border counties and the South East in their hundreds at the appropriate time. Mayhew reminds us that workers in the mid nineteenth century

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often had several jobs, brickmaking in the Midlands perhaps in the summer and gas-stoking in London during the winter, or labouring in the country, brewing in the town and fishing at the nearest port . Of course, the new urban and industrial world demanded a high level of labour mobility : 20 Labour shifts from place to place where it is needed. Individuals drop out or are thrust out. There is never, on any one night, in our great centres of population, sufficient provision for this ebb and flow. The houseless and the homeless are a great multitude, as sheep without a shepherd. Day by day they make a moving procession. The amendments to the Poor and Settlement Laws and the orders of Poor Law Commissioners in the late 1830s recognised this situation, and the hasty provision of shelters, refuges and casual wards was a testimony to the inadequacy of the private and municipal response. Navvies, building workers and even some miners· were amongst those who found it difficult to obtain cheap and adequate accommodation. A second group of vag·rants were unemployed males. The lists of occupations given by vagrants, whatever their deficiencies, are an interesting commentary on the agrarian and industrial revolutions. A good number of migrants were the remnants of decaying trades, or the human debris of recessions and strikes. In the 1830s and 1840s the relieving officers of the North West and the Midlands were confronted by moving ranks of destitute weavers, woolcombers, hatters, tailors, shoemakers, nailers, knitters, and carpenters. Mayhew met several textile workers who had been made redundant by machinery, who had exhausted community and union help, and who had finally given up home and possessions in a bid to obtain work. In his reports we also learn that there were 'very many farm-labourers now going from farm to farm, and town to town, to seek work'; some had been given the cost of travel and extravagant gromises of a better life in London and the industrial centres. 1 At one time or another most workmen, especially if they were young and casually employed, experienced the loss of a job and possibly their home. In difficult economic times such people became, according to 'The Times' editorial of 16 July 1868, 'by degrees, lower, depraved in body and mind, till they sank more or less, according to their nature into the tramp proper'. Some of them, like the miners, railwaymen and builders of the late 1840s, and the dockers and cotton workers of the 1860s, viewed their plight with much bitterness. When 44-year-old tramping blacksmith Charles Frazer was asked in 1869 whether he wished to emigrate, he replied that he did not see 'why the bone and sinew of the country should leave their homes and let the "donothings" stop behind to have all the good things ... the aristocracy ... had been shutting up the dockyards to get rid of

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the people'. He had heard that 'they were going to do away with the "casual wards"; ... he thou~ht it would take the Government all their time to do that'. 'We are willing to work, but it ain't to be had', was the message of these periods and of the depressions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and those who demanded greater mobility from the underemployed sections of the population were amonfst the first to cry 'wolf' when it was provided on a large scale. 2 The position of unemployed females deserves a special note. Such a person was Ann Dunavan, who was charged with breaking a street lamp on her first night in Birmingham. 'In defence she said that she had no work', reported the' Birmingham Journal' , 'and was in need of a night's lodging; she had no money and did not wish to be in the street all night, subject to the insult of every passer-by, and therefore, as a last resort, she committed the deed complained of.' This recent migrant from Manchester was discharged on promising to leave yet another town. 2" A very large number of female vagrants claimed to have been charwomen, needlewomen, dressmakers, servants, laundresses and field workers. Once again Mayhew's interviews are illuminating; women who lost their job were soon in difficulties, and without the right clothes or references faced the choice of prostitution, street trading or taking to the road in search of work. Perhaps the saddest member of the vagrant community at the turn of the century was the sin~le middle-aged woman struggling to find work and sympathy. 5 The third group of vagrants were loosely described as the 'deserving poor', and their plight bears further testimony to the pressures, tensions and poverty in nineteenth-century society. In the early Victorian years we know that a considerable number of vagrants were under the age of 17 years. Some were the children of trampers and Irish immigrants who died of the cholera, whilst others had been pushed out of slum homes to make their living as best they could. At the other extreme, one of the more pressing social problems of the late nineteenth century was the number of 50-, 60- and 70-year-old people trudging and begging their way across the country. Some of them were workmen who had become physically and mentally sick, and who used the casual ward as a last refuge when they were unable or unwilling to enter the 'Union'. So did many abandoned women: wives battered or deserted by husbands and lovers, 'army widows', and widows proper. These 'deserving' cases never received the attention or publicity of the fourth category of wayfarers. These were the elusive men and women known as 'habitual vagrants' or 'tramps'. The chief constable of Chester and masters of workhouses and relieving officers from many parts of Britain claimed in the reports of 1847-8 and 1866 that from a half to four-fifths of vagrants were in fact sturdy beggars 'tramping to avoid work', contented members of the 'real vagrant class'. There were a few brave officials and magistrates in the 1860s who challenged

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these assumptions, and Mary Higgs insisted that the number of such tramps had been greatly reduced by the early twentieth century, but the fascination with this vagrant type remained. It was a self-interested fascination; the presence of 'habitual vagrants' deflected enquiries into the inadequacies of the capitalist state and encouraged the notion that vagrants were somehow of a different species from ordinary working people. During the Victorian period the number of 'habitual vagrants' was variously estimated at from 10,000 to 40,000. Some of them were, as we have seen, casual labourers who, in times of depression, simply gave up the struggle to find another job. 'He was not a regular mason,' William Jones of Gloucestershire informed an interviewer in London, 'but one that prepared stones for rough buildings . . . had been out of work for some time, and slept in "casual wards" all over the country; did not often try for a job now.' He thought 'that it was all up with a man when he took to tramping'. 26 Without money, references, decent clothes and regular lodgings it was difficult to get work and, as John Graves frankly admitted, the generosity of employers and charity workers was usually bestowed on the 'deserving poor'. Men who left the armed forces found it especially hard to break this vicious circle, and they constituted a significant and bitter core of trampers. 27 One of the roots of 'habitual vagrancy' was rebellion, or disillusionment with home, the workhouse and work. Some of the vagrants who appear in the court records had broken apprenticeships or discharged themselves from 'the Union'. One member of a rural labourer's family said that he took to the road 'rather than be licked forever', and young tramps often complained of the boredom , discipline, dependence and rewards of their previous existence. Vagrants in Wales, Herefordshire, and London were said to have turned down the offer of poorly-paid jobs, preferring the colour and change of 'a roving, idle life', especially in the summer months. They were duly condemned by all articulate members of society, as erratic, purposeless beings, incapable of 'true industrialism'. 28 Another productive source of tramping was the Poor Law itself, or rather the administration of the laws regarding settlement and relief. The convulsions of the industria1 and agrarian revolutions and the constant movement of people across the country placed enormous strains on the Poor Law system. By the 1850s there were thousands of people with no home parish, especially in the London area, and the amendments to the laws of settlement and the Houseless Poor Acts of 1864 and 1865 were an acknowledgement of this unpalatable fact. The administration of state charity exacerbated the problem; as we have seen in previous chapters, cuts in outdoor relief and other measures of local authorities induced some of their settled poor to move, and the conditions attached to the giving of casual relief encouraged them to keep on moving. It was a sad and savage way of creating 'regular trampers'.

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Tramps were recognised by their dirty appearance, their long coats, deep pockets, walking sticks and pipes. They moved about the country in twos and threes and lived by doing odd jobs, selling songs, stories, matches and soap, mending umbrellas and broken china, gambling, begging and thieving 'I think a beggar's life is the worst kind of life that a man can lead', said one of them. 'A beggar is no more thought upon than a dog in the street. '29 When confronted by complaints of his life and behaviour, a tramp was likely to surprise his critics. James Greenwood was amazed by their logic, their determination not to starve 'in a land of folenty', and their willingness to blame 'the bigguns' in society. 0 If contemporaries are to be believed, it seems that tramps had become more confident and threatening by the mid century. One of them told a Wrexham workhouse officer that 'we know the law as well as you'. 31 Such attitudes were proof, in the eyes of those people who wished to separate vagrants from the working class, that tramps had their own values, culture and language. In fact, there was simply the close companionship and communications typical of so many groups of social outcasts. Lodgin~-houses and casual wards resounded to their tales and songs 2 0

0

Sometimes we dance all night - Christmas time, and such times. Young women dance with us, and sometimes old women. We're all merry; some's lying on the floor drunk; some's jumping about smoking; some's dancing; and so we enjoy ourselves That's the best part of the life. o

Their information network was remarkably good When the workhouse at Doddington, in Cambridgeshire, ran out of oakum junk it was besieged by vagrants who had heard the news. Messages were scrawled on walls of refuges and wards. These are a few of the notes found in workhouses in the border counties in 1865: 33 0

Notice to our pals - Bristol Jack and Burslem was here on the 15th of April, bound for Montgomeryshire for the summer season. Wrexham is head-quarters now. Notice to Long Cockney, or Cambridge, or any of the fraternity - Harry the Mack was here from Carmarthen, and if any of the Yorkshire tramps wishes to find him he is to be found in South Wales for the next three months. 17 August 1865. Londonderry Ginger was here on the 7th October 1865, bound to Cardiff for the winter. These messages indicated that there were tramping fraternities, which used aliases and nicknames. One of the best known was the 'long Gang' of 30-40 people who 'worked' north Wales

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and Cheshire. Vagrants moved along well-defined routes. Some men and women covered a small geographical area, reappearing, for example, at Stockport, Mold, Nottingham and Gloucester every two or three months, and spending the winter months in town. 34 These vagrants sometimes had strong local ties with the area which they traversed. Others journeyed further afield, often following the trail of hay and corn harvests. The most famous circuit, which kept people on the road from April until November, began in London and ran up to Yorkshire and Northumberland, across the Pennines, down through Cheshire and across the Midlands and back to the Home Counties. There were also secondary routes across the popular northern circuit, around the coastal resorts of the South East, and into Wales. An examination of the Welsh records shows that hundreds of vagrants travelled between Lancashire and mid Wales, whilst another group journeyed through the border counties to Bristol, Cardiff and the South Wales ironworks every year. One of the priorities of police and poor law offieials was to keep vagrants to these known routes, and to provide sufficient accommodation at the important transit points. Accommodation on the road was of three main kinds: lodginghouses, refuges and casual wards. Manchester and London had, as we have seen, several hundred tramp lodging-houses, and Nottingham, Birmingham, Cheltenham, Merthyr and most other towns had streets of 'boozing kens' or 'kip houses'. Although they were appallingly dirty and overcrowded, and had reputations for being centres of vice and crime, these places were very popular with men who could afford the price. Local authorities increasingly brought these houses under police supervision, especially after the Lod1?;ing House Act of 1866. Even so, Mary Higgs, visiting these places several decades later, hardly noticed any improvement, particularly in the facilities provided for female travellers. Less fortunate vagrants chose the refuges or asylums which were opened in London, Birmingham and elsewhere in considerable numbers during the early nineteenth century. These were charitable institutions offering free accommodation and food to the casual poor over the winter months. Some trampers timed their return journey to London or South Wales towns to coincide with the opening of refuges but, in the face of mounting criticism and declining funds, several asylums closed down in the 1840s and again in the 1860s. 35 Religious organisations, notably the Salvation Army, opened shelters for the homeless later in the century, though the 'disreputable vagrant' was excluded from some of them. Thousands, of course, sought refuge within the workhouse. By the 1860s most of the unions had their own casual wards, and those that had not could usually direct vagrants to temporary places of shelter. Attempts were made to standardise the condi-

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tions in these wards, but they remained bleak and poorlyventilated places. Many vagrants disliked the regulations, the searches, the food and the work test in the workhouse, as well as the late hour at which they were 'freed'. Poor C. W. Craven, who sampled life in the Keighley casual ward during the 1880s, was locked naked in the sleeping-room, and then given nine hours solitary stone-breaking. Many preferred to sleep instead in brick kilns, barns and other empty property, or, if the weather were fine, in gardens, parks and fields. Unfortunately we know all too little of the manner in which the vagrants were received on their travels. To judge from the comments of vagrants themselves, it seems that Northern people often treated them generously and the Welsh, if mean with money, were usually prepared to give them food. In some areas the tradition of helping the poor, especially people with local ties, was still strong, 'So long as a rigid application of PoorLaw tests deprives aged and infirm men and women of needful support,' said William Watson in 1877, 'the mistaken feeling of charity in the country people will always supply them with food and lodging rather than see them die of cold and hunger.' The working class were particularly moved by victims of disasters, strikes and trade depressions; what they disliked were the constant appeals of gangs of young men and Irishmen in years when everyone lived on the edge of starvation. Vagrants in the 1850s and 1860s also noted a shift in attitudes amongst clergymen, farmers and philanthropic businessmen who 'are meaner ... now'. 36 If this were true, it was hardly surprising. From the Poor Law report of 1834 until the Departmental Committee of 1906, and especially in the late 1860s, the charitable were subjected to constant criticism. Stories of the exploitation of the gift abounded; tramps sold clothes given them by clergymen, money was immediately consumed on drink, and hundreds over-fed themselves in the soup kitchens of London and the Midlands in the 1860s and 1880s. The greater the poverty, the more the philanthropists were warned to be on their guard. Attempts were made in the mid-Victorian years to rationalise the giving of charity, chiefly through new mendicity societies. Like the original London Society, these gave subscribers tickets which could be redeemed by vagrants at the societies' offices. There they would be examined; the deserving would be given food and shelter, and the undeserving probably placed in police custody. In the countryside it was harder to enforce such a rigorous policy, but even here tramps in the mid- and late Victorian years faced a growing publicity campaign from newspapers, police authorities and various societies. The 'Cambrian News' called upon the people of Mid Wales to stop giving alms to tramps, for then 'the evil will soon decrease', 37 and leaflets to this effect were left at every house in Gloucestershire in the 1880s. The treatment of vagrants caused much friction between local

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and central government throughout the nineteenth century. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 recognised that destitute wayfarers had a legal right to obtain food and shelter from a union, and orders from commissioners in the late 1830s and 1846 reminded Guardians of this unpleasant fact. It was suggested, however, that this assistance should be given in places and on conditions likely to deter applicants. Under pressure from angry ratepayers, this Poor Law policy was strengthened in the 1840s, especially by the Act of 1842 which prescribed imprisonment for vagrants who refused a work test, and by Charles Buller's circular of 7 August 1848 encouraging Guardians to be more discriminating in the giving of relief. Buller, the new President of the Poor Law Board, recommended four methods of distinguishing between the deserving and the undeserving: the refusal of relief to young able-bodied when there was no risk to life, the use of passes or certificates, the appointment of policemen as assistant relieving officers and the introduction of a work test. The last two proposals became the most popular. Cambridge and a number of other towns on the main vagrancy routes put tramps firmly in police hands at a very early date, but in 1848-9 much of the emphasis was on the appointment of police as relieving officers in rural districts. From Essex, Wiltshire and Hampshire, where the experiment was tried at this time, came extravagant claims of the beneficial impact on crime and mendicity, and indeed many contemporaries felt that the answer to vagrancy was to make it solely a police matter. 38 By the mid 1860s policemen were employed as assistant relieving officers in about half the English unions. The usual procedure was for vagrants to report to the police station, where they were given tickets for the workhouse and lodging-houses or alternatively held as suspected vagabonds. In the 1860s tramp wards were increasingly built close to police stations, so that police supervision could be extended further. ~ 9 By the same period almost half the unions had adopted the deterrent of the work test in their casual wards. Vagrants were given food and shelter in return for a task of work, usually stone-breaking, oakum-picking, pumping water, corn-grinding, and working the treadmill. for periods of 2-5 hours. This kind of test was apparently successful in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and the larger towns, and in places like Macclesfield and Oswestry where the police were close at hand, but in the country parishes of Shropshire and Wales its limitations were all too obvious. Apart from the cost of obtaining work materials and appointing overseers, there was the very real problem of enforcing the test. At Wrexham there was in the 1840s a quite extraordinary see-saw battle between magistrates, Guardians and vagrants, with the last protesting that on their release from the workhouse they were too late, tired and hungry to find a job outside. As with so many nineteenth-century controls and deterrents,

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immediate success proved ultimately illusory. In the 1860s, when unions in mid Wales were instituting the work test, it was being abandoned as ineffective in parts of the Home Counties. No wonder 'The Times' in 1869 stated that the Poor Law authorities had 'lon~ since found its master in the tramps and vagrants of England'." Two unresolvable difficulties had emerged over the previous twenty years. First, the varied pattern of local controls and police activity did little more than push the vagrancy problem around the country. When Captain McHardy, chief constable of Essex, was told that his measures had driven thousands of wayfarers into neighbouring Kent, he replied cheerfully: 'That was my object; that is what I intended to do. '41 The second difficulty was that although authorities were expected to help the starving and the homeless they found it virtually impossible to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving cases. By 1868 police cynicism on this point had reached a stage where they were willing to treat all wayfarers as scroungers and potential criminals. 42 The treatment of vagrancy in the later nineteenth century reflected the experience of these earlier years and the growing rift between local and central government. Some authorities in the North West, tired of platitudes and experiments, ordered a tough execution of the Vagrancy Laws and supported the attack on indiscriminate charity. Others, on their own initiative, tried to bring the movement of vagrants under some form of control. Variations of the way-ticket system were started in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Breconshire, Herefordshire and Dorset in the 1860s and spread to other counties during the next twenty years. Vagrants on entering a county were given a ticket on which was written their route and destination, and so long as they kept to their schedule they were given accommodation in casual wards along the way and food from bread-stations (often police stations) at midday. Those who applied for assistance without a pass were given a rigorous work test or apprehended as 'incorrigible rogues'. Once again there was initial enthusiasm for a new scheme and the usual quota of administrative problems and general suspicion of discretionary police powers . For their part the Local Government Board continued to stress the virtues of uniformity and deterrent conditions. A circular in 1868, which contained instructions for a common diet and work test, was followed by the Pauper Inmates Discharge and Regulation Act of 1871 and the Casual Poor Act of 1882. The Act of 1871 provided for the establishment of deterrent wards for all wayfarers and their exclusion from the workhouse, and the Board recommended the cellular system which removed the need for discriminating between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' vagrant and yet kept the one safe from the contaminating influence of the other. The provision of cells for vagrants was popular in the larger northern and Midland towns and by 1904 it had been adopted by 434 Boards of Guardians. The Casual

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Pauper Act of 1882 extended the period of detention for vagrants; all inmates of casual wards were required to complete one day's work on their first visit in a month, and two days on their second visit. In parts of north Wales where a complex wayticket system was used in conjunction with this Act, unlucky holders of red tickets had to spend three days breaking 18 cwt of stones in special cells built for the purpose. In the many Poor Law conferences and meetings at the end of the century there was an admission of failure. Acts, orders and local schemes had by their very nature only a limited and shortterm effect. From the 1860s onwards there had been a growing realisation that many vagrants were inadequate and unfortunate rather than incorrigible rogues, yet the only persistent reforming interest was in their children. "3 These children occupied a good deal of attention in the mid century, and some of the main provisions of the Industrial Schools Acts of 1857-66 were that children committed for vagrancy offences or found begging and wandering about could, under certain conditions, be sent to industrial schools and reformatories. Similar clauses were included in the Elementary Education Acts of the 1870s, and various societies and the police in Gloucestershire and Northampton removed hundreds of vagrant and street children into the workhouse. Reformers at this time were delighted by the apparent fall in the number of juvenile vagrants, but older tramps were a more difficult problem. The clerk of the Waiverhampton Union had called in 1848 for 'industrial hospitals', and inspector Aneurin Owen had a vision of a labour colony set in the Severn estuary."" Sixty years later a few isolated vagrant detention centres were started in south and east England, but nothing to compare with the systems long established in northern Europe. The creation of labour colonies was one of the major recommendations of the Departmental Committee of 1906 which made a detailed inquiry into the history and treatment of vagrancy over the previous century. Other recommendations made by this Committee included more police supervision of casual wards and wayticket schemes, the establishment of labour bureaux in the larger towns, and greater powers of detention over adults and children on the road. Yet the effect of this inquiry was remarkably small. Indeed, there were some indications in the pre-war years, when official vagrancy statisties were again high, that the treatment of casuals was as bad, if not worse, than it had been in 1834. THE VAGRANT AND CRIME An important reason for this was that vagrants were still regarded by many people as incipient or actual criminals. The Royal Commission on the Constabulary Force in 1839 set the tone for the rest of the Victorian period :"5

