Crime and Punishment in
Georgian Britain
Law as integral to constitution and liberty
Impartial justice, applying equally to mutineers and a governor of Goree who committed murder
Historiography
• 1970s Marxist or neo-Marxist perspective of
E.P.Thompson, Douglas Hay and others [Whigs
and Hunters; Albion’s Fatal Tree]: law as an
instrument of social or even political control;
some crime regarded as illegitimate by
authorities but legitimate by perpetrators eg
poaching, rioting, wrecking. [So what is ‘crime’?
John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera (1728) contrasted
fuss over a few pounds stolen by a highwayman
and the wholesale corruption of Walpole’s
regime; what are the causes of crime?]
• John Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England
1660-1800 (1986), focusing on assize records
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey,
London 1674 to 1834
• Contains 101,102 trials, from April 1674 to
October 1834
• http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/
• Robert Shoemaker, Tim Hitchcock,
• See also Frank McLynn, Peter Linebaugh
Criminal law
• Tremendous growth in litigation, from C16th.
Almost 30,000 cases in Court of common pleas
and King’s bench in 1640; by 1820s an average
of 72,00 actions a year were started.
• Problem of delay. 1824 commission to
investigate Chancery found one case with took
16yrs of preliminary work before a barrister had
even been briefed, with costs of £3719
• Growth in legal profession. 1739 Society of
Gentlemen practitioners in the courts of Law and
Equity; with provincial societies eg Bristol 1770,
York 1786
treason
• 200 prosecutions in the
decade 1795-1805
• Seditious libel, seditious
words
• Riot and breaking the
peace: 3 or more
assembled to do an
unlawful acts constituted
riot; 1715 riot act required
groups of 12 or more to
disperse within an hour of
the reading of the
proclamation
Property and game
• Informal resolution
• Extension of the death penalty [the Bloody Code]
– Number of capital offences increased from just over 50 in 1688
to 160 in 1765 and 225 by 1815
– Many of these related to game: there were 24 acts 1671-1832
regulating the hunting of game. 1752 Association for the
Preservation of Game – pressure groups.
– 1723 Black Act created 50 capital offences and responded to
poaching by those who ‘blackened’ their faces (response to 1722
Atterbury Plot – jacobite - repealed 1823); 1741 and 1742 theft of
sheep and cattle became capital offences
– For theft of monetary notes, deeds, bills [1742, 1751, 1767,
1795, 1797]
– Shoplifting [1699, for goods worth 5s]
– But
• There were four times as many executions in the early C17th
as there were in 1750
• 50-60% of those sentenced to death were pardoned (except
in years of crisis eg high rate of executions in 1780s); 90% by
early C19th
• There were only about 20 people a year hung in London and
Middlesex at end of century; about 60 for rest of country
• Benefit of clergy (1706 reading test abolished; though many
crimes specifically exempt eg murder, rape)
• Influence of Enlightenment ideas. Jeremy Bentham:
punishment should fit crime in a scientific manner
• Informal resolution, discretionary system via JPs, who part of
a community; jury leniency
• Does the flexibility in the system give the elite more power –
discretion was empowering? [Frank McLynn]
Trends
• Shift from public to private (pillory infrequently used after
1775, abolished 1837; public whipping of women
abolished 1817 after being infrequently used after 1775,
but private whippings increased; hanging transferred
after 1782 to Newgate)
• and from physical punishments such as whipping,
branding and hanging to reform through imprisonment
and transportation eg last branding 1789; burning at
stake abolished 1790; 1718 Transportation Act allowed
those guilty of capital offences to be transported (30,000
were from england, 13,000 from Ireland); disrupted by
American war; prison hulk ships on Thames to house
gangs used to dredge the river; resumed 1787 to
Australia
After 1752 those convicted of murder were sentenced to death with
dissection or to be hung in chains
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Policing
No police force
Parish officials eg constable; watch; unpaid
JPs – numbers increased (more than doubled
in Sussex 1680-1760) but many not active;
informers could sometimes lead to selfsurveillance eg £40 for information leading to
capture of a highwayman
1740s Henry and John Fielding appointed
magistrate at Bow Street, London –
innovators. 1750 appointed a select force from
existing parish constables to curb criminal
gang;
But anxiety about a professional police force
(french!) in hands of government
1811, after a series of horrific murders in
wapping, one contemporary said that ‘they
have an admirable police force at Paris, but
they pay for it dear enough. I had rather half a
dozen men’s throats should be cut in Radcliffe
highway every three or four years than be
subject to the domicilary visits, spies and all
the rest of Fouchés contrivances’
1829 Metropolitan Police Act introduced by
Peel, replacing parish constable with a
professional force, unarmed but uniformed.