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The most prominent body of delinquents in the rural districts, are vagrants, and these vagrants· appear to consist of two classes, first, the habitual depredators, housebreakers, horse-stealers and common thieves; secondly, of vagrants, properly so-called, who seek alms as mendicants. Besides those classes who travel from fair to fair, and from town to town, in quest of dishonest gains, there are numerous classes who make incursions from the provincial towns upon the adjacent rural districts. Throughout the nineteenth century people on the Welsh-English border complained that most of their crimes were committed by 'strangers', whilst on the Scottish-English border farmers sometimes felt it necessary to join together in an effort to protect their property from the 'ravages of travellers'. 46 Certainly the presence of vagrants in such areas was one reason why a national police force was advocated, and Major-General Cartwright, police inspector of the Midland Region, believed that the suppression of 'vagrancy crime' was the main purpose of the County and Borough Act of 1856. 47 Unhappily, the character of nineteenth-century records prevents us from checking the validity of such attitudes and claims. It is impossible to ascertain with any accuracy the number of vagrants apprehended by the police and appearing in court. Most early petty session and police books have disappeared, and anyway information on the residence and occupation of petty offenders is missing or difficult to use. 48 According to the Commission of 1839 an average of 18, 000 persons had been committed annually for vagrancy offences, and for the next ten years the number of vagrants sent to gaol was put at over 21, 000. This represented, so we are told, perhaps a third of the prison population, a proportion only slightly larger than that given at the start of the twentieth century . 49 Other evidence, which has to be used with the greatest care, are the tables in the Judicial Statistics section of the Parliamentary Papers. From these it appears that only a very small number of tramps or other vagrants came before the higher courts, and no more than one in ten of offenders at petty sessions. It is possible, however, that some vagrants were wrongly classified as 'suspicious characters'. For more reliable information it is necessary to consider local evidence and examples. In Wales and the border counties the literary and legal records suggest that 'unwelcome outsiders' committed much of the known indictable crime in the mid century. From Shropshire it was estimated that between a quarter and a third of all indictable cases involved tramps, and in some counties to the north and west the figure was put even higher. 'By far the greatest number of those who have been convicted of the highest class of crimes tried here', ran a typical comment from the chairman of the Pembroke shire quarter sessions, ' ... are called trampers. '50 There was some truth in his remark, but

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in his county vagrants were always marked men and constables in the 1840s pursued them vigorously. Later in the century it became customary to blame vagrants for the sudden surges in the level of recorded crime along the Welsh-English border. Speaking in 1871 an exasperated Merioneth magistrate contrasted tramps who brought crime with the Welsh who 'as a class, are exceedingly honest'. An examination of that county's assize and quarter session records reveals that he greatly exaggerated the role of vagrants, though the surviving petty session papers partly support his claim. Two-thirds of those charged in the Towyn and Barmouth registers during the Victorian period had been born outside the county, and perhaps half of these were vagrants. 51 One can compare this with an analysis of those Evesham and Chipping Sodbury police books which cover the 1880s and 1890s. They indicate that a fifth of the people charged were labelled 'tramps' by police officers. 52 One hopes that more police forces will deposit such rare and interesting material with Record Offices, so that we can take the analysis further. One thing, however, is clear; the vagrants described in this chapter were not responsible for many serious crimes. According to Josiah Flynt, a tramp writing in 1900, there was a clear distinction in intelligence, ambition and skill between the 'real tramp' and the criminal proper. 53 The former committed a narrow range of offences, chiefly against the Vagrancy Act, being drunk and disorderly, and a small amount of stealing. 54 John Kelly was a good example, as this account of nine years in his life shows : 55 Fined lOs Gaol 7 days Gaol 1 month Gaol 9 months Fined lOs Gaol 14 days Gaol 14 days Gaol 6 months Gaol 14 days Gaol 7 days Gaol 7 days Gaol 21 days Gaol 1 month Gaol 7 days Gaol 1 month Gaol 7 days

Northampton PS Watford PS Dunstable PS Beford Assizes Northampton PS Wellington PS Wellington PS Northampton PS Winslow PS Oxford PS Oxford PS Oxford PS Oxford PS Stroud PS Gloucester PS Cirencester PS

1897 1902 1902 1902 1904 1904 1904 1905 1905 1905 1905 1905 1906 1906 1906 1906

Drunk and disorderly Stole clothes Stole coat Gross indecency Drunk and disorderly Begging Sleeping out Stealing pair boots Drunk Sleeping out Drunk and disorderly Begging Begging Sleeping out Stealing a handbill Begging

The records of Birmingham, Chester and Gloucester disclose that in the towns vagrants stole mainly food and clothing, and occasionally snatched pawnable objects from open doorways and lodging-houses. Authorities in Hereford and Knutsford protested

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to the government that much street hawking was simply a cover for petty theft, and tramp lodging-houses were widely regarded as places for receiving stolen goods. An investigation of this type of thieving shows that it was often executed when fortunes were at a low ebb or when vagrants were suffering from strict relief and charity policies. 56 For example, William Pullen, convicted of taking a silver watch in 1848, turned to crime after his search for employment had failed and after he had been without assistance, food and water for twenty-four hours. The magistrate, who sentenced him to six months' imprisonment, accepted his story, but reminded him that there were many respectable people in the district without work. The new police in the towns made life more difficult for the wayfarer contemplating crime. The men interviewed by Henry Mayhew said that it had become much harder to find pickings in the city. In Midland and border towns the police in the 1860s and 1870s were ordered to patrol near railway stations, parks, factories and shops, and apprehend all vagrants found there on charges of being on enclosed premises or for frequenting public places with the intention to commit a felony. Groups of tramps entering Chester, Birmingham, Stafford and Gloucester at this time were often searched and arrested on sight. In Chester men like John Smith and James Wild had been taken off the streets by the police 'for safety' in 1847-8, and twenty years later their countergarts were likely to be charged with 'loitering with intent'. 7 When in 1868 a spoon and a watch case were found on William Morris and Thomas Sweeney in Gloucester, the two tramps were ordered to leave the city although no other evidence was brought against them. This was a common urban practice; vagrants convicted of loitering were offered seven days in a cell or a quick exit from the town. 58 Such close attention encouraged tramps to look elsewhere for ways of earning a living. One of the popular fears of the early and mid- Victorian years was that criminals were moving into the less-policed market towns and villages, but, as Dr Macnab indicates, the whole migration thesis has been much exaggerated. 59 As we saw in an earlier chapter, there had always been 'criminal circuits' across the country, such as those from Birmingham and Bristol into Wales, or from Manchester northwards, with 'swell mobs' of card-sharpers, pickpockets and 'smashers' moving from one race meeting and fair to the next. Even so, it seems likely that more vagrants now saw advantages in living for longer periods in those areas not yet covered by a large police force. This is the verdict of one of them : 60 I begged for two years, - that is steal and beg together: I couldn't starve. I did best in the country villages of Somersets hire; there's always odds and ends to be picked up there .... I have been twenty or thirty times in prison. I have been in for stealing bread, and a side of bacon, and cheese, and shovels, and other things; generally provisions .... The

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country's the best place to get away with anything, because there's not so many policemen. There's lots live as I live, because there's no work. I can do a country policeman generally. In 1877 the chief constable of Radnorshire, a rural county with a traditionally low crime rate, declared that now 'robberies are occurring every day, invariably committed by tramps'. 61 The most common theft in the countryside was of clothes, poultry, eggs and turnips, especially on a Sunday or when the occupiers of farms and cottages were in the fields. In Worcestershire and Gloucestershire tramps who were offered temporary farm work sometimes disappeared with spades and reaping hooks. 62 When a crime of theft, trespass or damage to property occurred in country parishes, non-residents were the natural target for the authorities. Typical of the suspicion and treatment which tramps had to endure was the following. Information being received by policeman Nicholas Davies of a robbery at the vicarage in Llanfihangel Gennau'r Glyn in north Cardiganshire in 1848, he journeyed there from Rhyd-y-felin, calling in at every tramp lodging--house on the way to examine the inmates. On arriving at the vicarage north of Aberystwyth he learnt that a tramp had been seen in the vicinity, and he immediately set out towards Machynlleth to apprehend him. When he caught up with him, Davies stripped and examined him. In the event the person charged with the robbery was a near neighbour. Tramps in Merioneth and Worcestershire were also apprehended for taking clothes and food which was later discovered to have been mislaid or left with friends and shopkeepers. More seriously, magistrates at petty sessions in Cheshire, Gloucestershire and Staffordshire had occasion to reprimand policemen for extracting false confessions from vagrants and bringing forward unreliable witnesses. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that 'the charge is a trumped up one 1 , was a familiar cry in cases involving vagrants, and that almost half of those arrested in the mid century were found not guilty. 63 What is particularly interesting is that the neglected information in police files and charge books calls into question the contemporary obsession with the 'thieving vagrant 1 • In Birmingham and Chester, for instance, garden robberies, pickpocketing, and the stealing of goods from shops and yards were more the province of the resident poor and especially the young. Similarly, in the country districts of Merioneth, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, it seems that the stealing of livestock, poaching, trespass, wilful damage and most other forms of serious crime were committed by local people. Some of the most notorious thieves in Evesham, Fairford, Pershore and Hundred House, for instance, travelled only short distances, moving in and out of parishes which they knew intimately. 6" Such a person was William Gaskins who specialised in stealing farm property in the countryside and market towns to the south-east of Gloucester. 65

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The Victorians sometimes portrayed the vagrant not only as a common thief but also as a major obstacle to the development of a peaceful and sober society. Along with the street trader, prostitute, navvy and sailor, the vagrant was a primary target in the battle for control of the streets and the imposition of new standards of public order. 66 In parts of South Pembrokeshire, for instance, where all these groups were present in considerable numbers, householders spoke of broken windows, abuse and physical assault. They complained that they could not leave their homes at night, and in an effort to improve the situation, extra policemen were recruited to move vagrants on as quickly as possible. The effect was, on occasions, counterproductive as constables and tramps clashed in a series of verbal and physical fights. In one case, involving vagrants Hart ridge and Brown, a police serjeant of Haverford west pursued them relentlessly, reminding them that they were only allowed in the town for one night. In the end he received a severe blow on the head for his trouble. 67 Similar clashes between vagrants and constables can be found in most of the existing police records for Wales and the border counties. There was much resentment at being searched, moved on, and ordered to leave the district. During the police campaigns against vagrants in Cheshire and Gloucestershire in the 1860s and 1870s there were complaints that they were even prohibited from singing and speaking loudly in public places. Tempers also rose when, as in Merioneth in the 1880s and 1890s, police officers were required to interfere whenever begging was seen or suspected. Other common victims of vagrants' attacks were Poor Law officials: knives and stones were thrown at them in Wolverhampton and Runcorn in the 1860s, and wardens of workhouses and task-masters always went in fear of the younger members of the casual wards. Finally, there were many stories, and far fewer court cases, of vagrants intimidating the rural population, especially women and children, and a rare case of murder. According to one chief constable the incidence of such assaults in the country had been much reduced early in the twentieth century by the presence of fierce dogs and policemen on bicycles. 68 In general the vagrant was much more likely to be committed for drunkenness than assault. From the records of crime in Evesham, Tewkesbury and Chipping Sodbury in the late nineteenth century it appears that up to 50 per cent of tramps apprehended in these areas were charged with this offence. Two aspects of this crime are highlighted by these records. First, an arrest for drunkenness bet ween the hours of 8-11 p.m. was one method of controlling vagrants and keeping them off the streets. A large number of cases were dismissed in court, and related charges of disorderly conduct dropped. Second, female vagrants were usually arrested for being drunk. Mary Jones, aged 26, and Minnie Walker were just two of the many female characters who reappeared in Gloucestershire courts during

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The vagrant and cJ~ime in Victorian Britain

the 18 90s. Some of them were abusive towards the police, and cynical about the whole legal process. Vagrants accused of disorderly and violent conduct often protested that they were a peaceful group of people, and the police records substantiate this claim. The great majority of known crimes of violence in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Merioneth, for example, were committed by local people, notably by rural labourers, women, miners and sailors. One famous Mid Walian character, William 'Tatws' Williams, faced over twenty charges of assault and disorderly conduct in the late nineteenth century, and we can set alongside him Benjamin Evans, the notorious wife-beater of Coleford in Gloucestershire, and those aggressive drunks James Murray and Maurice Fleming of Cheltenham. 69 Despite constant police surveillance, very few tramps could match such violent behaviour, and towards the end of the century magistrates and chief constables grudgingly admitted that the physical dangers of vagrancy had been much exaggerated. In the ·last resort a vagrant was a criminal because he was a vagrant. When one can identify such people in the criminal records of Wales and the border counties a large proportion of them were committed for vagrancy offences. However, many individuals besides itinerants were prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act, so that throughout the century such offences formed a considerable share of recorded petty crimes. It was estimated that some 10 per cent of prisoners in 1836 had been committed under the Act , and the percentage did not change greatly in succeeding deeades. 70 Between 1858 and 1892 about 1 in 14 of the cases brought before courts of summary jurisdiction fell within this category. Naturally in some counties and towns, such as Cheshire, Merioneth, Birmingham and Bristol, the ratio was consistently higher than this. A report by Captain Sterne in 1871 found that the Act was strictly enforced in twentyone counties. The Vagrancy Act of 1824 was one of the more important statutes in the nineteenth century. Its purpose was to enforce ideals of independence, work and family responsibility. It created three classes of criminals: idle and disorderly persons, rogues and vagabonds, and incorrigible rogues. 'Incorrigible rogues', who were simply persistent offenders, could be punished by up to twelve months' hard labour. The Vagrancy Act was a comprehensive and flexible piece of legislation, useful in times of political and soeial tension, and providing police and magistrates with wide discrE~tionary powers. Like the Poaching Prevention Act of 1862 it placed working people under suspicion and supervision. The Act was an effective control mechanism which could be used against anyone not in full-time or respectable employment. In Birmingham and other Midland towns in the 1860s, 1880s and 1890s, hundreds of unemployed workmen were hounded, penalised and removed for 'frequenting' and 'having no visible

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means of subsistence'. In a different context, the Vagrancy Act was sometimes used, as we have seen, to clear the streets of prostitutes, small traders and youngsters. The Act was also continually being extended to suit the needs of the moment. Between 1867 and 1872 the statute was widened to include the crime of gambling with money in public places, and by the end of the Victorian period this offence was responsible for a major share of the proceedings under the Vagrancy Act. For much of the period the main classes of crime covered by the Act were begging, being a lewd or disorderly prostitute, sleeping in the open and having no visible means of subsistence, and being in enclosed spaces and frequenting places of public resort for illegal purposes. The crimes most closely associated with vagrants were begging, and sleeping in the open or in unauthorised premises. During the second half of the century an average of over 14,000 persons were prosecuted for the first of these offences and just under half that number for the second. The movement of these crime figures is revealing; prosecutions for begging reached high levels in the early 1830s, early 1840s, 1848-9, 1862-3, late 1860s, late 1870s, much of the 1880s and the early 1890s, whilst the statistics for sleeping in the open rose sharply in 1868 and at the very end of the century. Each district had its own peculiar pattern. In Merioneth and Gloucestershire 1887 was long remembered for the unprecedented number of court cases, whilst in Chester, Birmingham and London the years 1862, 1868 and 1869 were also quite exceptional. The rate of such committals under the Vagrancy Act owed much to police and Poor Law committees. Thus an increasing number of authorities in the northern counties in the 1860s and 1870s instructed their police to keep certain roads clear of all vagrants, and the next decade witnessed the start of a national campaign to control the practice of sleeping rough. At Barmouth and Chipping Sodbury, for instance, a long queue of itinerants appeared before the courts charged with sleeping in lanes and on farmland. Perhaps the most unlucky vagrants were those travelling the twenty-one miles between Chepstow and Westbury-on-Severn. There was no workhouse on this route, but when tramps stopped for a rest in a field the chief constable told the Committee in 1906 that 'we are obliged to arrest them'. The most common vagrancy offence in Victorian times was begging. Not all vagrants were beggars; some of the inhabitants of city slums patrolled regular beats and gathered wherever the aristocracy and middle class met in large numbers. Many beggars, however, were vagrants. Some limped the streets holding out their caps or pushing forward deformed and diseased children. They were known by traditional names like 'shallow coves' (destitute sailors), 'Abrams' and 'Nakers'. According to some reports, takings were high in the larger towns of the early nineteenth century, but in 1900 Flynt claimed that they were fortunate to earn as much as 1s 6d a day. The Irish were regarded as perhaps the most able beggars and they were hated

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The vagrant and crime in Victorian Britain

for having 'ruined the trade' for the rest. The police and mendicity societies also had an effect on the character of begging. James Greenwood, like Mayhew before him, noted a decline in the old, open and more degrading forms of street begging. People were now more likely to be approached by men claiming to be unemployed workmen, or widows and traders down on their luck. 71 In Chester during the 1840s and 1860s destitute Irishmen and women, and out-of-work miners and cotton operatives were regularly convicted for begging, whilst in Chipping Sodbury thirty years later the middle-aged female vagrant, sometimes with children in tow, was a common sight at the magistrates' court. They were usually charged with begging food and drink, sometimes openly in the street or more likely at houses. 72 Of course, there were a few professional performers, who conned people with false accounts of husbands at sea, wrecked careers and loss of property. Alice Wilson, who was given seven years' penal servitude and placed under a further five years' police supervision at a Ruthin (Denbighshire) court in 1865 for 'obtaining charitable contributions by false pretences', was well known to the police of Ellesmere, Birmingham, West Bromwich and Accrington. 73 John Campbell, arrested in Gloucester in 1888, made a precarious living out of feigning serious illnesses. 74 Another vagrant, wanted in Wales and the English border counties, posed as a failed preacher and disappeared with the collection taken at an English Wesleyan chapel in Merthyr. 75 In Staffordshire and Worcest,ershire people were warned about travellers claiming to be missionaries and doctors. Such characters often followed the fashionable to the south coast and the spas. The talented George Brine recounts how he made a good living as a cripple in Holywell, Flints hire. 76 With the help of police and mendicity society officers, urban councils sometimes succeeded in reducing the level of begging and related offences, yet in so doing they shifted the problem to neighbouring districts and rural areas, as parishes in the vicinity of Worcester, Hereford and Haverfordwest frequently testified. A good example of the sudden burden placed on such districts can be seen in the 1860s when factory workers from Lancashire and Cheshire, unable to find work and assistance in some of the towns, moved into the countryside to seek help from bewildered farming communities. We are told that the generosity of the latter had become blunted in the early Victorian years by the frequent and gruff demands of gangs of young men. In the North Riding, Shropshire, and North and mid Wales during the 1860s magistrates and papers like the 'North Wales Chronicle' called upon farmers, cottagers and especially their wives to refuse requests for food and shelter from such people. 77 In these areas vagrants were faced by barred gates, savage dogs, and ticket systems intended to divert them back to official channels of relief. The response of the country magistrates to breaches of the Vagrancy Act varied considerably. Some kept to the letter of the

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law, whilst others allowed first offenders to go free on the condition that they left the county. They knew that threat of perhaps seven days' imprisonment was often wasted on tramps who preferred the work and diet in country gaols to anything which they could get outside. By the end of the century a few brave spirits like Dr Walker in Merioneth and Robert Nash and R. H. Hooper in Gloucester shire were imposing remarkably light sentences on almost all vagrants. But theirs was not a popular policy; newspaper editors and police committees in 1900 were still demanding that 'justices deal more severely' with offenders. One reason for this tough approach was the way in which vagrants had become associated in people's minds with two particularly unpleasant forms of crime, name1y workhouse offences and arson. The former was a testimony to the ungratefulness of a feckless population and a threat to the efficiency of the Poor Law system. Detailed evidence on workhouse offences is sometimes scanty, though we do know that they were carried out more by temporary rather than by permanent inmates, that women were often involved, and that many causes of indiscipline never reached the courts. Typical rebels were vagrants Mary Jane Phelps and William Fallows, an ex-Staffordshire puddler, both terrors of the Pembrokeshire Poor Law officers in the 1860s, and George Ryall, a similar character in the South West at the turn of the century. It was estimated in Coventry in 1848 that only one in ten cases of disorder within the casual wards was placed before the magistrates; here and in other towns offenders were ~unished instead by loss of food and driven from the district. The committal figures, such as they are, follow closely those for begging with spectacular rises in the early 1840s, 1868-71, 1883 and at the very beginning of the twentieth century when up to 7, 000 persons were prosecuted annually. There are marked regional variations in the figures, with, for example, high peaks being recorded in Gloucestershire in 1868, London in 1870, Merioneth in 1878, Birmingham in 1880, and Shropshire in 1881. Such variations can be partly explained by the opening of new workhouses and attempts to enforce stricter regimes in others. As we saw in a previous chapter the new police proved a useful ally of Poor Law reformers. The most common workhouse offences were refusal to work and the destruction of property. Attempts to enforce a work test were often accompanied by passive and sometimes violent resistance, especially from the young. Many unions in the Midlands, the border counties and Wales were affected by this revolt, with Haverfordwest being perhaps the most notorious example. At Congleton stones were flung at officials and in the more isolated districts of Shropshire vagrants simply laughed at masters' instructions. 79 In other workhouses oakum was set on fire, and water pumps damaged. Occasionally, as in the Stow union of Suffolk, the conflict over the work test turned into serious rioting, and policemen had to be stationed at the house. 80 The

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Guardians' fear, often unspoken, was that such insubordination would spread to other recipients of Poor Relief. The favourite target for angry vagrants were windows, bedding, doors, toilets, benches and work materials. Officers at Neath, Shardlow in the South West, and at Castle Ward in Northumberland, stated that the breaking of windows was the inevitable result of refusing relief on demand, and in Birmingham and London it was a common occurrence when gangs of juveniles entered the vagrancy wards. 81 The scale of the attack on property surprised the authorities. At Bridgnorth four men knocked out seventy-two panes of glass. When fires were put out for the night, vagrants were given to starting their own with bedding and benches, and at Runcorn the ward itself was set alight . The most popular workhouse offence seems to have been the tearing and burning of clothes. At Wrexham, where the magistrates pursued a strict policy against the 'sturdy beggar', the list of offences from June to November 1865 included two persons committed for breaking a lock and assaulting a porter, three for attempting to gain entrance into the female ward, two for breaking and burning boards, and twenty for tearing clothes. Thirty miles away, at N~~wport in Shropshire, the master of the workhouse took the clothes off vagrants in the evening and stood over them when they wet'e getting dressed. 82 Elsewhere, Quardians insisted that offenders sewed back the fragments of their torn clothes or wore sacks. Some committed this crime in order to obtain a new suit of clothes, but for others it was a method of entering gaol. From contemporary comments and the seasonality of workhouse offences it is clear that vagrants turned to prisons for medical treatment and shelter during the winter months. They chose their prison with considerable care. Warwick and Derby were favourites in the Midlands, whilst English and Irish tramps travelled many miles to savour the comparative comforts of gaols in mid and north Wales. This determination helps to explain why vagrants sometimes courted disaster by destroying property after they had been apprehended by the police; in the court records of north Wales there are several references to tearing clothes and starting fires in cells. Or was it simply anger rather than policy? Sometimes the damage was much greater than was needed to secure an arrest. One such incident concerned Ephraim Barret, 'a most repulsive-looking fellow', who tore his clothes to shreds after being apprehended by the police as a suspicious character. These are his words to the Newtown magistrates in 1862: 1 I don't see why a man should be brought up on suspicion, and sent to gaol for seven days. I hope you will sit there till I come back, and by God, I'll look out for you. '83 At the time of Barret's trial arson was already beginning to rival clothes-tearing and window-breaking as the most typical form of criminal protest by the vagrants in north Wales, the border counties and the Midlands. In the 1860s the number of cases of burning property, and especially corn ricks, drew

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comparisons with the outbreaks of the 1830s and 1840s. At the height of this new wave of arson, in 1863-4, special winter assizes were held to deal with offenders, and there were demands for more fire engines, greater insurance cover, better police protection and stricter control of tramps. Of the eighty-two people brought before the assizes of north Wales in this decade on a charge of arson, at least forty-nine were vagrants. In Shropshire and Cheshire, where there were over eighty fires, the ratio in assize cases was similar, but in Staffordshire it was nearer 2 in 3. It is also clear from newspaper evidence that tramps were concerned in a number of incidents that never reached the higher courts. During the remaining years of the century arson remained 'a favourite method of [vagrants] venting spite', but it never again reached the scale of the 1860s. 84 The offences which were dealt with in the courts of north Wales and the adjoining counties during this decade, and which can be firmly identified as the work of tramps, have certain common features. First, the burning of ricks was often carried out by small groups of young vagrants. They gave their occupations as labourers, cotton workers, men of the iron trade and seamen, and some of them had recently lost their jobs. Second, many of the fires broke out in close proximity to one another. Thus in Montgomeryshire the chief victims of the arsonists were farmers at or near Welshpool and Montgomery. Similarly, across the border, the most troubled parishes were those in the vicinity of Chester, Wellington and Stafford. Third, most of the vagrants in court pleaded guilty, and some of them readily admitted their crime at an early date. William Woodward and Thomas Kent, who set fire to a haystack at Shiffnal, reported the crime to the local police. A few tramps were found not guilty of offences to which they had confessed. This remarkable situation explains why a Denbighshire policeman at first refused to arrest William Mason and William Mawson when they arrived at his station in Llantysilio and informed him that they had been responsible for a fire in the district. After much persuasion and swearing they were placed in custody and eventually sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. 85 Some instances of arson were accidental, the result of tramps 1 negligence on the road, whilst in other cases there is a strong suspicion that they were apprehended for other people's crimes. Vagrants like George Thomas and William Little, who informed on John Burnett to the Birkenhead police, appeared only too ready to lay the finger on another of their group in return for a promise of help from the authorities, and policemen were accused of wringing improbable confessions from tramps before they reached the courts . 86 At some hearings judges complained that policemen, who were often the only witnesses in cases of arson, had exceeded their authority, and at the Montgomeryshire summer assizes in 1863 there was a warning of the advisability of trying men on doubtful evidence. 87 In the great majority of cases, however, there seems little

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Figure 7. 1 Arson in Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire in the 1860s Source: Cases before the assizes, 1860-9. Evidence compiled from PRO, HO, 27, and from the 'Shrewsbury Chronicle', 'Staffordshire Advertizer', 'Chester Chronicle' and 'Macclesfield Courier and Herald' . Accurate geographical information is missing for eight persons charged in Cheshire and for two in Shropshire. The involvement of vagrants in these cases has been underestimated, because of lack of detail in some cases. Similarly, there were more cases of arson, especially in 1863-4, than the legal statistics indicate.

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doubt about the guilt of the indicted arsonist. The real interest lies in the motive behind the crime. In a few instances it was no more than a desperate plea for help. Asked why he started a fire at Albrighton in Shropshire in September 1865, Joseph Sterry is reported to have said, 'because I am starved'. 'I have gone as long as I can go; I have no shoes on my feet, nor clothes on my back.' This kind of language was often heard in the Staffordshire courts. 88 In Montgomeryshire and Shropshire in the early 1860s the burning of stacks followed the refusals of farmers to meet demands for bread, work and a place to rest. Thomas Riley and James Foster called in 1863 at a farmhouse in Leighton and asked Mary Francis for something to eat. According to them she treated them 'curtly', and they reacted by setting fire to stacks of oats and barley. 89 Vagrants developed a marked antagonism towards the farmers of Montgomeryshire and the border counties. Edward Finch protested in court that these farmers shouted at them 'go to work, go to work', but, he added, 'how can we work in rags and filth'. 90 Richard Timmis justified his crime at Wellington by stating that the farmer, Richard Richards, had set the dogs on him when he approached the farmhouse, and there were several examples of vagrants made angry by people threatening to prosecute them for trespass. 91 'We were sitting down on the road side, resting, and a man came to us from a farm house , and ordered us away', said William Brannan. 'He was very cross to us , and he said we were very likely fellows to burn hay stacks, or something else, and he drove us away; and we went away and did it.' For setting fire to a stack Brannan and his friend Thomas Brown were givn eight years' penal servitude. 92 'It appeared', said Sir Wilho.m Fry Channel at the Montgomeryshire assize in March 1864, during a case of arson involving John Mcintyre, 'that the prisoner had recently been discharged from gaol, and this was almost his first act, and that animated by an insane dislike to the farmers, as a class of men. '93 Perhaps the fact that some farmers were Guardians provides a clue to this hostility, especially in those areas where they had decided to direct all applicants for relief to the nearest workhouse. In these districts innkeepers who refused to help destitute workmen also came to fear the 'midnight visit'. Sometimes arson was more directly the vagrants' response to treatment received at the hands of the Poor Law and police authorities. We can detect several examples of this in Worcestershire and Nottinghamshire in 1862 and 1863, but the best evidence is to be found in Denbighshire and Flint shire. Of the burning of a stack of hay at Northop, Flintshire, in August 1864, the 'Chester Chronicle' commented that 'it appears that the prisoner committed the offence because he was not relieved at the house'. 94 There was a similar case over the inability to get a night's lodging at Connah's Quay a year later, but undoubtedly the centre of greatest tension was Wrexham where the authorities had succeeded in imposing a labour test. Once the number of

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vagrants demanding relief again increased in spite of the test, we are told by Mr Kemp thaf15 the Board again took the whole question into full consideration, and after due deliberation it was determined to refuse all relief to the systematic vagrant ; at the same time, the officers were instructed to use their best discretion to prevent any casual per•son from suffering, and hence, acting on this order in the spirit of good faith, while we (I mean the paid officers) have refused relief to any of the vagrant fraternity (for a fraternity they are, and are easily distinguished as such) we have given relief as usual to the other poor travellers who appeared to be on a bona fide errand. The result of this policy was an astonishing outbreak of arson in the Wrexham district in 1863. Some of the culprits were caught, and at their trial claimed that they had been denied assistance and accommodation by police and workhouse officers. Baron Bramwell made this comment at the Denbighshire spring assizes: I am sorry, gentlemen, to find that there are eight prisoners charged with incendiarism. It seems to me that they were in some sort of way driven to this. It appears that they got to Wrexham late at night, and were told that they were too late for supper in the workhouse. I don't presume to say that this is true, but if it is there is something that is not exactly right in such rules. But, again, I don't mean to say they should be accommodated at their choice and pleasure, because it is a matter of extreme difficulty to deal with. Nothing could be worse than that every person who chooses to tramp about the country from place to place, leading the life of a vagabond - nothing, I say, could be worse than to give such persons a comfortable hotel to retire to, and a good meal at the end of their day's journey, but they should have a shelter and bread and water at least. Four of the five guilty ~risoners were given sentences of six years' penal servitude. Finally, what does this study of the vagrant tell us about nineteenth-century crime, and attitudes towards it? Henry Mayhew described vagrancy as 'the nursery of crime .... The Vagrants form one of the most restless, discontented, vicious and dangerous elements of society. 197 Yet research reveals that although the charge of criminality was a useful one, designed to deter the charitable and sanction repressive measures, the vagrant was not in any real sense a member of a professional criminal class. 98 His appearances in court, which were certainly more frequent than those of the settled members of the community, were in part a tribute to the deliberate economic and social policies of authorities. As we have seen, the Vagrancy Act proved to be one of

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the most flexible, useful and criminal-making statutes of the century. In later decades, however, one notes a polarisation of attitudes towards the vagrant; whereas some authorities in Wales and the Midlands finally accepted the orthodox police view that all wayfarers should be treated in the same manner as criminals, a growing number of reformers advanced the contrary argument that vagrants were just the most unfortunate branch of the casual and unemployed poor. After a11, in the 1880s and 1890s the dangers of unemployment were more obvious than those of tramping. There is a sense in which tramps fu1filled the role which society expected them to play, and did so with some aplomb. Many of them, seeking food and shelter, stayed at the place of their crime or walked to the nearest police station, and in court mocked magistrates for not having enough prison space to contain the 'thousands [who] are starving'. 99 Some meekly handed in letters of confession, even to crimes which they had not committed, and on a few occasions begged magistrates for longer sentences. Arsonists in Warwickshire, Worcestershire and mid Wales nourished the vain hope that they would be transported. 'To all appearances', said Justice Crompton at the trial of John Shaw, James Booth and Thomas Smith in 1863, 'you had committed the crime for the purpose of being sent out of the country. In that you will be greatly disappointed. You will be kept like slaves, working for others for the long term to which I think it is my duty to sentence you. '100 When they were given eight or ten years' penal servitude, some of these vagrants protested that so long as they could not find work in this country they would repeat the offence. A few of them in Staffordshire and Cheshire did just that; rebellious instincts were thus directed into conservative channels. So far as we can tell from the evidence there was very little police sympathy for these poor members of society. Vagrants complained of arbitrary police conduct, physical assault, the misuse of charges such as 'disorderly conduct' and 'suspicious behaviour', and forced confessions. Certainly one of the main purposes of the new police force was to protect the benevolent and their property, and generally to keep an eye on wayfarers. 'For the future every tramp met by officers must be thoroughly searched, the lodging houses visited and their bundles turned over' , said the chief constable of Radnorshire in 1885. 'Then I feel confident nearly every tramp will stop coming into the county and we shall be almost free of crime. '101 This view of vagrancy and crime was also popular amongst the leaders of the local community. Magistrates' descriptions of tramps were often couched in terms of 'them' versus 'us', the 'outsiders' against 'our native population'. Chairmen of quarter sessions readily attributed rising crime rates to vagrants even when, as we have seen, these were more the responsibility of local residents. At times one has the impression from magistrates' statements and newspaper editorials that in the remoter districts

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of Wales and the border counties wayfarers alone challenged the quiet respectability of mid- and late-Victorian society. Significantly, efforts were made in such places to keep all vagrants in wards and cells on Sundays; after all, so the argument ran, not being resident citizens their independence and legal rights were limited. Punishment, too, bore some relation to a person's standing in the community. One can contrast the willingness of some authorities to give cautions and withdraw charges against local people, especially at times of social and political tension, with the determination to punish vagrants. Tramps with previous convictions were marked men, and newspapers turned their trials into show pieces. A few of them in late-nineteenth-century Tewkesbury and Chipping Sodbury were gaoled for a month on the charge of drunkenness alone, and throughout the Victorian period the vagrant found guilty of assault could expect much harsher treatment than local inhabitants. To say, as many contemporaries did, that prisons were full of outsiders was to miss some of the point . There was a shortening of gaol sentences for crimes under the Vagrant Act during the late nineteenth century, but the most innocent of characters could still find himself ordered out of the district. In cases of arson, expressions of sympathy for the plight of the desperate tramp did not affect the outcome. Judges said it was absolutely vital to protect private property and to make an example which would deter others of the fraternity. Sentences ranged from four to ten years' penal servitude for the offence, and some judges also wanted to add birching, solitary confinement and, were it possible, incarceration in a new penal colony. A few contemporaries played with the idea of automatic life imprisonment for criminal vagrants guilty of serious offences, the ultimate verdict on habitual tramps who were by their very nature unreformable. Not everyone, however, was as blinkered as this. One would like to know more of the attitudes of the working class towards vagrants, especially at the turn of the century, when the dim outlines of the welfare state were beginning to emerge. There are reports of unemployed working men being jealous of handouts to tramps, but newspaper appeals in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s indicate that people were still too willing to 'unbutton their pockets'. Flynt and other writers at this time speak of the generosity of working people, especially women, towards apparently genuine cases of distress; these vagants were seen as fellow human beings and not as criminals. 2 There are also signs that the myth of the community versus the outsider made little impression on working people only too aware of the class nature of legislation. One of the reasons given for magistrates' unwillingness to push for the extreme penalties under the Vagrancy Act was the feeling that the public would not support them. Certainly the police grumbled at the 'apathy' of working people. P .C. Evans in his Pennal (Merioneth) diary of 1887, wrote of beggars:

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'No assistance to know what they ask for, except Mr Thomas Lewis shop and Edward Rowlands shop. '103 Throughout the Victorian years there were also a few prominent people in public life who openly queried the deterrent effect of repressive action against vagrants, and called for more assistance and work to be given to men on the road. Sir John Byles, a judge on the Chester assize circuit, argued that the law had become merely an expensive, arbitrary and ineffective pawn in a rather unedifying battle between society and the vagrant . 104 Poor Law Inspector Graves stated that until even the 'most unamiable tramp' was given 'assistance from public sources at a stage of destitution somewhat short of urgency', this conflict would continue . 105 Similar views were expressed at the Social Science Congress held at Birmingham in 1868. By the end of the century some of the larger towns had begun to provide places where vagrants could obtain cheap accommodation and help with finding a job, but the most popular response at this time amongst the press, politicians and reformers was that of reclaiming vagrants by industrial training, with state help and perhaps compulsion. In the end, as in the beginning, the vagrancy problem was defined as one of discipline and control. 106

NOTES

1 SETTING THE SCENE: CONTEMPORARY VIEWS AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES 1 For details of these, and other recent work, see the Bibliography. 2 Much of the organisation and interdisciplinary work in this area has been the responsibility of the Dutch Group for the Study of the History of Crime and Criminal Law. and later the International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice. 3 Some of these questions were asked by historians at a meeting of the Society for the Study of Labour History in May 1972. For a report on this, and papers by Linebaugh, Hirst and others, see the 'Bulletin' of this Society, 25, 1972. 4 The growing awareness of these problems can be seen in the papers (unpublished) prepared for the Economic History Conference at Edinburgh in 1978. 5 G .E. Min gay, 'English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century', London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963, p.252. 6 A preliminary investigation of police books by the present writer suggests that whilst cases of stealing were rarely abandoned or dismissed with a caution, many cases of assault and - to a lesser extent - trespass were, especially if juveniles were involved. For a local study, see my forthcoming article in the 'Pembrokeshire Historian'. 7 Of course this bias is in itself valuable, and tells us much about contemporary attitudes to, and treatment of, crime. For details of the writings of Beggs and other contemporaries, see the Bibliography. 8 See J. Styles et al., Crime, Violence and Social Protest; and the unpublished papers of A. Soman et al. 9 The Manchester records, from the 1840s to the 1930s, are in the Local History section of the City Library. Those for London are in New Scotland Yard's Library. 10 In T .R. Gurr et al., 'The Politics of Crime and Conflict', p. 202. 11 This statistical pattern and analysis is set out in J .M. Beattie, The Pattern of Crime in England, 1660-1800; Gurr and others, op .cit. , and V .A. C. Gatrell and T .B. Hadden, Criminal Statistics and their Interpretation. For a study of the local complexities of such correlations, see B.C. Jerrard's thesis, The Gloucestershire Police in the Nineteenth Century, pp.217-48. 12 For a preliminary analysis of the character of nineteenth-century rural crime, see E. J. Hobsbawm and G. Rude, 'Captain Swing', and my Rural Crime and Protest. 13 D. Philips, 'Crime and Authority in Victorian England', p.284. 14 A .C. Hall's 'Crime in its Relations to Social Progress' is one of the most useful of contemporary sources. 15 Compare the treatment of the notion of a 'criminal class' in Philips, op .cit., and J .J. Tobias, 'Crime and Industrial Society in the Nineteenth Century'. The table of persons proceeded against is in the Judicial Statistics in the Parliamentary Papers. 16 See J .M. Beattie's interesting and pioneering study of The Criminality of Women in Eighteenth-Century England. 210

Notes to pages 7-14

211

17 See chapters 4, 5 and 6 for more on all this. There is a wealth of material awaiting the historian of female crime, especially in the Liverpool Record Office. 18 Most of the observations in this paragraph are based on a forthcoming study by the present writer of juvenile crime in London, Liverpool and Manchester. 19 See, for instance, J .A. Stack's thesis Social Policy and Juvenile Delinquency in England and Wales, 1815-75; and J .R. Gillis,' Youth and History' . 20 We shall be looking at this more closely in chapters 5 and 6. Ms Sindall's thesis, Aspects of Middle-Class Crime in the Nineteenth Century, is admittedly no more than a tentative first step in the study of middleclass crime. 21 D. J. V. Jones and A. Bainbridge, 'Crime in Nineteenth-Century Wales'. 22 T. C. Curtis, Paper on the History of Crime and Criminal Law, prepared for the Economic History Conference at Edinburgh, 1978; and J. Samaha, 'Law and Order in Historical Perspective'. 23 Compare, for example, H. Mayhew and J. Binny, 'The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of Prison Life' with T. Beggs, 'An Inquiry into the Extent and Causes of Juvenile Depravity'. 24 C.E.B. Russell and L.l\1. Rigby, 'The Making of the Criminal', p.225. 25 W.D. Morrison, 'Juvenile Offenders', p.27. 26 J. Fletcher, 'Summary of the Moral Statistics of England and Wales', p. 96. 27 For the most recent study here, see A. S. Wohl, 'The Eternal Slum', London, Edward Arnold, 1977. 28 Compare J. J. Tobias, A Statistical Study of a Nineteenth-Century Criminal Area. 29 To set all this in the context of recent work in this field, see D. T. Herbert, Crime, Delinquency and Urban Environment, 'Progress in Human Geography'. I. 2, 1977. 30 Fletcher, op.cit .. pp.89-91, 131-2. 31 J. Wade, 'History of the Middle and Working Classes', p. 568. 32 A.C. Hall. op.cit., p.262. 33 J. Hall, 'Theft, Law and Society', pp. 34, 77. 34 One of the difficulties in using contemporary views on crime is that they were often inextricably bound up with the debate on the impact of the industrial revolution. Juvenile delinquency and prostitution were not as prevalent in industrial areas as some critics suggested. Compare the claims of Henry Worsley and Engels with those of Flint or Fletcher. Details of their writings are in the Bibliography. Note also R. Vaughan, 'The Age of Great Cities'. 35 D. Hay et. a!., 'Albion's Fatal Tree'. 36 For further detail on all this, see chapters 2 and 3. 37 See chapters 2 and 3. Pioneering work in this area is contained in two books: J.P. D. Dunbabin, 'Rural Discontent in Nineteenth-Century Britain' and R. Samuel (ed.), 'Village Life and Labour'. One awaits with interest the results of John Archer's research at the University of East Anglia. 38 K. Polanyi, 'The Great Transformation', Gollancz, Oxford, 1944. 39 D. Reid, The Decline of St Monday, 1766-1876. 40 There is some good material here in the Lancashire Record Office, Preston, notably QEV /17/1, Charge Books, 1842-54. 41 For an interesting discussion on this theme, see H. Zehr, 'Crime and the Development of Modern Society', pp. 81-3, 138-44. 42 F. Engels. 'The Condition of the Working Class in England', pp .145-6. 43 From my own research there is little doubt that casual employment was the vital element in the story of juvenile delinquency and prostitution in London, Liverpool and Manchester. This point emerges from a study of the occupations and comments of these people, and from an examination of the occasion and seasonality of their offences. 44 Wade, op.cit.. p.569.

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Notes to pages 14-24

45 Gatrell and Hadden, op.cit., p.378. 46 See T.R. Gurr, 'Rogues, Rebels and Reformers', pp.82-3. I examine these relationships more closely in chapters 5 and 6. 47 See E .J. Hobsbawm et al.. in the Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 25, 1972, pp.5-6. 48 See the two interesting chapters on poaching and smuggling in Hay et a!. , op. cit. For more detail and footnotes, see chapters 2 and 3 of this book. 49 See the paper (unpublished) of A. Charlesworth, The Geography of Social Protest in British Rural Society 1590-1831. 50 See the conference report (note 47). See also, for example, R.N. Price, The Other Face of Respectability. 51 D. Douglass, 'Pit Life in County Durham' . 52 For some of the more important recent articles on the 'crowd', see under Booth, Hayter, Holton, Rogers, Stevenson, Wells, etc. in the Bibliography. 53 See the splendid article by E. P. Thompson, Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture. 54 The history of this concept is examined by Dr V. Bailey in his thesis The Dangerous Classes in Later Victorian England. 55 See details in the Bibliography. 56 J. Stevenson, Social Control and the Prevention of Riot in England, 1789-1829, in A. P. Donajgrodzki (ed.), 'Social Control in NineteenthCentury Britain', p.39. 57 G .A. Williams, 'The Merthyr Rising'; M. I. Thomis and P. Holt, 'Threats of Revolution'. 58 J. Foster, 'Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution'; G. S. Jones. Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics in London, 1870-1900. 59 See, for instance, A. C. Hall, op .cit., and R .F. Quinton, 'Crime and Criminals 1876-1910'. 60 Gurr, op. cit. , chapter 3. 61 Prosecutions were made a good deal cheaper in the 1830s, but it is difficult to quantify the effect of this. For this paragraph, see Gatrell and Hadden, op. cit. The rate of convictions, however, did increase. 62 Hay et al. , op. cit. 63 Jones and Bainbridge, op .cit. 64 See the valuable reminiscences of J. W. Nott-Bowyer, 'Fifty-two Years a Policeman'. The Welsh statistics are in Jones and Bainbridge, op .cit. 65 J.R. Beattie, The Pattern of Crime in England, 1660-1800, pp. 56, 93. 66 R. Lane, 'Policing the City'. 67 Parliamentary Papers (PP) 1834, XVI; 1837, XII; 1837-8, XV; and 1852-3, XXXVI. The success has been exaggerated. 68 See my forthcoming chapter, Rural Crime and Protest, 'The Victorian Countryside', and J. Stevenson, 'Popular Disturbances in England', pp. 322-3. 69 For some of the fascinating Liverpool story, see W.R. Cockcroft 's thesis, The Rise and Growth of the Liverpool Police Force. The question of police efficiency is complicated by the greater use of summonses. For more on this, see chapters 5 and 6. 70 See, for instance, R.D. Storch, The Plague of Blue Locusts. 71 For London, see chapter 5. For Liverpool and Cardiff, see Nott- Bowyer, op .cit.; and Jones and Bainbridge, op .cit. 72 A.C. Hall, op.cit., pp.377, 406. 73 H. Perkin, 'The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780-1880', London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969. 7 4 For several studies in this area, see Donajgrodzki, op. cit. 75 Fletcher, op.cit., pp.21-2. 76 There is a wealth of material on all this. For one aspect, see the long and fascinating thesis of H.R.E. Ware, 'The Recruitment, Regulation and Role of Prostitution in Britain from the middle of the Nineteenth-Century to the Present Day'. See also the Metropolitan Commissioner's comments in PP 1870, XXXVI, f.464; and the interesting remarks at the turn of

Notes to pages 25-33

213

the century in Public Record Office, Home Office (HO) 45/10123/B.13517. 77 H. Cunningham, The Metropolitan Fairs: a Case Study in the Social Control of Leisure, in Donajgrodzki, op. cit. See also R. W. Malcolmson, 'Popular Recreations in English Society 1700-1850', Cambridge University Press, 1973. 78 Jones and Bainbridge, op .cit. 79 See, for instance, Beggs, op .cit., and H. Worsley, 'Juvenile Depravity'. 80 A .E. Dingle, Drink and Working-Class living Standards in Britain, 1870-1914, 'Economic History Review', XXV, 4, 1972; andS.G. Checkland, 'The Rise of Industrial Society in England, 1815-85', Longmans, Oxford, p .233. 81 Statistics taken from the Liverpool Record Office, HF 352/2, Watch Committee Reports. 82 The number of prostitutes known to the police in Liverpool in 1866 was 2,222, and in London 9,409 in 1841 and some 5,628 in 1867. In 1885 the Liverpool figure was 1,165. In Manchester there was a similar fall from some 3,000 in the 1840s to 756 in 1866 and 361 in 1885. The Manchester Police Reports are in the Local History Section of the City Library. 83 Vigorous campaigns against prostitutes in Liverpool, London, Cardiff and Cambridge often resulted in their moving outside parish boundaries, or into more secret operations. Policemen often preferred to have the problem localised and controlled by occasional inspections, fines and imprisonment. Policemen, like medical men, were generally keen on the Contagious Diseases Acts. 84 See, for example, M. Carpenter, 'Juvenile Delinquents, their Condition and Treatment'; G.P. Merrick, 'Work among the Fallen'; M. Higgs, 'Glimpses into the Abyss'. 85 R .M. Barrett, The treatment of Juvenile Offenders: together with statistics of their numbers, p. 263. In Liverpool in the 1890s there were hundreds of prosecutions and cautions for neglect or cruelty. 86 J.E. Eardley-Wilmot, 'A Letter ... on the Increase of Crime', pp.81-2. 87 A. C. Hall, op .cit., p. 407. Note here the combined efforts of schoolteachers, board officers and beadles. For one regional study, see J. R. Gillis, The Evolution of Juvenile Delinquency in England, 1890-1914. W.D. Morrison, op .cit., is a useful summary of contemporary attitudes and research, plus some shrewd observations. 88 Gurr, op.cit., p.163. 89 See his introduction to J. S. Cockburn (ed.) 'Crime in England 15501800'. 90 Storch, op .cit. A Silver, The Demand for Order in Civil Society, in Bordua, 'The Police'; U.R.Q. Henriques, The Rise and Decline of the Separate System of Prison Discipline; and M. Ignatieff, 'A Just Measure of Pain'. For a fascinating European study, see M. Foucault, 'Discipline and Punish'. 91 W.C. Taylor, Moral Economy of Large Towns, p .480. 92 For a new study of Hill, see P. W.J. Bart rip's thesis, The Career of Matthew Davenport Hill. 93 Gurr, op.cit., p.161. 94 E.P. Thompson. 'Whigs and Hunters', pp.258-69. 95 Philips, op. cit. , pp. 285-6. 96 A.C. Hall, op.cit., p.374. 97 For one historical study by a sociologist in this field, see J. Ditton, Perks, Pilferage, and the Fiddle: the Historical Structure of Invisible Wages, 'Theory and Society', 4, 1977. 2 ARSON AND THE RURAL COMMUNITY: EAST ANGLIA IN THE MID NINETEENTH CENTURY J. Glyde, 'Suffolk in the Nineteenth Century', p.146. Compare W. Rawson, An Inquiry into the Statistics of Crime in England and Wales,

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Notes to pages 33-40

p.340; and T. Plint, 'Crime in England', pp.80-131. 2 See, for instance, B. Reaney, 'The Class Struggle in Nineteenth-Century Oxford shire'; and D. J. V. Jones, Crime, Protest, and Community in Nineteenth-Century Wales, p. 7. 3 E.J. Hobsbawm and,G. Rude, 'Captain Swing', pp.200-3; and S.W. Amos's thesis, Social Discontent and Agrarian Disturbances in Essex, 17951850. p. 86. 4 See especially J .P .D. Dunbabin, 'Rural Discontent in NineteenthCentury Britain', pp.27, 297-8. 5 James Caird tells us, for instance, that fires in Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire were very common in 1849-50 yet the statistics of indictable crime do not bear this out. 'English Agriculture in 1850-1', Longmans, London, 1852, 1968 ed., London, Gregg International, pp. 367-8, 420. For the 1830s see, for example, PP 1844, XXXIX, 263. 6 The 'Norwich Mercury' (hereafter NM), 10 February 1844, and 'The Times', 6 April 1850. See also 'The Times' 26 April 1852. 7 PP 1846, IX, p. 306, question 5622. For one local study of the situation in Lincolnshire at this time, see R. J. Olney ( ed.), 'Labouring Life on the Lincolnshire Wolds', Sleaford, Society for Lincolnshire History and Archeology, 1975, pp. 26-7. 8 'The Times', 19 March 1849. 9 See, for instance, ibid., 11, 15 and 16 September 1868. Some of the fires were started by farm-workers, especially young ones. See also the reports in the 'York Herald', 21 March 1868, and the 'Wiltshire County Mirror', 21 July and 15 December 1869. 10 Glyde, op .cit., pp .141 and 150; and J .H. Kent, 'Remarks on the Injuriousness of the Consolidation of Small Farms', p.80 (table). 11 The 'Bury and Norwich Post' (BNP), 12 June 1844. 12 Glyde, op .cit., p .126. The Ashburnham letters in the Record Office, Ipswich, convey something of the fear in 1843-4. See also Wrentham Memories, 'East Anglian Miscellany', 1938, p.35. 13 In Rattlesden, Hitcham and Polstead, for example, agricultural labourers made up some 64 per cent of the total male occupations; see Census returns of 1841 in the Public Record Office. These returns present considerable difficulties, not least in relation to the nature of households. It seems that about one agricultural labourer's household in five was opened to lodgers and/or relatives, themselves often agricultural labourers. The returns bear out the contemporary view of the small proportion of farm servants and labourers who lived in the farmer's house. 14 The parishes studied were Lawshall, Stoke-by-Nayland, Buxhall and Bun gay (Trinity), and the period 1837-51. Note also that 25.4 per cent of these labourers, and 21. 5 per cent of their wives, signed the marriage registers with their names. The records are in the Bury and Ipswich Record Offices. 15 Joseph Kay, 'The Social Condition and Education of the People', 1, p.362. On the changing pattern of social mobility see, for instance, the 'Morning Chronicle' (hereafter MC), 26 December 1849; BNP, 20 November 1844 - letter from Hen slow; Kent, op .cit., p. 2, and the interesting comparative report by the American Henry Colman, The agricultural labourers of England, 'The LaboureP's Friend Magazine', new series, III, August 1844. 16 BNP, 22 January 1845. 17 Kent, op .cit. , p. 2. Compare the description in the 'Suffolk Chronicle', 26 June 1844, J.S. Henslow, 'Suggestions towards an Enquiry', pp.24-5, and Glyde, op. cit. , p. 14 7. As interesting as Kent on the relationship between consolidation and crime is H. Worsley, 'Juvenile Depravity' . 18 See F. L. Page, 'Incendiarism; its Cause, Call, Wickedness, Folly and Remedy' ( 1844), and lettePs in the 'Ipswich Journal', 19 October-6 November 1844. 19 Kent, op .cit., p. 48. Compare Kay- Shuttleworth, op .cit., p. 583. For a little on the picture of lost community happiness, see MC, 29 July 1844,

Notes to pages 40-53

215

and PP 184 7, X I, comments of Henniker. 20 Copy of this letter in the 'Cambridge Chronicle and Journal', 30 March 1844. 21 BNP, 3 January 1844. For the Lavenham case, see ibid., 28 August 1844. For a similar assault in reverse, see Dunbabin, op.cit., p.46. Note the complaints of ill-treatment of youngsters at the Essex assizes of the period. See, too, the letter from the Bedfordshire farmer in BNP, 6 November 1843. 22 The 'Ipswich Journal', 26 October 1844, and PP 1852-3, XXXVI, evidence of Walsham, question 3579. 23 BNP, 29 January 1845. Compare the letter in the 'Chelmsford Chronicle'. 13 December 1844. 24 Henslow, op.cit., p.18. 25 NM, 23 February and 7 December 1844. 26 MC, 27 July 1844. See Dunbabin, op .cit., p. 45, for background; see the 'Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette', 9 November 1844, and NM, 10 and 24 August 1844, for good examples. The information on maiming etc. comes from NM, 1842-4. Few cases were ever brought to court. • 27 See, for example, the report of the chief constable of Norfolk at the Epiphany sessions 1843, in the minute books in the Norfolk Record Office. Similar points were made in the winter, spring and autumn of 1844. Compare Amos, op.cit., pp.127-9. 28 There are a few exceptions to the pattern. According to Glyde, Stowmarket and Mildenhall had a fairly low crime rate. See Glyde, op .cit., pp.136, 138, 143-4, and the 'Morning Advertiser', 27 August 1844. 29 PP 1846, IX, questions 1091-4, 4170-1, 4595-9, 5837-8, 5622, 15511-15. 30 'Morning Advertiser', 27 August 1844. 31 MC, 8 December 1849. For Head, Snell and Frost, see especially BNP, 9 April and 30 July 1845. 32 Kent, op. cit. , p. 48. 33 MC, 8 December 1849. 34 Ipswich Record Office, HA 11/B1/11.2. 35 On the problems of trying to make a model of a typical troubled village, see Hobsbawm and Rude, op.cit., pp.59, 81-2, and Amos, op.cit., pp.157. 167-9. 36 At least twelve clergymen and thirty Poor Law Guardians were amongst the victims. 37 Sun Alliance Office, Ipswich, Profit and Loss Accounts. Unfortunately the companion minute books for 1843-4 in both the Ipswich and Bury insurance offices have disappeared. The story of the fire offices' uphill fight can be followed instead in the minute books of the Norwich Union. Investigations of claims became more thorough. 38 Ipswich Record Office, HA/B1/23/17. 39 The 'Norfolk and Norwich Monitor, and Police Gazette', No.Lll, 1844. 40 Williams himself was an arsonist. David Chilvers, George Copeman and Richard Sayer were three other regular inmates of Norfolk and Suffolk prisons who claimed to have heard 'confessions' from labourers awaiting trial for arson. At the assizes of 1845 such criminals were falling over themselves to testify against Samuel Stow and George and Jeremiah Head. On certain occasions - see the trial of George Mayhew - their evidence was clearly a fabrication. For a claim that informers, like Williams and Durrant, actually caused trouble, see Kent, op .cit., p. 52. 41 See the report in BNP, 9 April 1845. For a blistering attack on the methods of the new and unpopular detectives, see defence counsel in the case of Robert Dew, BNP, 2 April 1845. 42 BNP, 3 July 1844. 43 MC, 28 June 1844. 44 The Grand Jury reported that 4 fires were caused by inadequate employment, 11 by 'actual mischief and without any premeditated or criminal intention', 1 by a vagrant and 4 were motiveless. See MC,

216

Notes to pages 53-6

25 and 31 July 1844, for some of the critical reaction to the report. 45 See NM, 13 July 1844. Thomas Day, J.D. Everett and others blamed the Anti-Corn-Law League for causing trouble in the area. See, for example, the 'Suffolk Chronicle', 13 July 1844. But it is extremely difficult to estimate the influence of the League and Chartist agitators in the area. See A.F.J. Brown (ed.), 'Chartism in East Anglia' (undated pamphlet, W.E.A. Cambridge); Dunbabin, op. cit., p. 56; and Amos, op. cit., pp .155-6. The 'Northern Star' ran an interesting series of reports on rural distress and discontent, under the heading 'The Condition of England'. For its view on them, see, for example, the edition of 25 November 1843. 46 For Osborne, see the 'Labourer's Friend Magazine', CLIII, December 1843. 4 7 See the many articles and investigations in 'Hood's Magazine', No .11, 'Fraser's Magazine', the 'Morning Chronicle', the 'Morning Advertizer', 'Pifnch', the 'League', the 'Nonconformist', and, of course, 'The Times'. 48 Or so Hen slow believed. See his remarkable letters and sermons in BNP, November-December 1844. Both Hen slow and Foster received money from people who wished to help the poor labourers. 49 Contemporaries attributed these difficulties to low productivity, overpopulation, undercapitalisation, mechanisation, the decline in alternative forms of employment, etc. Landowners were often keen on the notion of overpopulation and surplus labour, but see the counterattack by Kent, op.cit., p.63; Henslow in BNP, 27 November 1844, and in the 'Bury and Suffolk Farmers Journal', 16 October 1844. 50 See, for example, the interesting letters on this in the Ipswich Record Office, HA50/19/4- 4(1). For the reports, see the Poor Law Report of 1834; PP XXXIV, Appendix B. 51 Kent, op.cit., p.SO, table. The problems of the farmers are clear from the market returns of 1841-4 in the 'London Gazette', and the columns of the local newspapers. See also E. L. Jones, 'Seasons and Prices', Allen & Unwin, London, 1964. 52 Reference kindly supplied by John Archer. PP 1843, XII. Report of the Special Assistant to Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, 220. 53 The increase in vagrants relieved in both counties was over twice the figure for 1842, though in some unions, like Stow, Blything, Hoxne, Cosford, Thetford, and Swaffham, the rise was much higher. See PP 1846, XXXVI. On emigration under the auspices of the Poor Law authorities, see the comparative table for 1836-47 in PP 1847-8, XLVII, and 1845, XXVII. 54 Henslow, op. cit. , p. 26. But note the views of the families concerned in 'The Times', 11 and 24 June 1844. The mining areas of the north east in 1844 were centres of confrontation. 55 'Chelmsford Chronicle', 13 December 1844. On this question of 'fighting' for work, see Dunbabin, op .cit., pp. 29-30, 46, 59; and MC, 23 August 1844. 56 'The Times', 14 June 1844. 57 MC, 27 July 1844. 58 BNP, 24 December 1844. 59 According to a hostile witness, one of the arsonists, Robert Dew, said that 'old Gapp might en; ploy 5 or 6 more men on his farm', BNP, 2 April 1845. George Dye made a similar point at an earlier trial. See BNP, 24 Decem bel' 1844. 60 'The Times', 14 June 1844. 61 Hen slow, op .cit., p. 21. For some evidence on the use of parish property, and gifts for the poor, see PP 1843, XVII; 1844, XIX; 1847-8, XLVII. 62 Henslow, op.cit., p.25. 63 Ipswich Record Office, HA 1/HB6/1b/59. See also Dennison's comments in PP 1843, X II. 64 Kent, op .cit., p .16.

Notes to pages 57-63

217

65 BNP, 31 July 1844; MC, 27 July 1844. 66 Compare the analysis of arson, prices and wages from 1816 to 1849, in MC, 8 December 1849. 67 Her husband had been imprisoned for poaching. Compare the case of Thomas Ralphs, the 'Suffolk Chronicle', 2 7 July 1844. The most pathetic person at the trials of arson was George Garrett, an illegitimate child of eleven, without a family or a home. 68 There were several versions of the Jacobs story. John Boby, his unpopular employer, gave him a very unfavourable character at the trial. Martin Turner, who appeared at the Suffolk summer assizes, had been involved in a similar dispute over wages. 69 On 4 July he disclosed that it existed in other parts of Norfolk and Suffolk, though it was not as oppressive there as it was in the Haverhill area. Graham ordered an inquiry into the system. PP 1846, XXXVI. 70 Compare Dunbabin, op .cit. , pp. 30, 59, and Amos, op .cit. , pp. 30-1, 36-9, and note the case of William Parker at the Norfolk summer assizes in 1847. For views at a later date, contrast Glyde, op .cit., p .186, with MC, 8 December 1849. 71 'Hood's Magazine', No .11, and the 'Nonconformist', 9 October 1844. 72 The 'Bury and Suffolk Herald', 9 October 1844. 73 BNP, 2 April 1844. 74 L.M. Springall, 'Labouring Life in Norfolk Villages, 1834-1914', Allen & Unwin, London, 1936, p. 92. For the confrontations at Exning, etc., see Dunbabin, op. cit. , p. 74. On the issue of consciousness, it is interesting that the Poor Law Report of 1834 describes a labourer who had been taught the lessons of power in 1830. PP 1834, XXXIV, Apprendix B, Norfolk and Suffolk. 3 THE POACHER: A STUDY IN VICTORIAN CRIME AND PROTEST

2 3 4

5

6 7

Certain aspects of poaching have been excluded from this chapter. First, poaching in Scotland has been omitted, because the story is different there. Second, certain kinds of criminal activity have been ignored, notably the trapping of deer, moor game and water-fowl. Rabbits and hares comprised perhaps two-thirds of the total catch. Fish poaching has been included, because there was in some districts a close relationship between fish, rabbit and game poaching, with the same group of men moving from one crime to another as weather and seasons changed. See, for instance, R. Samuel (ed.), 'Village Life and Labour', and G .E. Evans, 'The Days that We Have Seen', London, Faber, 1975. 1843 was a bad year for poaching, PP 1846, IX, Pt I, p.784. Of the Norfolk figure of 2, 156, 610 of these had previous convictions, PP 1872, X, Appendix 4. F. Hill, 'Crime: its Amount, Causes and Remedies' , p. 26; H. Worsley, 'Juvenile Depravity', pp. 70-1; J. H. Kent, 'Remarks on the Injuriousness of the Consolidation of Small Farms ... ', pp. 45-6; and J. Glyde, 'Suffolk in the Nineteenth Century', p.127. Some of the best-known contemporary writings on the poacher are: J.R. Jefferies, 'The Amateur Poacher', London, Smith & Elder, 1879; J. Watson, 'The Confessions of a Poacher', London, Leaden Hall Press, 1890; E. Eden, 'The Autobiography of a Working Man', London, R. Bentley, 1862; L. Rider-Haggard (ed.), 'I Walked by Night', London, Nicholson & Watson, 1935; and G. Christian (ed.), 'A Victorian Poacher: James Hawker's Journal', London, Oxford University Press, 1961. For the Carpenter quotation and a summary of the poets' and novelists' approach to the poacher, see J. M. Den wood's fascinating 'Cum brian Nights', London, Jarrolds, 1932. Christian, op.cit., p.95; Rider-Haggard, op.cit., pp.114-16; E.P. Thompson, 'Whigs and Hunters'; D. Hay et a!. , 'Albion's Fatal Tree', chapter 5; E .J. Hobsbawm and G. Rude, 'Captain Swing', p. 63;

218

Notes to pages 63-9

and A .J. Peacock, 'Bread or Blood', London, Gollancz, 1965, pp. 52-4. 8 For background to and detail on the Act of 1831 see P .B. Munsche, The Game Laws in Wiltshire in 1750-1800, in J. S. Cockburn, 'Crime in England', pp.212-13; and C.C. Trench, 'The Poacher and the Squire', London, Longmans, 1967, pp.154-5. 9 Worsley, op. cit. , p. 19. Compare Glyde, op .cit. , p .14 7. For the metaphor of 'Romans' and 'Britons', see F. Thompson, 'Lark Rise to Candleford', Harmondsworth, London, 1973, p. 291. On the idea that the hunt and shoot brought 'the peer and the commoner side by side', see J .R. Jefferies, 'Hodge and His Masters', London, Smith & Elder, 1880, pp.191-3. 10 C. Holdenby, 'Folk of the Furrow', London, Nelson, 1913, pp.26-7. 11 Hobsbawm and Rude, op.cit., pp.S0-3; S.W. Amos's thesis on Social Discontent and Agrarian Disturbances in Essex, 1795-1850, pp. 54, 158. 12 C. Kirby, The English Game Law System, 'American Historical Review', XXXVIII, 2, 1933, and The Attack on the English Game Laws in the Forties, 'Journal of Modern History', IV, 1, 1932. 13 Cited in Amos, op.cit., pp.54-5. 14 D .J. V. Jones and A. Bainbridge, 'Crime in Nineteenth-Century Wales', chapter VI; PP 1846, IX, evidence of J. Jones; and letters in the 'Nottingham Journal', 3 January and 11 July 1962. 15 PP 1872, X, evidence of Arch, Congreve and Black; and PP 1896, XXXIV, pp.509-10. 16 Note how the trends in night and day poachil!g do not always coincide. Unfortunately the statistics for Game Law offences are given only infrequently in the Parliamentary Papers in the first half of the century. For some help here, see A. C. Hall, 'Crime in its Relations to Social Progress', pp.360-7; and L.O. Pike, 'A History of Crime in England', p. 476. 17 This paragraph is based on information gleaned from local newspapers and estate records in the Record Offices at Ipswich, Norwich, Stafford and Nottingham, and in the archives section of the Nottingham University Library. The long history of poaching in the Nottingham area is outlined in vol. XI of the scrapbooks in the Local Studies section of the Central Library. 18 See Donne in PP 1872, X, p. 46. His figure seems a little high. The conflict on the Derwent and Eden can be followed in the various commissions and reports on fisheries during the century. Note especially the Commission on Salmon Fisheries, PP 1861, XXIII, and the Report on the Fisheries of the Lake District, PP 1878, XXI. More precise information can be found in the petty sessions Minute Books in the Record Office, Carlisle, and in local newspapers, chiefly the 'Carlisle Journal'. 19 D.J.V. Jones, 'The Second Rebecca Riots'. 20 Brooke's comment is in PP 1873, XIII, answer to question 2419. Muirhead, a Manchester merchant, gave a different picture. See also PP 1846, IX, evidence of Hatherton, and the 'Norwich Mercury' editorial, 4 January 1834. 21 PP 1873, XIII, p.405. See also Jefferies, op.cit., pp.144-5, and the evidence of Hooper, Bell, Sturgeon, and Malmesbury in PP 1846, IX. 22 See, for example, Eden, op .cit., A .H. Byng and S.M. Stephens (eds), 'The Autobiography of an English Gamekeeper', Fisher Unwin, London, 1892; and Jon~s and Bainbridge, op .cit., p. 301. Note how the foreman of James Barclay made a good living out of poaching: PP 1872, X, answer to question 4435. 23 Especially of meat. The periods concerned were the late 1850s-early 1860s, the late 1860s, and the mid 1870s. Such a correlation can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but much of the literary evidence suggests strongly that poaching was a popular response of the urban peasantry to changes in living standards. 24 PP 1846, IX, Pt I, p.394. 25 Lawyers and ~raolers in the Nottingham area were fairly certain of the

Notes to pages 69-81

26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44

45 46

47

48

49 50

219

importance of the trade cycle to poaching. PP 1846, IX, evidence of Browne, Rolleston, Brierley and Patchitt. The Matthews case is reported in the 'Nottingham Journal', 3 January 1862, and for a tragic case involving an unemployed labourer with six children, see the 'Carlisle Journal', 5 March 1878. Generally the correlation between poaching in the countryside and agricultural depression was close in the fifty years after Waterloo. Exceptions to the rule were possibly 1844-5 and 1862. Rider-Haggard, op.cit., p.95. On the problems and frustrations of the young, see ibid., p.93, and Glyde, op.cit., p.153. PP 1844, XXIV, p.59. PP 1846, XXI, p.21. PP 1846, IX, Pt I, p. 629. In the reports on prisons in Norfolk and Suffolk in 1844 and 1845 there are several references to the poachers' dislike of the workhouse. PP 1844, XXIX, and 1846, XXI. Compare similar attitudes in the twentieth century in Norfolk, in H .P. Long, Poaching Now and Then, 'East Anglian Magazine' , January 1967, p. 80. 'Hereford Times', 19 March 1881. 'Norfolk News', 8 March 1856-11 August 1866. References kindly supplied by John Archer. PP 1844, XXIX, p .117. J .R. Jefferies, op.cit., pp.101-2. PP 1846, IX, Pt I, p.871. The examples cited are to be found in PP 1873, X, p.45; 1873, XIII, p.359; D.J.V. Jones, Crime, Protest and Community in NineteenthCentury Wales, p.S; and PP 1846, IX, evidence of Hatton. Byng and Stephens, op.cit., p.105. Christian, op .cit., p .48. PP 1844, XXIX, p.113. Report in the 'Nottingham Journal', 19 September 1862. For this paragraph, see the statistics in PP 1845, XXIV, pp. 17 4 and 186; the 'Staffordshire Advertizer', 26 December 1862, and the comments of Gowing and the Somerset chief constable in PP 1846, IX, Pt I, p. 630; and Pt II, p. 313. See also the special pleading in Rider-Haggard, op .cit. PP 1872, X, p.63. PP 1861, XXIII, cited in D. J. V. Jones, The Second Rebecca Riots, pp.35-6. PP 1873, XIII, p. 404. For more on intimidation, see PP 1846, IX, evidence of Storey and Hatton; PP 1838, XIX, p. 44; and M. K. Ashby, 'Joseph Ashby of Tysoe, 1859-1919', Cambridge University Press, 1961, p.33. 'Carlisle Journal', 4-25 October 1878. PP 1872, X, evidence of Donne. Note the sensitive evidence of Black in the same volume, and the admission that the Act of 1862 could be stretched to include searches for other goods. See also Rider-Haggard, op.cit., and G. Bourne (Sturt), 'Change in the Village', London, Duckworth, 1912, pp.116-19. BNP, 17 January 1844; PP 1846, IX, Pt I, p.501; NM, 18 January 1834 and 11 April 1835. For violence on the river see PP 1872, X, pp. 45, 57-8, 62-3; the 'Carlisle Journal', 17 January 1862 and 22 February 1870. Bailiffs and keepers were often attacked, and sometimes killed, off duty. See ibid., 21 January 1870. PP 1849, XLIV; PP 1862, XLV, and MC, 19 August 1844. Last reference kindly supplied by John Archer. There were some twenty incidents between September 1860 and January 1862 in Staffordshire, four of which are not included in the list in PP 1862, XLV, but are reported in the 'Staffordshire Advertizer'. See, for example, 'Nottingham Journal', 21 November 1862. Compare the protest at the Suffolk lent assize in 1849, BNP, 28 March 1849. PP 1846, IX, evidence of Browne and Williams; PP 1873, XIII, evidence of Haward and Walpole; Kirby, op.cit., Christian, op.cit., and

220

51 52

53 54

Notes to pages 81-92

Rider- Haggard, op. cit. On informers and offers of free pardons, see Robert Hardy at the Cambridgeshire Assizes, BNP, 25 March 1846. The 6:1 ratio refers to the years 1857-71; for a longer period, 1834-71, the ratio of convictions to acquittals in indictable cases was 4:1, PP 1872, X, pp.ll and 39. For a claim that perjury was often committed on both sides, see W.L. Clay, 'The Prison Chaplain' (1861), p.567, and Kent, op.cit., p.57. PP 1845, XXIV, p.55; and Clay, op.cit., pp.564-5. A pheasant taken or keeper shot represented a victory against 'the Class'. For the personal revenge element associated with poaching and arson, see the classic Dalham case in the 'Morning Chronicle', 8 December 1849. See also Ashby, op.cit., p.4. Descriptions of village life at the turn of the century note how the community forgot or chose not to remember recent 'scars'. F. Thompson, op.cit., p.84, and Ashby, op.cit., p.2. F. Thompson, op.cit., p.154.

4 THE CONQUERING OF 'CHINA': CRIME IN AN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY 1842-64 1 The name is a mystery. Perhaps, as my colleague Keith Strange suggests, the name 'China' was first used at the time of the Opium Wars. 2 For the full story of the Merthyr Unitarians and the way in which they took control of local politics, see G .A. Williams, The Making of Radical Merthyr 1806-36, 'Welsh History Review', l, 1961. See also his new book, 'The Merthyr Rising', chapter 2. 3 The diary is illuminating, and will be used again in the chapter. It is in the National Library of Wales, MS 4943 B. 4 The last two paragraphs have been based on a wealth of sources. Two of the most accessible are K. T. Weetch, 'The Dowlais Ironworks and its Industrial Community 1760-1850', University of London, MSc Econ., 1963, and the 'Morning Chronicle' (MC), 4 March-6 May 1850. 5 'Merthyr Guardian' (MG), 29 March 1856. 6 Ibid. Besides the horrifying reports of the 'Morning Chronicle', see I.G. Jones, Merthyr Tydfil: the Politics of Survival, 'Llafur', 2, 1976, and H.A. Bruce, 'Merthyr in 1852', published lecture in Merthyr Public Library. 7 Weetch, op.cit.; D.J.V. Jones, 'Before Rebecca'; and G.A. Williams, 'The Merthyr Rising', set the scene here. 8 See, for example, MG, 29 April 1843, 18 June 1859, 14 January and 18 August 1860, and 5 April 1862, for some details of missions and revivals. 9 See A. V. John, The Chartist endurance: Industrial South Wales, 1840-68, 'Morgannwg', XV, 1971; and D .J. V. Jones, Chartism at Merthyr: a Commentary on the Meetings of 1842, 'Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies', XXIV, 1971. 10 The reports and statistics, an invaluable source for this article, are to be found in the Glamorgan Record Office (GRO) Q/E. Merthyr Central Library has no comparable records, except for the twentieth century. 11 Note, for instance, the changing and differing attitudes of magistrates and policemen towards drunkenness. GRO, Chief Constable's reports, 31 March 184fl and 6 August 1857, and Hill and Meyrick's comments at the Easter sessions in 1846. 12 And there was always the cost of prosecutions to be considered. For some of this see GRO, Chief Constable's reports, 28 June 1842, MG, 20 February and 6 March 1841, 16 July 1842, and 20 October 1855, and Bruce, op .cit. 13 See the comments on the impact of the police later in this chapter. The 'Merthyr Guardian' is a marvellous source here. For comments on the demand for an efficient police force, the many assaults on the new police,

Notes to pages 93-104

14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

29 30 31

32

33 34 35 36 37

221

praise for the impact of the police on the detection rate, in ensuring quieter Sundays, and checking public-house offences, see, for example, MG, 17 December 1836, 5 February 1842, 5 March 1842, and 16 July 1842. Compare GRO, Chief Constable's reports, 31 December 1841, 5 April and 28 June 1842. These reports illustrate very well the typical problems facing the new police. See, too, E.R. Baker, The Beginnings of the Glamorgan County Police, in S. Williams ( ed.) , 'Glamorgan Historian', 2, Cow bridge, D. Brown, 1965. See MG, 20 February 1841. Bruce, op .cit., p. 7. Compare Henry Thomas's view at the Michaelmas sessions of 1856 that as 'the greatest number of prisoners are strangers to this county, there is no reason to conclude that there is any permanent criminal class' here. MG, 4 January 1851. MG, 9 February and 2 March 1833, and 8 August 1846. On the migration of criminals, and a rather exaggerated picture of the importance of 'swell mobs', see PP 1839, XIX, and J .J. Tobias, 'Crime and Industrial Society in the Nineteenth Century'. GRO, Chief Constable's reports, 28 June 1842. Bruce, op.cit., p.11. 0. Hufton, 'The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France 1750-1789', chapters VII and XII; and MG, 3 February 1849. MG, 27 June 1835. Reference kindly supplied by Keith Strange. MG, 25 February 1854. GRO, Chief Constable's reports, 28 June 1842, and for the last quarter of 1847. See, for example, MC, 1April1850. Chairman's remark at the midsummer quarter sessions of 1847. This analysis of coal stealing is based on the cases heard in 1848, 1850, 1852, and 1854, and on the commentary accompanying the legal reports in the 'Merthyr Guardian'. For a fascinating comparison, see D. Philips, 'Crime and Authority in Victorian England', pp.180-95. To set all this in context, see D.A. Reid, The Decline of St Monday, 1766-1876, Bruce, op.cit., p.7, Weetch, op.cit., and M. Elsas (ed.), 'Iron in the Making', Glamorgan County Records Committee, 1959. The 'Merthyr Guardian' is an invaluable source on employer-employee relationships in the 1830s and 1840s because it was so often given to moralisin g. Copy in MG, 26 December 1857. This affair had considerable national publicity. So besides the accounts in the 'Merthyr Guardian' see, for example, reports in papers like 'The Times' and 'Morning Chronicle', 1 April 1850. For some detail here, see GRO, Chief Constable's reports, 17 June 1844, MG, 30 July and 3 September 1853, and 5 December 1857. This is a difficult subject. Much depended on the state of trade. In 1853 and 1857 there was more room for accommodation. Also it has to be borne in mind that industrial action in Merthyr had often been of a different and perhaps more sophisticated type than that elsewhere on the coalfield. H.A. Bruce, 'The Present Condition and Future Prospects of the Working Population in the Mineral Districts of South Wales', p. 53. The best source for the battle against drunkenness, the changing attitudes, and the relationship between heavy drinking and the economy, are the Chief Constable's reports in the GRO. There was also, of course, the additional factor of the changing price of drink. See MG, 29 November 1851. GRO, Chief Constable's reports for the second quarter of 1849. MG, 22 April 1845 and 18 April 1846. See, too, Weetch, op .cit., p. 58. MG, 19 May 1855. MG, 5 December 1846. The police were especially keen to stop prize fighting. To set this, and the paragraph, in context, see Reid, op .cit., and R. W. Malcolm son,

222

Notes to pages 105-18

'Popular Recreations in English Society 1700-1850', Cambridge University Press, 1973. 38 In the 1850s, for example, the rate of persons summoned and apprehended for drunkenness and assaults ran along almost parallel lines, but there was a steeper rise in violence in 1853 and in arrests for drunkenness in 1856. 39 See especially National Library of Wales, MS 4942 B. For the economic problems of women in the early days of the industrial revolution, see E. Richards, Women in the British Economy since 1700: an Interpretation, 'History', 59, 1974. 40 To set this in context, see R. Bezucha (ed.), 'Modern European History', Lexington, Mass., D.C. Heath, 1972, and L.A. Tilly, J.W. Scott and M. Cohen, Women's Work and European Fertility Patterns, 'Journal of Interdisciplinary History', VII, 1976. 41 MG, 22 May 1847. 42 The story is set out in NLW, MS 4943 B. 43 MG, 11 September 1852. 44 MG, 10 January 1857. 45 MG, 1 May 1847. 46 Bruce, op .cit., p. 22. For those interested in the subject, the year 1858 offers much in the way of evidence on suicide. See MG, 20 February, 15 May, 12 June, 4 and 25 September 1858. 47 MG, 27 October 1849, and case at Epiphany sessions 1850. Compare other cases mentioned in MG, 21 July 1860 and 29 March 1862. 48 MG, 8 January 1855. 49 MG, 24 July 1847. 50 MG, 13 June 1845, 13 March 184 7, and 18 July 1846. 51 See, for instance, 'Aberdare Times', 25 December 1875, and 5 February 1876. References kindly supplied by Huw Williams. 52 The Chief Constable's reports are full of claims of early success in the battle for public order. To put these in perspective, compare A. Silver, The Demand for Order in Civil Society, in D. Bordua ( ed.), 'The Police: Six Sociological Essays' and Philips, op.cit., chapter 3. At a later date the police could devote more of their time to preventing other crimes. 53 It would be wrong to think that magistrates represented or reflected totally the interests of the ironmasters or the opinions of the Puritan pressure groups in the town. Note, for instance, the view of Meyrick on drunkenness and its punishment at the Easter quarter sessions of 1846. 54 MG, 19 January 1850. 55 NLW, MS 4943 B. 56 MG, 6 June 1857. 57 MC, 8 April 1850. 58 See, for example, MG, 19 May 1860. 59 Crime in Merthyr in the generation after 1864 would make an interesting field of study, and might well modify some of the conclusions reached in this chapter. 5 CRIME IN LONDON: THE EVIDENCE OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE, 1831-92 1 D. Peirce in T. R. Gurr et al. (eds), 'The Politics of Crime and Conflict', p. 54. Other works which include detail on London crime are J. J. Tobias, 'Crime and Industrial Society in the Nineteenth Century'; J .M. Beattie, The Pattern of Crime in England, 1660-1800; and the thesis of K.K. Macnab, Aspects of the History of Crime in England and Wales between 1805-60. In this chapter I have excluded the dockland divisions. 2 In the latter case the apprehension rate rose from 57 per cent in 1878 to 73.3 in 1892. In another table covering 'Principal Indictable Offences against Property' the rate was below 30 per cent, and declined in the

Notes to pages 118-23

223

period for which statistics were given, i.e. 1860-78. All these figures are in the reports of the Commissioner, Parliamentary Papers, 1870, XXXVI - 1893-4, XLV. For further comparisons, see the Judicial Statistics in the PP for the second half of the century, notably the table of indictable crimes known to the police. The rate of arrests per offence was low. For London districts there are details of these rates (of from 40 to 80 per cent) for the 1880s in PP 1881, LI, fs 366-7; 1888, LVII, £.401, and 1889, LVI, £.401. For earlier detail on this, see 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', I, 1838, pp. 96-103, and II, 1839, pp.182-4. 3 Apart from the detail in the table in the MPCR there are some interesting comments and figures in the reports of the Commissioners. See, for example, PP 1883, XXXI, f.338, and 1890-1, XLII, f.358. The rate of arrests was high in cases of violence against the person. PP 1893-4, XLV, f.341 (table of 1867-92), and 1875, XXXVI, f.398. 4 There is some fascinating detail on this in PP 1877, XLII, fs 367-8; 1878, XL, f.390; 1880, XXXIV, f.411; 1881, IX, fs 331-2 and 1883, XXXI, f. 338. 5 Comparisons are difficult because the tables in the Judicial Statistics are based on a different 12-month period from those in the MPC R. For more detail on this question of arrests and summonses, see next chapter. 6 To set this in context, see Peirce, op.cit., and V.A.C. Gatrell and T .B. Hadden, Criminal Statistics and their Interpretations in E .A. Wrigley (ed.), 'Nineteenth-Century Society'. For a table of crimes in London and Middlesex, 1811-27, see PP 1828, VI, appendix B. Note the debate as to whether the amount of crime had increased or not in PP 1834, XVI, especially answer 3953. Of special importance was the fact that the number of drunks discharged at police stations was included in the figures for 1831-3. 7 The Moral Economy of Large Towns, 'Bentley's Miscellany', VI, 1839, p. 481. 8 PP 1883, XXXI, f. 342. 9 See, for instance, T.R. Gurr, 'Rogues, Rebels and Reformers'; H. Zehr, 'Crime and the Development of Modern Society'; and A.Q. Lodhi and C. Tilly, Urbanization, Crime and Collective Violence in NineteenthCentury France. 10 A. C. Hall, 'Crime in its Relations to Social Progress', pp. 270 and 176. 11 See Zehr, op .cit., pp. 120ff, and D. Philips, 'Crime and Authority in Victorian England', p. 143. I am less certain than Howard Zehr about the value of such a ratio, not least because of the inadequacies of the statistical records. My own theft-violence ratio is 100 x offences against the person/offences against the person +offences against property. 12 A comparable study, based on less convincing evidence, is that by N. Tomes, A 'Torrent of Abuse': Crimes of Violence between WorkingClass Men and Women in London, 1840-1857. 13 See Beattie, op. cit. , p. 68. 14 For the debate over the level of violence and street disorder, and the impact of the new police in the first decades of the century, see the many references in PP: 1834, XVI; 1837, XII; and 1837-8, XV. 15 Information gleaned from tables in the MPCR and from PP 1875, LXI, f. 170. For valuable background, see the many references in Tobias, op.cit., and PP 1889, XL, f.344; 1874, XXVIII, 1 District; and 1880, XXXIV, K Division. 16 The rate of persons taken into custody for suicide attempts was highest in 1850-2, 1858, 1862-5, 1869, and 1875. For more detail on this paragraph, see PP 1874, XXVIII, Thames Division; 1875, XXXVI, 1 District; 1877, XLII, Thames Division; and 1886, XXXIV, Y Division. On infanticide see PP 1871, XXVIII, f.593; 1873, XXXI, f.384; 1875, XXXVI, f.398; and 1877, XLII, S Division. For much more on this, see PP 1871, VI I. evidence of Lankester.

224

Notes to pages 123-31

17 The worst decade was the 1840s. From 1839 to 1850 148 persons were taken into custody on charges of riot and unlawful assembly. Quote in W. B. Miller, 'Cops and Bobbies', p. 110. 18 For all this see PP 1871, XXVIII, f.603; 1874, XXVIII, fs 315, 412; 1873, XXXI, f.296; 1883, XXXI, f.337; and 1884, XLII, f.337. Lisson Grove was a very dangerous spot for the police in the 1880s. 19 Gatrell and Hadden, op .cit. , p. 356. 20 The main felonies affecting property were burglary, breaking into dwelling houses, etc., and larcenies {common, in a dwelling house, etc., and from the person). Such estimates were made much earlier, but are not recorded in the printed MPCR. In 1837, for example, there were 8, 821 such offences known and the value of property stolen was £28,854. As many people pointed out, this was much smaller than estimated losses at the very beginning of the century. PP 1837-8, XV, qu .1088. Note the effect of re-defining crimes on the rate of such offences. PP 1881, LI, f. 331. The rate of felonies per 100,000 of the population was 521.6 in 1837 and 678.1 in 1838. 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', I, 1838, p.99, and II, 1839, p.183. 21 Ibid., I, 1838, p.97. 22 PP 1874, XXVIII, D Division. 23 PP 1881, Ll, f. 332; and 1877, XLII, X Division. 24 See, for instance, PP 1877, XLII, Y Division; 1890-1, XLII, f. 310; 1872, XXX, f.264. 25 PP 1834, XVI, questions :3922, 3953, 4454; PP 1880, XXXIV, E Division; 1870, XXXVI, L Division; 1872, XXX, B Division. 26 For earlier comments, see PP 1834, XVI, questions 333, 1970, 3406, 3408-10, 3922. 3953, 6100-1. 27 PP 1881, LI, f.331. This important point is missed by Peirce in his analysis, op.eit., pp.121-2. For further detail on the seriousness and apparent popularity of burglaries and forced entry at a time of a declining crime rate, see PP 1873, XXXI, f.384; 1875, XXXVI, f.398; and 1888, LVII, f.393. 28 For some of this, see PP 1884-5, XXXVII, f. 338; 1871, XXVIII, f. 560 and report of N Division; 1878, XL, f.389; and 1874, XXVIII, C Division. 29 PP 1893-4, XLV, f.315. 30 PP 1878-9, XXXIII, f.436; 1892, XLI, f.335-6. The Commissioner claimed in 1891 that the 129 burglars and 105 housebreakers convicted in that year were responsible for most of the recorded cases. PP 1892, XLI, f. 335. 31 Peirce, op .cit., p. 68; and R. S. Sindall 's thesis, Aspects of Middle-Class Crime in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 21 ff. Two interesting contemporary studies on this criminal area are A. C. Hall, op. cit. , and C. Goring, 'The English Convict: a Statistical Study'. See also PP 1877, XLII, X Division; and 1884, XLII, D Division. 32 Peirce, op .cit., p. 127. Fnr the Commissioner's comment, see PP 1877, XLII, fs 367-8. To set this in some context see chapters 4 and 6, and A .E. Dingle, Drink and Working-Class Living Standards in Britain, 1870-1914, 'Economic History Review', XXV, 4, 1972. Note that Sir Frederick Roe required in August 1833 that all cases of drunkenness had to be taken before the magistrates. Macnab, op .cit., pp. 239-40. See also PP 1881, LI, C Division. 33 For this background there are two useful police reports: PP 1870, XXXVI, and 1880, XXXIV. See also PP 1881, IX, Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Law relating to the Protection of Young Girls; Public Record Office, MEP0/2/209, 293,355,384; HO 45/9511/17216, 10123/B 13517. Good secondary sources include R .D. Storch, Police Control of Street Prostitution in Victorian London, in D.H. Bayley {ed.), 'Police and Society'; and E.J. Bristow, 'Vice and Vigilence'. See also PP 1872, XXX, B Division. 34 PP 1875, XXXVI, f.318. 35 See, for instance, PP 1887, XL, E Division; 1881, IX, f. 437; and

Notes to pages 131-9

225

1880, XXXIV, C Division. 36 For some detail on beggars and vagrants in London, see PP 1870, XXXVI, f. 461, sub-report on the Casual Poor. On the vagrant as criminal, see chapter 7. 37 PP 1873, XXXI, 2 District. Note the vigorous efforts of Wands worth and Holborn to force vagrants off the streets in the 1880s. For much detail on vagrants and beggars, see H. Mayhew, 'London Labour and the London Poor', vols III and IV (1861-2). 38 Note the interesting comments on this in PP 1870, XXXVI, f. 465. 39 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', I, 1838, p .100. A useful source on this paragraph is H. Mayhew and J. Binny, 'The Criminal Prisons of London'. 40 A decline of from 36.4 per cent to 9. 6 for males, and from 59.5 to 9. 4 for females over the years 1837-86. 41 This, and other information on occupations, is based on a 1-in-4-year sample covering the years 1840-92. In this sample the proportion of males returned with no trade or occupation was as high as 51. 4 per cent, and of females 87. 5. 42 See especially Tobias, op. cit. , chapter 4. 43 PP 1839, XIX, p. 8, and PP Judicial Statistics, 1857 onwards: tables of depredators, receivers, etc. By 1891 the number of such returned was only 2, 342. See also 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', I, 1838, pp. 97 and 100. 44 Note the way that the recording of the size of the 'criminal class' changed. PP 1870, XXXVI, f.465, and 1874, XXVIII, f.316. 45 For this, see 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', IX, 1846, p.298. 46 Ibid., XIII, 1850, p.257; and Miller, op.cit., p.55. 47 Note the complaint in the early years that the police often took innocent people into custody on suspicion only. PP 1837, XII, qu .1562. For comparative detail on this paragraph, see the tables in PP, Judicial Statistics, 1857 onwards. For the discharge ratio for 1831 I have deducted the 23, 787 persons discharged at station houses from the total arrests. 48 The trends in sentencing policy at higher and lower courts are based on a 1-in-5-year sample. Again there are comparative tables in PP, Judicial Statistics, 1857 onwards. The quotation is from the 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', I, 1838, p. 97. 49 PP 1890-1, XLII, f.310. See also, for example, 1874, XXVIII, f.316; 1877, XLII, f.369; and 1893-4, XLV, f.315. 50 Peirce, op.cit., pp.209-ll, 127. 51 PP 1870, XXXVI, E Division; 1878, XL, f. 389; and 1880, XXIV, E Division. But note PP 1886, XXXIV, f.370. The indices of food prices, wages and unemployment used for this section were based on the average price of bread in London, Sauer beck's price indices, Wood's average real wages (allowing for unemployment), all in B .R. Mitchell and P. Deane, 'Abstract of British Historical Statistics', Cambridge University Press, 1962. Also valuable are the graphs in Peirce, op .cit., pp.47-8. 52 Rather, in the latter case, there was, with the exception of the 1880s, more of an inverse correlation with the business cycle. 53 For some background here see Philips, op .cit., pp. 83-6; R. Lane, Urbanization and Criminal Violence in the 19th Century; Massachusetts as a test Case, in H.D. Graham and T.R. Gurr (eds), 'The History of Violence in America', Washington, Official Publications, 1969, and Macnab, op .cit., chapter IV. Macnab states that the new police had little effect on indictable crime rates. Ibid. , p. 221. For the contemporary debate, see the reports on the Metropolitan Police in PP 1834, XVI; 1837, XII; and 1837-8, XV. The lack of comprehensive information on summonses makes the question of police efficiency and impact especially complex. 54 PP 1875, XXXVI, 2 District. For detail on police concentration and the

226

55

56

57 58

59

60 61 62 63

64 65

Notes to paaes 139-145

geography of arrests, see 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', XIII, 1850, p. 238, and the divisional reports and appendices in the Commissioners' reports. The historian quoted is Miller, op.cit., p.125. PP 1876, XXXIV, X Division. There was also the added burden of special events like royal visits, jubilee celebrations, and the boat race, as well as public agitations and [rish troubles in the 1880s. For all this paragraph the reports of the Commissioners are useful, especially the appendices. For further detail on the losses from the force, see PP 1839, XIX, p. 65, and 1867, LVII, f. 813. The problem of police misconduct does emerge from time to time in the reports. See PP 1871, XXVIII, fs 590-1. On the value of the police in controlling drunken behaviour and reducing the violence at fairs and recreational places, see PP 1834, XVI, qu. 333; 1837-8, XV, qu. 2091. Later police reports describe the attempts to curtail street fairs, trading, music and singing. See, for instance, PP 1871, XXVIII, f.592; 1881, LI, fs 369-70, and compare A.P. Donajgrodzki (ed.), 'Social Control in Nineteenth-Century Britain', chapter 6. For some of this debate see PP 1837-8, XV, qu.1088; 1834, XVI, qu.3921; and 1837, XII, questions 1192-4. Their main criticism of the new police was that it lacked a group of men dedicated to rooting out the 'nurseries of crime', tracking down professional burglars and receivers, etc. PP 1837, XII, questions 1192-4, and 1206. Compare the 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', XIII, 1850, p. 264. For detail on the arrests and recovery rate in the late 1830s, see ibid., I, 1838, pp. 96-8. The rate of property recovered, which fluctuated wildly, was 19.2 per cent in 1843 and 33.7 in 1892. For information on all these changes, see PH 1870, XXXVI, 1873, XXXI. The detective force, established in 1842, was for a long time very small indeed, but in 1869 180 new appointments were sanctioned. Other improvements followed in 1878 and 1890. For the figures of arrests, see PP 1874, XXVIII, appendix 3. The size of the Metropolitan Police was increased by a thousand in 1883, and reforms proposed in 1886 were carried out the next year by the Commissioner. PP 1870, XXXVI, f. 468. Gatrell and Hadden, op. cit. , p. 378. See, for instance, the report on the police handling of these troubles in PP 1886, XXXIV, f.381; and 1888, LVII, A and D Divisions. There is much recent work on the seriousness of, and response to, disorder in London during the second half of the century. See G. S. Jones 'Outcast London', London, Oxford University Press, 1971; V. Bailey's thesis, The Dangerous Classes in Later Victorian England, L. Keller's thesis, Public Order in Victorian London, and B. Lewis's thesis, The Home Office, the Metropolitan Police, and Civil Disorder, 1886-93. The words of Joseph Fletcher in 1850. See, 'Journal of the Statistical Society of London', XIII, 1850, p. 264. Peirce sets the scene in op .cit., pp .114-15. The quotation is from PP 1884-5, XXXVII, E Division.

6 CRIME AND POLICE IN MANCHESTER IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 1 A. Briggs, 'Victorian Cities', Harmondsworth, Pelican, 1968, p.56. 2 W. Cooke Taylor, 'Notes of a Tour in the Manufacturing Districts of Lancashire' (1841), London, Cass, 1968 edn, p.257. 3 Quoted in A.D. Redford and T.S. Russell, 'The History of Local Government in Manchester', II, p. 283. 4 See, for example, J. Phillips Kay, 'The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes', pp. 52-8, and J. E. Mercer, 'The Conditions of Life in Angel Meadow'. 5 W.L. Clay, 'The Prison Chaplain', p.518. 6 W.B. Neale, 'Juvenile Delinquency in Manchester', p .10.

Notes to pages 145-53

8 9 10 11

12

13

14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29

22 7

C. de Motte, The Dark Side of Town: Crime in Manchester and Salford, 1815-75 (PhD thesis). F. Engels, 'The Condition of the Working Class in England', p. 145. P. Gaskell, 'Artisans and Machinery', p. 258 ( 1968 edn). Clay, op.cit., p.518. There is too much to document here. Amongst the most important are the Watch Committee Minutes in the Town Hall, the files of juvenile and vagrancy convictions in the Record Office, Manchester, and the Police Reports and Town Council Proceedings in the Local History section of the Central Library. These police records are housed in the Local History section. They are described as Comparative Annual Returns of the Chief Constable ( CCR), 352.2.M.1, 1843-92. On the council's awareness of the problems of a comprehensive return of crime in the borough, see 052.042. M22, Manchester Council Proceedings, 1868-9, p .140. Like that of police evidence elsewhere, that of Manchester is weak on the number of re-committals per year. But see CCR 1854, for table of 1840-54. So far as one can tell, only in the years 1860-71 do we get the complete number of persons who came into police hands or who were summoned. Ibid., 1871. Again these tables are not as complete as they first appear. See, for instance, ibid. , 1866, 1872 and 1884. Redford and Russell, op.cit., p.435. See also CCR 1844. We shall be looking at some of this later. Note how, for example, the opening of a station in Swan Street led to a rise in the statistics. Ibid., 1857. S. P. Bell claims that the increased accommodation for prisoners after 1850 may have led to an increase in arrests in his thesis, A Social History of Salford New Bailey Prison, 1825-85, p.64. There are many problems here. Many of the figures relate only to Manchester township or to the inmates of New Bailey prison. For some of this, see ibid., and de Motte, op.cit., p.249. J.B. Torr, Our Criminal Legislation in Recent Years, p.66; and Anon., 'Criminal Manchester' (c. 1874), p.21. Last reference cited in Bell, op.cit., p.62. This paragraph is based on a thorough investigation of the police statistics in CCR. De Motte is helpful, op.cit., pp.160 and 379-81. For some of this see L. Faucher, 'Manchester in 1844', p.40 (Cass edn 1969); Neale, op.cit., pp.58, 65; CCR. 1866, 1871, 1873-4; and Manchester Council Proceedings, 3 February 1869. See, for instance, Neale, op.cit., pp.8, 39; Bell, op.cit., p.47; PP 1837, XXXII, f.603. De Motte, op.cit., p.288; Faucher, op.cit., p.34; and A. Prentice, 'Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections of Manchester, 1792-1832' (1851), London, Cass edn, 1970, p.280. See Redford and Russell, op .cit., p. 207. Note the police decision on assaults in CCR 1846, and comments on the rising tide of serious crime, ibid.' 1857. Reported stabbings were under forty-two a year between 1862 and 1874, and usually fewer than twenty persons a year were taken into police custody for maiming, vitriol attacks, etc. Compare PP 1834, XIX, f. 581. She was given six months' gaol. 'Manchester City News', 17 April 1880. Compare the case in ibid., 5 March 1864. See, for instance, 'Manchester Courier', 22 and 29 August 1840. One man committed suicide after the sentence. 'Manchester City News', 17 September 1880. See also Bent, Criminal Life, chapter III; 'Manchester City News', 2 May 1868, 17 April 1869, 31 January and 13 March 1880; and PP 1875, LXI, fs 134-5. See, for example, 'Manchester City News', 12 March 1864 and 2 May 1868. PP 1871, VII, qs 1985-2128, CCR 1873-4 and 1886. See G. Greaves, Observations on some of the causes of Infanticide, 'Transactions of the :vlanchester Statistical Society', 1862-3.

228

Notes to pages 153-60

30 Examples in the 'Manchester Courier', 11 January 1840, and 'Manchester City News', 6 February 1864. 31 Ibid., 21 November 1869. 32 'Manchester Courier', 22 August 1840. 33 Bent, op.cit., p.223. 34 Ibid. , p. 221. See also CCR 1850-1. 35 There is a wealth of primary and secondary material on the Irish in Manchester. One starting-point is PP 1836, XXXIV, Report on the State of the Irish Poor in Great Britain. See also de Motte, op.cit., pp.294-5, and 'Manchester City News', 13 July 1868. For Murphy in Lancashire, see W.L. Arnstein, The Murphy Riots. 36 Gaskell, op.cit., p.280, and J. Phillips Kay, op.cit., pp.42-3. 37 CCR 1847-8. For the Chartist background see D. Read's chapter in A. Briggs (ed.), 'Chartist Studies', Macmillan, London, 1958; and M. Jenkins, 'The General Strike of 1842'. 38 CCR 1847. 39 For some of the later troubles, and demands for police protection from such areas, see 'Manchester City News', 21 November 1868 and 1 May 1869, and Town Hall, Watch Committee Minutes, 28 August 1856 and 20 August 1857. 40 This paragraph is based on an intensive study of both chief constables' reports and local newspapers, 1840-92. 41 For Morgan, see report in 'Manchester City News', 6 February 1864. For a classic case of juvenile thieving in London Road, see ibid., 23 January 1869. Further case studies can be gleaned from the Manchester Record Office, L27/1/1-2. Calendar of prisoners. 42 Neale, op. cit. , p. 14. 43 See, for example, CCR 1854, and 'Manchester City News', 24 April and 15 May 1869. 44 Compare Clay, op.cit., p.521, with Faucher, op.cit., p.39. 45 'Manchester City News', 21 February 1880. 46 Ibid. , 21 November 1868. For some interesting background here, see PP 1839, XIX, Royal Commission on the Constabulary Force, sections on Manchester and Liverpool; and 1841, X, Royal Commission on Handloom Weavers, p. 89. 47 Bent, op .cit., chapter IX. 48 Neale, op.cit., p.44. Compare Clay's account of the Clarkes and O'Neills, op .cit. , pp. 522 ff. 49 Estimates based•on police reports up to 1857. Most were located in Division A. 50 See Faucher's interesting remark, op .cit., p. 39. Gangs did, 'however, move out of Manchester, PP 1839, XIX, pp.14 and 16; and Clay, op.cit., p.522. 51 The police estimates in the mid century give 3-500 houses for this purpose, chiefly in Divisions A and B . 52 Faucher, op .cit., p. 34. 53 In the second half of the century, about one-third of offenders were male, and one-third were labelled 'prostitutes'. 54 Lancashire Record Office, QE V/17/ 1-1(1843), and Clay, op.cit., p.531. 55 CCR 1850-1. 56 Manchester City News, 13 March 1869. Note the decline of such street robberies in the 1870s. See PP 1875, XLI, f.136, and CCR 1875. It was widely believed that harsh punishments had effected the change. 57 CCR 1865. See also 1852-3. 58 CCR 1849. Note the incidence of 'inside jobs'. CCR 1852-3. 59 W.B. Neale is good on this, op .cit. , pp. 64-6. On the lack of care of householders, see especially CCR 1870. 60 W. Wilson and R. Birch were two such skilful operators. See 'Manchester City News', 3 April 1869. On burglaries and burglars generally, see J. Caminada, 'Twenty-Five Years of a Detective Life'. 61 See, for example, 'Manchester Courier', 22 August 1840, 'Manchester

Notes to pages 160-8

229

City News', 21 November 1868, and Caminada, op.cit., p.99. 62 Note the concern about this, when the recorded number of other robberies was falling. CCR 1871-5. 63 CCR 1845. 64 'Manchester City News', 17 April 1869 and 5 December 1868. 65 On the latter, see Redford and Russell, op .cit., pp. 442-3. Caminada is good on frauds. Op .cit. 66 Manchester Record Office, M5/f/310/6/M5/31. 67 As in 1842 and 1848. Compare Faucher, op.cit., p.47. 68 See, for example, Cooke Taylor, op .cit., p .139, and Faucher, op .cit., pp.55-6. 69 Neale, op.cit., p.16. 70 'Manchester Courier', 25 April 1840, and 'Manchester City News', 26 June 1869. See Redford and Russell, op.cit., p.212. 71 In that year 170 warrants were granted under the Betting Houses Act. CCR 1885. Compare Caminada, op.cit., pp.17-18 and 451 ff. 72 PP 1847-8, XXXVI, p. 25. For more on this question of what influenced the statistics, see CCR 1843 and 1872, and de Motte, op.cit., p.181. He believes that drunkenness was on the increase in nineteenth-century Manchester. Ibid. , pp. 170-1. 73 Phillips Kay, op.cit., p.57, and CCR 1843-92. 74 CCR 1869-73, and Gaskell, op.cit., p.131. 75 This, and all other evidence in the paragraph, is taken from the police reports. What is not clear is that proportion of women (including prostitutes) convicted of drunkenness. Note the case of female recommittals in PP 1849, XXVI, f.252, and the prejudiced comments of Gaskell on drunkards. Op. cit. , pp. 259-60. 76 Engels, op.cit., p.143. 77 For this paragraph, see, for instance, Faucher, op.cit., pp.41-5; Engels, op .cit., p .144; J .E. Mercer, op .cit., pp .172-3; 'Manchester City News', 31 December 1864; PP 1837, XXXII, f.596; and CCR 1843-92. On ages, etc., of some fifty of them, see PP 1834, XIX, fs 594-5. 78 CCR 1883. The reports of 1881-9 are especially useful on the campaigns against brothels and prostitutes. See, too, Manchester Record Office, M 117/1/5/9. Petty Sessions- Vagrancy Convictions. 79 For a little background here, see Redford and Russell, op .cit., pp.109, 125; and de Motte, op.cit., pp.73, 78. 80 Neale, op.cit., p.13. Compare Engels, op.cit., p.314; and PP 1836, XXXIV, fs 549-50. ·81 For some of this see Neale, op.cit.; de Motte, op.cit., p.213; and Caminada, op. cit. , pp .12-14. 82 More on this aspect of police work can be found in the next chapter. 83 Note the constant complaints in the Watch Committee Minutes regarding illegal hawking, begging, loitering, etc. See, for instance, 6 May 1852. Also PP 1839, XIX, p.30. 84 Redford and Russell, op .cit., p .109; Town Hall, Watch Committee Minutes, 15 December 1842; 'Manchester City News', 20 March 1869; and Manchester Record Office, M 117/1/5/9. See the career of Ann Ryan in Caminada, op .cit., pp .169-70. 85 A similar proportion of females to males is apparent in the number of persons tried at New Bailey Court House, 1794-1838. PP 1839, XII, fs 110-11. 86 Faucher, op .cit., p. 40. 87 Both Neale, op. cit. , and Clay, op. cit. , are vital here. On the problem of deciding how many offences were committed by youngsters, see, for example, ibid., p. 456, and CCR 1843. For some evidence on juvenile numbers before 1840, see PP 1837, XXXII, f. 603, and 1839, XII, f.110. 88 This paragraph is based on Neale, op .cit.; Clay, op .cit., p. 449; Bell, op.cit., pp.68-73; PP 1839, XXII, f.98; and Lancashire Record Office, QE V/17/1-1. 89 See, for example, Clay, op .cit., p. 555. The chaplains of Lancaster

230

90 91 92 93

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

110 111

112 113 114 115 116 117 118

Notes to pages 169-77

and Salford gaols were similarly scathing on the lack of religious knowledge amongst their inmates. PP 1847-8, XXXVI, f.395. Confirming, to a degree, Engels's picture, op.cit., p.98. For this paragraph, apart from CCR 1844-92, see Bell, op.cit., pp.68-73; Cooke Taylor, op.cit., p.259; Faucher, op.cit., pp.28, 37; PP 1836, XXXIV, fs 522 and 549-50; and 1847-8, XXXVI, f.409. Once again Neale, op.cit., and Clay, op.cit., pp.455, 522-32, provide the background. This section is based on a thorough investigation of the police records, 1843-92. There is a lot of evidence on re-committals in the first half of the century in the Parliamentary Papers. See, for example, PP 1839, XXII, fs 94-106; 1849, XXVI, f.252. On interpretation, see de Motte, op. cit. , pp .165-7, 381. Torr, op .cit. , is useful. See his table 5. De Motte, op .cit., p .102. Manchester Central Library, Local History section, 352.042. M10. Manchester Police Reports, 1829-42. On the costs and delays faced by public and police, see Neale, op.cit., p .40; and CCR 1860. For example, in 1874 there were 24,624 arrests, of whom 4,511 were not sent to court for want of prosecution, etc. The magistrates adjudicated on the remainder. Of that figure, 3, 284 were discharged. CCR 1843. CCR 1846. CCR 1870-1. PP 1839, XXII, f.111. For all this, see Bell, op.cit.; de Motte, op.cit., pp.368-72, and PP 1847-8, XXXVI, fs 395 and 409. See, for instance, Bent, op.cit., pp.221, 225; and Bell, op.cit., pp. 64' 183. Engels, op.cit., pp.98, 248; Faucher, op.cit., p.145; and Cooke Taylor, op.cit., p.239. Clay, op.cit., pp.551-2, 619. De Motte, op.cit., p.378. See, for example, CCR 1844, 1848-9, 1859-62. See the commentary on this by: S. Marcus, 'Engels, Manchester and the Working Class', London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974, pp.223-4. Faucher, op .cit., p .145; and Cooke Taylor, op .cit., pp. 8-9. Compare CCR 1847-8. Workers at such times were obviously choosing a variety of forms of protest. See Engels on crime as protest, op .cit., pp. 242-3. On violence amongst the brickmakers, see R.N. Price, The Other Face of Respectability. On the seriousness of 1842, and the tough police response, see .Jenkins, op .cit. For the story of policing in the early years of the century, see Redford and Russell, op.cit., early chapters; and D. Foster's thesis on Public Opinion and the Police in Lancashire, 1839-42. Junius Junior (Johnson), 'Life in the Low Parts of Manchester', p. 8. Another valuable study is J. Caminada, op. cit. But most of the material for these para~rraphs comes from the comments and tables in CCR 1843-92. CCR 1847; and de Motte, op.cit., p.103. It is worth comparing the comments of J.S. Thomas in PP 1836, XXXIV, f.549. Over the years there was some improvement in the rate of arrest for felonies. 'Manchester City News', 15 May 1869. For some of this debate, see Manchester Central Library, Local History section, Council Proceedings, 1868-9; and Town Hall, Watch Committee Minutes for 1880. For the extra duties, see, for example, CCR 1878. CCR 1848. CCR 1869. For some arrests by men on the spot, see 'Manchester City News', 6 February 1864, 15 May 1869, and 24 January 1880. Complaints were

Notes to pages 177-83

231

frequent about the failure of police to capture those who robbed houses; the recovery rate for stolen property was about a quarter of the total stolen. 119 An investigation of the Watch Committee Minutes and of the CCR for the 1850s proves most illuminating on this question of which areas and persons ought to receive police attention. 120 But note the attempts by the Reverend J. E. Mercer and others to whip up concern. Op. cit. 121 Caminada, op.cit., p.6. 7 THE VAGRANT AND CRIME IN VICTORIAN BRITAIN: PROBLEMS OF DEFINITION AND ATTITUDE

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11

12 13 14 15

16 17 18

See J. Lambert, 'Vagrancy Laws and Vagrants', p. 47. An interesting comparative study is 0 .H. Hufton, 'The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France'. See, for instance, C .J. Ribton-Turner, 'A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy', pp.281, 326; and H. Solly, 'Destitute Poor and the Criminal Classes'. Ibid., p. 9, and H. Mayhew, 'London Labour and the London Poor', Ill, p.408. J. Greenwood, 'The Seven Curses of London', p. 254. A similar fear had gripped the authorities in the post-war depression. Ribton-Turner, op.cit., p.254. And see PP 1847-8, Llll, p.183. Two of the more famous inquiries were J. H. Stallard, 'The Female Casual and her Lodging', London, 1866, and C.W. Craven, 'A Night in the Workhouse', Keighley, C. W. Craven, 1887. The three crucial reports are in PP 1847-8, LIII; 1866, XXXV; and 1906, Clll. 'The Times', 21 November 1865. See, for instance, M. Higgs, 'Glimpses into the Abyss'. Ribton-Turner, op.cit., p.670. For some comparative material here, see G. Rusche and 0. Kirchheimer, 'Punishment and Social Structure', Russell and Russell, New York, 1968, p. 40; and W.J. Chamblis, A Sociological Analysis of the Law of Vagrancy, 'Social Problems', XII, 1964. PP 1850, XXVII. Poor Law Report, p. 99. For a police view, see the thesis of C. Pilling, The Police in the Engl:sh Local Community, 1856-80, p.229. The Scottish story is revealing: see W. Watson, 'Pauperism, Vagrancy, Crime and Industrial Education in Aberdeenshire, 1840-75', p. 18. Pilling, op.cit., p.452; Higgs, op.cit., pp.17-18, 294-5. The Poor Law tables do not distinguish between the local casual poor and the vagrant proper. PP 1906, C III, p. 22, and minutes of evidence, p. 69. For ~lay hew's estimate, see op.cit., pp.407-9. Chester Record Office, DPO 1-11. Annual Reports of the Chief Constable, 1871. Most of these were vagrants. The Gloucestershire figure for 1864 had been 11,738: see B.C. Jerrard's thesis, The Gloucestershirc Police in the Nineteenth Century. See also PP 1866, XXXV. pp.94-100, 161; W.C. Maddox, 'History of the Radnorshire Constabulary', Llandrindod Wells, Radnorshire Society, 1959, p.16. The Merthyr figures were 1,787 in 1861, and 5,912 in 1868. T. D. Jones's thesis, Poor Law and Public Health Administration in the area of !\1erthyr Tydfil Union, 1834-94, Appendix 7. Cited in Vorspan, Vagrancy and the New Poor Law in late-Victorian and Edwardian England, p.59. PP 1906, Clll, p.16. R. Samuel, Comers and Goers, in H.J. Dyos and l\1. Wolff (eds), 'The Victorian City' , London, Routledge & Kegan Paul ( 1973). For some of

232

Notes to pages 183-90

the problems of definition, see Lambert, op.cit., pp.20-1; Hufton, op .cit., p .117; and C .E .B. Russell and L. M. Rigby, 'The Making of the Criminal', p. 58. 19 Compare Boase, PP 1847-8, LIII, pp .14-15, with Higgs, op .cit., p. 58. 20 Higgs, op. cit. , p .172. For views on the connections between vagrancy, industrialisation and improved transport facilities, see A .H. Hill, 'Vagrancy. The Relations of Country Districts to Great Towns', 1881, and the comments of Barwick Lloyd Baker in the 1 Gloucestershire Chronicle' , 22 August 1868. 21 Mayhew, op.cit., pp.393-4, 422. Note, too, the cases of farm labourers and craftsmen given in PP 1870, XXXVI, Report of the Commissioner of the Metropolis, Special Report on the Casual Poor. 22 PP 1870, XXXVI, Special Report, p.46. Note, too, the admission of the chairman of the Dorset Mendicity Society in 1881, 'Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette', 12 April 1881. 23 By the 1860s the relationship between vagrancy levels and the economy were being recognised in official circles. See how rises in relief given to them, as in 1842-3, 1847-8, 1868-9, 1880-2, 1889 and 1904-5 accompanied difficult economic periods. See also PP 1866, XXXV, p.161; Jerrard, op.cit., p.138; PP 1906, CIII, pp.17 ff. See the comparative tables on pauperism, vagrancy and crime in ibid. , Appendices, pp. 117-18. For the popular view, that vagrants actually thrived in bad times, see Greenwood, op.cit., pp.255-8. 24 'Birmingham Journal', 22 July 1848. 25 Note the closeness of the figures for prostitution, desertion and begging offences in the Parliamentary Papers 1858-92. For some background here, see Stallard, op.cit.; Higg·s, op.cit., pp.233, 322; and Mayhew, op.cit., pp. 394-6. 26 PP 1870, XXXVI, Special Report, p. 46. On the difficulty of 'recovery' once 'fallen', see PP 1866, XXXV, pp. 38-9; and J. Sandford, 'Down and Out in Britain', London, Owen, 1971, p.18. 27 PP 1870, XXXVI, Special Report, pp. 45, 46, 50, 57, and Ribton-Turner, op.cit., pp.309-10. 28 Term used by Higgs, op.cit., p.83. Compare H. Mayhew and J. Binny, 'The Criminal Prisons of London' (1968 Cass edn), pp. 384-5. The Victorians feared that such 'natural' behaviour was latent in everyone. 29 Mayhew, op.cit.., p.391. 30 J. Greenwood, 'On the Tramp', London, Diprose & Bateman, 1883, pp.59-62. 31 PP 1866, XXXV, f. 689. Several people testified to the intelligence and knowledge of vagrants and beggars. See J. Flynt, 'Tramping with Tramps', pp. 264-5; and PP 1870, XXXVI, Special Report, p. 49. 32 Mayhew, op .cit., p. 392. On their attitudes, see, for example, Flynt, op.cit., pp.21--2, 135-6, 145, 239; Higgs, op.cit., pp.33 ff. On their entertainment, see Ribton-Turner, op.cit., p.295; and P.E. Razzell and R.W. Wainwright (eds), 'The Victorian Working Class', pp.75-6. 33 PP 1866, XXXV, pp.62-6. 34 For example, of 709 persons relieved at Mold, 28 March-31 October 1867, and 30 June-31 October 1870, 128 had been born in Ireland, 74 in Wales, 73 in Liverpool, 42 in Manchester and 35 in Birmingham, Flint shire Record Office, Vagrants Outdoor Relief Lists, Holywell Union. 35 Lambert said that there were few asylums outside London by 1868. Op.cit., p.41. 36 For this paragraph see, for example, Watson, op .cit. , p. 19; Mayhew, op .cit., IV, pp .427, 430, 447; J. Greenwood, 'The Amateur Casual, or a Night in the Workhouse', pp.48-9; and S.H. Hardwick, 'Our Tramps', pp.8--9. 37 'Cambrian News', 9 January 1869. 38 See, for instance, PP 1852-3, XXXVI, questions 1928, 2378, and 3576. 39 But there were problems with police supervision, and some experiments were discontinued. PP 1870, XXXVI, Commissioner's Report, p. 8;

Notes to pages 191-7

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51

52 53 54

55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66

233

and PP 1866, XXXV, pp.ll3-14 'The Times', 16 February 1869. PP 1852-3, XXXVI, qu. 712. Pilling, op.cit., p.452. See, for example, Mary Carpenter, 'Reformatory Schools', pp. 226-47, and R.M. Barrett, The treatment of Juvenile Offenders, p.266. PP 1847-8, LIII, pp .13, 83. PP 1839, XIX, p.13. See, for example, ibid., pp .13-34 and PP 1852-3, XXXVI, questions 1416-22. Pilling, op.cit., p.229. Virtually nothing has survived in Montgomeryshire and Shropshire for this period. Many of the figures and illustrations in this section of the chapter are taken from certain districts simply because their records have survived and can be used. Much of the petty session material provides us with only the name of the offender. PP 1839, XIX, p. 30; and S .P. Day, 'Juvenile Crime; its Causes, Character and Cure', p. 76. Unfortunately the Commission did not identify which years it was referring to. Compare PP 1906, CIII, p.25. Report in the 'Welshman', 7 April 1848. For Shropshire, see PP 1852-3, XXXVI, qu.2508. D .J. V. Jones and A. Bainbridge, 'Crime in Nineteenth-Century Wales', p. 246. Outsiders were far less likely to commit serious crime. Ibid. , p.257. Compare PP 1906, CIII, qu.7559. Note also appendix XX, pp .117-18, which established that there was no consistent relationship between official vagrancy figures and the rate of petty crime. Unfortunately the Evesham records are incomplete. West Mercia Police Museum, Hindlip, Evesham charge book, 1883-93; and Gloucestershire Record Office (GRO), Q-Y, Police charge book, 1893-1907. Flynt, op.cit., pp.4-5, 254. This is confirmed by a study of petty session and police records for Tewkesbury, Chipping Sodbury, Bromsgrove, Chester, Towyn, Barmouth and Corwen. These records are in the Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Chester and Gwynedd (Dolgellau) Record Offices. Over 80 per cent of the tramps in these records committed such offences. GRO Prison Records, Book of Previous Convictions, p .19. These 'impressions' - for they cannot be otherwise - are gained from a study of the reports of police court cases in the 'Birmingham Journal', 'Chester Chronicle', and 'Gloucester Journal', in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. Chester Record Office, DPP, Police Charge Book 1847-9, and Receiving Book, 1868-70. See, for instance, report of cases in the 'Gloucestershire Chronicle', 29 August and 12 September 1868. K .K. Macnab's thesis, Aspects of the History of Crime, pp.274-82. Mayhew, op.cit., Ill, pp.391-2. Compare R.J. Olney (ed.), 'Labouring Life on the Lincolnshire Wolds', S!eaford, Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, 1975, p. 28. Maddox, op .cit., p. 24. 'Gloucestershire Chronicle', 1 August 1868, and West Mercia Police Museum, Bromsgrove Charge Book, 1861-70. 'The Times', 28 February 1851. Note the high number of acquittals and cases dismissed at Bromsgrove. West Mercia Police Museum, Charge Book 1861-70. For the Welsh example, see the 'Welshman', 1 December 1848. See, too, Jones and Bainbridge, op.cit., pp.251-2. The Fairford records are in the GRO, RA 1-5. The Pershore Petty Sessions Register for 1876-80 and the Hundred House Register for 1890-1907 are in the West Mercia Police Museum. GRO Prison Records, Book of Previous Convictions, p.25. See, too, p.ll. For background see R. D. Storch, The Policeman as Domestic Missionary, p. 482.

234

Notes to pages 197-209

67 Report in the 'Welshman', 10 March 1848. 68 PP 1906, em, qu.4036. 69 GRO Prison Records, Book of Previous Convictions, pp, 68, 73, 138, Evans had a more formidable record than William 'Tatws' Williams. The Merioneth records are in the Record Office, Dolgellau. 70 A.C. Hall, 'Crime in its Relations to Social Progress', pp.361-3, 367. 71 Greenwood, 'The Seven Curses of London', pp.242-54. 72 See, for instance, Worcestershire Record Office, 260. 1063; Upton-uponSevern Petty Sessions Register 1875-6. 73 Denbighshire Record Office, Records and Photographs of Criminals, 1862-6. 74 'Gloucestershire Chronicle', 1 August 1868. 75 'Cardiff and ~lerthyr Guardian', 19 June 1847. Compare this with a similar case in the 'Worcestershire Chronicle', 14 June 1848. 76 Ribton-Turner, op.cit., p.643. 77 'North Wales Chronicle', 10 April 1869. 78 Sometimes only the leaders were prosecuted. For some of this, and the fear of rising violence in the workhouse, see PP 1847-8, LIII. pp. 2, 83; and PP 1866, XXXV, p.55. 79 PP 1866, XXXV, pp.50, 81. 80 PP 1847-8, LIII, pp.9-10. Note the graphic description of the reluctance to work at Hungerford, ibid., p. 35. 81 See, for instance, ibid., pp.21, 35, 78-9; and Razzell and Wainwright, op .cit., p .111. 82 PP 1846, XXXV, pp.49-54. 83 Report in the 'Shrewsbury Chronicle', 10 January 1862. 84 Ribton-Turne:e, op.cit., p.313. There were fears over tramps burning property in the 1880s and mid 1890s, and there were some notorious cases, but the arson was not as widespread nor as serious. For more detail of some cases in 1883, one of the worst years, see the 'Hampshire Chronicle', 14 April 1883. 85 For the Shiffnal and Denbighshire cases, see PP 1866, XXXV, p. 56, and the 'Caernarvon and Denbigh Herald', 25 March 1865. Compare the four cases at the Somerset assizes, 'Somerset County Gazette', 8 August 1863, and that in the 'Staffordshire Advertizer' , 12 December 1863. 86 'Chester Chronicle', 5 December 1863. 87 For some detail on all this see 'Shrewsbury Chronicle', 28 March and 25 July 1863, and 18 March 1865. 88 Especially during the years 1861-3. Sterry appeared at the winter assizes in December 1865. Ibid., 15 December 1865. 89 Ibid., 25 December 1863. 90 Ibid., 22 July 1864. 91 Ibid., 15 December 1865. 92 Evidence of P. C. Owen in ibid. , 25 July 1863. 93 Ibid., 18 March 1864. In 1863 the Montgomeryshire authorities adopted a tough line on casual relief. 94 'Chester Chronicle', 1 April 1865. 95 PP 1866, XXXV, p.71. 96 'Caernarvon and Denbigh Herald', 28 March 1863. 97 Mayhew, op .cit. , III, p. 408. 98 PP 1906, CIII, qu.10680. Compare Hufton, op.cit., p.242. 99 See, for instance, the 'Welshman', 22 November 1861. 100 'Shrewsbury Chronicle', 25 December 1863. Compare the case reported in the 'Worcestershire Chronicle' , 19 December 1860. 101 Cited in Maddox, op.cit. 102 Barwick Lloyd Baker made the point that people were willing to help and not report vagrants because of the harshness of official treatment and the prospect of a gaol sentence. 'Gloucestershire Chronicle', 10 October 1868. 103 Diary in the Record Office, Dolgellau. See Lambert, op.cit., p.38. 104 'Caernarvon and Denbigh Herald', 25 March 1865.

Notes to page 209

235

105 PP 1866, XXXV, pp.38~9. 106 See, for example, Higgs, op .cit., p. 16, Barrett, op .cit., p. 266, and Vorspan, op.cit., pp.74~81.

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Arnstein, W. L. , The Murphy Riots: a Victorian Dilemma, 'Victorian Studies', 19, 1975. Beattie, J .M., The Pattern of Crime in England, 1660-1800, 'Past and Present', 62, 1974. -The Criminality of Women in Eighteenth-Century England, 'Journal of Social History', 8, 1975. Booth, A., Food riots in the North-West of England, 1790-1801, 'Past and Present', 77, 1977. Gillis, J. R., The Evolution of Juvenile Delinquency in England, 1890-1914, 'Past and Present', 67, 1975. Graff, H.J., Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth Century: a New Look at the Criminal, 'Journal of Interdisciplinary History', 7, 1977. Harrison, B. , The Sunday trading riots of 1855, 'The Historical Journal', VIII, 1965. Henriques, U., The Rise and Decline of the Separate System of Prison Discipline, 'Past and Present', 54, 1972. Hobsbawm, E .J., et al., Distinctions between Socio-Political and other forms of Crime, 'Society for the Study of Labour History Bulletin', 25, 1972. Holton, R .J., The Crowd in History: some problems of theory and method, 'Social History', 3, 1978. Jones, D .J. V., Crime, Protest, and Community in Nineteenth-Century Wales, 'Llafur' (Journal of the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History), I, 1974. -The Second Rebecca Riots, 'Llafur', II, 1976. -Thomas Campbell Foster and the rural labourer: incendiarism in East Anglia, 'Social History', I, 1976. -The Criminal Vagrant in Mid-Nineteenth Century Wales, 'The Welsh History Review', VIII, 1977. Jones, G. S., Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics in London, 1870-1900, 'Journal of Social History', 7, 1974. Lodhi, A .Q., and Tilly, C., Urbanization, Crime and Collective Violence in Nineteenth-Century France, 'American Journal of Sociology', 79, 1973. May, M. , Innocence and Experience: the Evolution of the Concept of Juvenile Delinquency in the mid-nineteenth Century, 'Victorian Studies', 17, 1973. Price, R.N., The Other Face of Respectability: Violence in the Manchester Brickmaking Trade, 1859-70, 'Past and Present', 66, 1975. Reid, D., The Decline of St Monday, 1766-1876, 'Past and Present', 71, 1976. Richards, E., Captain Swing in the Midlands, 'International Review of Social History', XIX, 1~174. Rogers, N . , Popular Protest in Early Hanoverian England, 'Past and Present', 79, 1978.

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INDEX

Aberdare, 93, 100-1, 112 absenteeism, 100 agricultural associations, 40 agricultural labourers, 36-8, 54-60 alienation process, 13 allotments, 54, 56, 60 Arch, Joseph, 15, 61, 70, 73, 78, 81, 82, 84 arson, 15, 33-4, 203-6; convictions for, 49-50; 1843-4 campaign, 46-50; insurance claims, 48; offenders, 50-2, 57; Parliamentary concern, 52-3; statistics, 34, 49; targets for, 47; by vagrants, 202-3 assault, see violence bailiffs, 79-80 Baptists, 39 bastardy, 111, 162 Beerhouse Act (1830), 65, 163 beerhouses, 39-40, 78 begging, 199-200 Bent, James, 152, 153 Berkeley, Grantley, 72 Boase, W.D., 179, 180 Borley, Leach, 49, 51, 82 Boult bee, Capt., 44 Bramwell, Lord Justice, 153, 206 'Bread or Blood' riots, 45 Bree, C.R., 50-1 Bright, John, 52, 64 Browne, Michael, 81 Bruce, H.A., 9, 85, 93, 94, 99, 102, 113, 114, 115-16 Buller, Charles, 190 'bullies' , 109-10, 164 Caernarvonshire enclosure dispute, 33 Caminada, Jerome, 146, 177 Campbell, Rev. R.J., 114 capital punishment, 19, 30 capital statutes, 11 capitalism, and crime, 10-13 Cardiff Watch Committee, 25 Carlyle, Thomas, 11 Carpenter, Mary, 27, 30 Cartwright, Maj. -Gen. , 193 casual labour, 55 Casual Pauper Act (1882), 191, 192 243

casual wards, 188, 190 Catholicism, 154 Chadwick, Edwin, 30, 121, 146 charity, 12, 38, 56, 189 Charity Commissioners, 56 Charity Organisation Society, 131 Chartism, 24, 90, 91, 145, 154 child-care, 26-7, 110, 122-3, 153, 166 'China', 10, 85,106-10 cholera, 90 Clay, Rev. John, 30, 145, 146, 153, 157, 158, 163, 168, 174 clergy, role of, 39, 60 coiners, 95, 160 Common Lodging Houses Act, 117 community law, 29, 111 Congreve, Capt. , 65 counterfeiters, see coiners County and Borough Act ( 1856), 20. 193 Craw shay, Richard, 115 crime, 3-13, 23-4, 98; and the community, 4-5, 29, 137-8; in London, 132-3; in Manchester, 146-51; in Merthyr Tydfil, 91, 93-4; and political tension, 174-5: against property, 98, 124-8; and protest, 14-18, 43, 61 crimes of morality. 5, 129-32, 136, 141, 155, 161 'criminal class', 6, 10, 91, 134, 169-70, 174, 180 Criminal Justice Act (1855), 19, 92, 136 Criminal Law Amendment Act ( 1885), 131' 138, 165 criminal legislation, 18-19; see also under specific Acts criminals, character of, 6; treatment of, 30-1 customary rights, 12, 15 Cyfarthfa works, 86 'Dangerous classes', 17, 142, 167, 169, 178 Day, S. P. , 179 de Motte, Charles, 145, 151, 170, 172, 174

244

Index

death rates, 90 death sentences, 136 Departmental Committee ( 1906), 181, 183, 189, 192, 196 desertion, marital, 111, 162 'deserving poor' , 185 detectives, 141 discharge rate, 17 0-2 Discharged Prisoners Aid Society, 173 domestic violence, 152-3 Donne, John, 78-9 Dowlais works, 86, 88, 98-9, 100 Doyle, Andrew, 180 drunkenness, 25, 102-3, 113, 129-30, 162-4 Dunlap, Joseph, 127-8 Eagle, F. K. , 44 Eardley- Wilmot, John, 27 Early Closing Association, 115 earnings levels, 37, 57 East Anglia: arson in, 35-7, 46-50; labourers, 37-9; Poor Law administration, 44-5 Eccles, Supt. , 139 economic factors, 4-5, 142-3, 145, 173-4 education, and crime prevention, 30, 113 Education Acts, 26 Elementary Education Act, 119 Elgee, Capt., 176 Elliott , J. H. , 9 embezzlement, 128, 160-1 emigration, 54, 59, 89, 108 employment, provision of, 56, 59-60 enclosures, 33, 39, 56, 70 Engels, 13, 145, 152, 164, 173, 174 English, Supt. , 50 Ewart, William, 30 factory thefts, 98--9, 15 7 false pretences, 95 family responsibility, 26 family violence, 152-3 Faucher, Leon, 5, 144, 151, 158, 164, 173, 175 female criminals, fi-7, 94, 96, 105, 167-8 fish preservation, 68 Fisheries Act, 66-7, 81 Fishery Boards, 66-7 fishing legislation, 63-4, 66-7 Fletcher, Joseph, 4, 10, 13, 24, 30, 135, 175 Flynt, Josiah, 194, 199, 208 food riots, 16, 45 forgery, 128, 161 Foster, Thomas Campbell, 36, 37, 52, 58

Fowler, J.C., 114 fraud, 128 Frazer, Charles, 184-5 gambling, 104, 162-3 Game Act (1831), 63, 65, 81 Game Laws, 11, 43-4, 62, 63-4, 81-2 game preservation, 68 gang rivalry, 106 gang system, 37 Garrotters Act ( 1863), 122 Gaskell, Peter, 13, 145, 152, 154 Gedge, John, 46 G ellygaer colliery dispute, 100 General strike ( 1842), 91 Gibson, Milner, 52 gleaning rights, 11, 12, 71 Glyde, John, 4, 33, 35, 43, 68 Goring, Charles, 8, 9 Gowing, Frederick, 68, 70, 71, 73, 82 Grafton, Duke of. 64, 68 Graham, Sir James, 58 Graves, John T., 180, 186, 209 Greenwood, James, 178, 179, 187, 200 Griffiths, Rev. John, 94, 113 Ground Game Act ( 1880), 64, 83 Guest, Josiah, 86, 114 Gurr, Prof., 18, 27, 31 Habitual Criminals Act ( 1869), 134, 138 Hackney Carriage Act ( 1838), 138 Hall, A. C., 6, 8, 11, 19, 23, 27, 32, 121 Hawker, James, 62, 70, 71, 73, 82 health problems, 90 Henderson, Col., 141 Henniker, Sir Augustus, 52 Henslow, Rev. J.S .. 42, 43. 46, 54, 59, 70 Higgs, Mary, 180, 186, 188 Hill, :\latthew, 30 Hill, T. W., 113 Holt rabbit case, 70-1 Horsley, J. W, , 8 Houseless Poor Act ( 1864 and 1865), 186 housing, 89-90, 143 Huntingdonshire, arson in, 34 Hutchings, E. J. , 99 ideology, and crime, 23-4 illnesses, 90 Improvement Act ( 1844), 148, 165 improvement schemes, 60 incendiarism, see arson incest, 110 industrial capitalism. 145 industrial problems, 98-100

Index

245

Industrial Schools Acts ( 1857-66), 168, 192 infanticide, 110, 122, 153 insurance companies, 34 insurance costs, 48, 51 intimidation, 110 Irish people, 105, 106, 154, 181; migration of, 181-2 James, John 87, 89 juvenile improvement associations, 115 juvenile offenders, 7, 26-7, 97-8, 126, 132-3, 153, 158, 166, 168 Juvenile Offenders Act ( 1847), 19, 92 Kay, James Phillips, 145, 154, 164 Kay, Joseph, 4, 36, 83 keepers, 79-80 Kelly, John, 194 Kent, James, 11, 38, 39, 40, 56, 60 Kerrison, Sir Edward, 38, 42 'King of the Norfolk Poachers' , 62 Knowles family, 51 labour colonies, 192 labour force, 88-9, 100, 173; agricultural, 36-8, 54-60; mobility of, 184 labour rate, 59, 60 Lankester, James, 51 larceny: in London, 124-8, 140; in Manchester, 156-9; in Merthyr Tydfil, 96, 107; by vagrants, 194-6 'Last labourers Revolt' , 54 Laurie, Sir Peter, 140 legislation, development of, 18-19, 29, 138, 170-1; see also under names of specific Acts Leighton, Sir Baldwyn, 182 leisure activities, 60, 115 Library Association, 115 Licensing Act (1872), 124, 138, 148, 165 literacy levels, 134, 168 Llandaff, 114 Local Government Board, 191 Lodging House Act ( 1866), 188 lodging houses, 188 London, 117 London Mendicity Society, 131, 189 Luddism, 16, 145 Maber, Rev. G . M. , 85 Maberley, Rev. M., 44 McHardy, Capt. , 191 machine-breaking, 45 machinery, use of, 16, 56-7 Mack, Rev. W.B., 47 magistrates, 19-20, 113, 135-6 Manchester, 144, 146

Manning, Ann, 57, 58 Master and Servant Act, 20, 175 Mayhew, Henry, 8, 26, 131, 178, 179, 184, 185, 195 Mayne, Sir Richard, 139 Merthyr Tydfil, 17, 22, 85 Methodists, 39 Metropolitan Police, 117, 135, 138-42 Metropolitan Police Act ( 1839), 138 Metropolitan Police Criminal Returns (MPCR), 117-20, 132, 137, 140, 142 Metropolitan Streets Act ( 1867), 138 middle-class, 8, 87 migration, 54, 73, 89 Mildenhall, 35 mob tactics, 16-17 moral discipline, 111 morality crimes, see crimes of morality Morrison, W.D., 9, 27 National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 9, 27 nationality statistics, 94, 169, 179 Neale, W.B., 145, 153, 158, 162, 166' 169 Nettisham common rights, 43 New Poor Law, see under Poor Law System, New Nicholl, John, 99 Night Poaching Act (1844), 64,81 nonconformist influence, 39, 87 non-parish labour, 55 Norfolk, 35, 37 0' Connell, Daniel, 36 Orangemen, 154 Osborne, Rev. S.G., 53 Otmoor enclosure dispute, 33 Owen, John, 101 Owenism, 145 Page, Rev. F.L., 39, 40, 52, 53, 58 parish constables, 41 parish labour, 54 Pauper Inmates Discharge and Regulation Act (1871), 191 Pedlars' Act, 131 Penal Servitude Act ( 1864), 134 penitentiary system, 30, 136, 172-3 Penydarren works, 86, 89, 100 philanthropy, 189 pickpockets, 95, 156, 158 Pike, L.O., 83 Flint, Thomas, 4, 12, 13, 177 Plug Plot, 154 Plymouth works, 86 poachers, character of, 72-6 poaching, 62; and arson, 43-4; as crime, 75-6: gang activity. 44, 76-8; as industry, 67, 77; political

246

Index

involvement, 64--5; and poverty, 69; as right, 15, 42, 71; statistics, 62, 66-7; and violence, 44, 79-80 Poaching Prevention Act ( 1862), 22, 64, 65, 76, 78, 83, 198 'poaching villages', 71-2 police, 20-3; attacks on, 123-4, 154; and community relations, 22-3; in London, see Metropolitan Police; in Manchester, 146, 175-7; in ~lerthyr Tydfil, 92-3, and poaching, 65; professional, 41-2, 50, 78-9 Police Act ( 1829), 123 Police Act ( 1844), 148, 163 Police Act (1856), 20, 193 Police Constables Act ( 1872), 79 police courts, 135 police records, 146-51 political protests, 17, 59, 64, 141-2, 174-5 Poor Law Amendment Act ( 1834), 16, 44-5, 54, 190; protests against, 59; report, 189 Poor Law System, 186, 191-2, 201, 205; changes in, 15-16, 36, 184; New, 41, 43-5' 58 Poor Law Guardians, 42, 54, 56, 58, 59 Poor Law relief, 58, 186 Poor Law returns, 179-82 Porter, G. R. , 5, 13 poverty levels, 57, 69 Prentice, Archibald, 151 Prevention of Crimes Act (1871), 126, 138 professional burglars, 159-60 professional police, see police, professional property offences, 5, 11, 124-9, 140-1, 159-60 prostitution, 25-6, 106-8, 113, 114, 129, 130-1, 140, 164-5 protest, 14-18, 61, 175 public health, 90 public houses, 91, 103 punishment, see penitentiary system puritanical influences, 20, 24-5, 115 race-meetings, 104 racial statistics, (14, 169, 179 racial violence, 101, 154 rape, 110 Read, Clare Sewell, 70 Rebeccaism, 15, 21, 33, 36, 67, 70, 77' 78 Reformatory and Industrial Schools Acts, 168 reformatory training. 30-1, 113 refuges, 114, 188 relieving officers, 95, 190 religious influences, 24-5, 39, 84, 87,

90, 113-14, 154 Ribton-Turner, 179, 180 Richards, Benjamin, 109 Richardson, Joseph, 41 rick-burning, 202-3 Risbridge Union, 58 River Conservation Boards, 78 Roberts, Robert, 22 Rowan, Sir Charles, 139 Royal Commission on the Constabulary Force (1839), 148, 150, 158, 179, 192-3 rural crimes, 5; statistics, 34, 42 'Rural Problem' , 53-4, 59 'rural warfare' , 15

Salmon Fisheries Act, 65, 66-7 Salvation Army, 188; attacks on, 123 ' Scotch Cattle' organisation, 16, 91, 100-1 Select Committee on the Police, 21, 78 self- help groups, 113 sentencing policy, see penitentiary system Settlement Law, 59 sexual assault, 106, 152 Shaw, Sir Charles, 146, 175 Smoke Nuisance Act, 117 social control, 1, 2 3-4 social protest: rural, 15-16; urban 16-17 Social Science Association, 9, 27; Congress ( 1868), 209 social science studies, 2, 3, 18 social welfare benefits, 37-8, 60 Society for Improving the Condition of th~ Working Classes, 59 Society for the Reformation of Manners, 23 Solly, Rev. H., 178 statistics of crime, 2-4, 34, 42, 132-4, 149, 151, 155-6, 163, 172-3 stealing, see larceny Stephens, Thomas, 114 stipendiary magistrates, 20 Stow, Samuel, 44, 49, 82 street children, 166 street robbery, 126 strikes, 16, 100-1 Suffolk, 35, 37, 43 Suffolk Fire Office, 41 suicide, 122, 152 Summary Jurisdiction Act ( 1879), 19, 136 Swing, Capt., 33, 45-6 Taff Vale Railway, 99 Taylor, William Cooke, 12, 30, 120, 144, 175 Temperance Recreation Association, 115

Index

247

temperance reform, 114-15 theft, see larceny 1 thieving vagrant 1 , 196-7 Thomas, Henry, 99 Thomas, William, 87 Thompson, Flora, 22, 84 Thompson, James, 131 Torr, John Berry, 149 trade unionism, 33, 61, 145 tramps, 178, 185-6, 193, 194, 196 transportation, 30, 136, 17 3 travelling workers, 183-4 unemployment, 89, 174, 184-5, 207 urban crimes, 5-6 vagrancy, 166-7, 178; and crime, 26, 192, 207; in London, 129, 131; in Merthyr Tydfil, 95; and police, 197; statistics, 181-3 Vagrancy Act (1824), 26, 183, 190, 198-9, 200, 206, 208; female offenders, 132; police use of, 22, 131, 165, 166, 194-5; statistics, 119 vagrants, habitual, 185-6 Vaughan Richard, 30 Viall, King, 41 Vigors, Thomas, 113 violence, 79-80, 104-6, 121-4, 152; against police, 154-5

Wade, John, 11, 14 wage levels, 37, 57 Wakefield, E.G., 141 Walsham, Sir John, 41, 180 Watch Committees, 20 Watson, James, 72 Watt, J. Gibson, 70 way-ticket system, 191, 192 Welsh Land Commission, 65-6 West Suffolk Fire Office, 46, 48 West Suffolk Society for the Improvement of the Conditions of the Labourers, 38, 59 Wilkins, John, 69, 73, 79 Williams, Morgan, 114 Willis, Edward, 146, 154, 171-2, 176 Wine and Beerhouses Act ( 1869). 164 work tests, 190-1 workhouses, 44-5, 58, 70, 95, 188-9. 201-2 working class, 10, 18, 24, 26, 27, 83 works thefts, 98-9, 157 Worsley, Rev. Henry, 11, 40-1, 64 Wrenn, Supt., 92, 97, 101, 109, 110, 112' 113 Wright, Thomas, 173 Wye Fishery Board, 79 Wye River poaching raids, 67 Wylde, John, 97, 109