Still encountered resistance – in 1833 a jury
returned a verdict of ‘justifiable homicide’ on a
policeman who had been killed breaking up a
political meeting.
courts
• London courts (King’s Bench, chancery,
exchequer, common pleas)
• Local courts (ecclesiastical – in decline);
manorial (local estate matters); borough (market
but also social); quarter sessions (roads, poor
relief, social); assizes (twice a year, conducted
by judges, with local grand jury; social event with
assize sermon; heard serious crime eg murder,
rape, burglary)
Imprisonment
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Usually seen as means of holding men prior to trial
Jails were private enterprises, with fees
New attitudes esp after 1770s eg 1771 John Howard investigated prisons
and found many abuses: deficient food, poor sanitation, overcrowding,
disease-ridden; no segregation of sexes
1791 Bentham’s Panopticon as blue print for ideal prison - surveillance
Houses of correction: idea of rehabilitation or punishment for petty offence;
workhouse and prison. 1779 act recommended building of more
1794 Coldbath Fields House of Correction used solitary confinement; 1817
similar Millbank Penitentiary
Execution as public spectacle
‘Popular’ attitudes to crime
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Popular ‘Entertainment’ and public theatre
Criminal was allowed to dress up for the occasion
Procession to Tyburn, often stopping to drink along the way
Samuel Richardson: ‘The face of everyone spoke a kind of mirth, as if the
spectacle afforded pleasure in stead of pain, which I am wholly unable to
account for ….every street and lane I passed through bearing rather the
face of a holiday that of that sorrow which I expected to see’
James Boswell: ‘I must confess that I myself am never absent from a public
execution … when I first attended them I was shocked to the greatest
degree. I was in a manner convulsed with pity and terror, and for several
days, but especially the night after, I was in a very dismal situation. Still,
however I persisted in attending them and by degrees my sensibility abated;
so that I can now see one with great composure …the curiosity which
impels people to be present at such affecting scenes is certainly a proof of
sensibility, not callousness. For it is observed that the greatest proportion of
spectators is composed of women’
Celebrated criminals
• The criminal biography. Capt Alexander Smith’s
Compleat History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most
Notorious highwaymen, foot-pads, shop-lifts and Cheats
(1719); Capt Charles Johnson’s General history of the
Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen,
Murderers, Street-robbers and …Pyrates (1734); The
Tyburn Chronicle (1768)
• John Rann, Sixteen String Jack because of the silk
strings he tied to the knee of his breaches; he robbed
only the rich.
• Jonathan Wild, b. 1682, hanged 1725. instructed thieves
to steal from people they could identify since they would
pay for return of goods.
• Highwaymen eg Dick Turpin, who operated in early
C18th Epping Forest; hung 1739
The Newgate Calendar
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RICHARD TURPIN
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A famous Highway Robber, who shot dead one of his own
Comrades and was executed at York On 7th of April, 1739
This notorious character was for a long time the dread of travellers
on the Essex road, on account of the daring robberies which he
daily committed; was also a noted house-breaker, and was for a
considerable time remarkably successful in his desperate course,
but was at length brought to an ignominious end, in consequence of
circumstances which, in themselves, may appear trifling. He was
apprehended in consequence of shooting a fowl, and his brother
refusing to pay sixpence for the postage of his letter occasioned his
conviction.
He was the son of a farmer at Thackstead in Essex; and, having
received a common school education, was apprenticed to a butcher
in Whitechapel; but was distinguished from his early youth for the
impropriety of his behaviour, and the brutality of his manners. On
the expiration of his apprenticeship, be married a young woman of
East Ham, in Essex, named Palmer: but he had not been long
married before he took to the practice of stealing his neighbours'
cattle, which he used to kill and cut up for sale.
Having stolen two oxen belonging to Mr. Giles, of Plaistow, he
drove them to his own house; but two of Giles's servants,
suspecting who was the robber, went to Turpin's where they saw
two beasts of such size as had been lost: but as the hides were
stripped from them, it was impossible to say that they were the
same: but learning that Turpin used to dispose of his hides at
Waltham-Abbey, they went thither, and saw the hides of the
individual beasts that had been stolen.
No doubt now remaining who was the robber, a warrant was
procured for the apprehension of Turpin; but, learning that the
peace-officers were in search of him, he made his escape from the
back window of his house, at the very moment that the others were
entering at the door.
Having retreated to a place of security, he found means to inform
his wife where he was concealed; on which she furnished him with
money, with which he travelled into the hundreds of Essex, where
he joined a gang of smugglers, with whom he was for some time
successful; till a set of the Custom house officers, by one successful
stroke, deprived him of all his ill-acquired gains.
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JACK COLLET ALIAS COLE Highwayman, who robbed in the Habit of
a Bishop. Executed at Tyburn, 5th of July, 1691, for Sacrilegious
Burglary
THIS unfortunate person was the son of a grocer in the borough of Southwark,
where he was born, and from whence, at fifteen years of age, he was put out
apprentice to an upholsterer in Cheapside. He did not serve above four years
of his time before he ran away from his master and took to the highway. We
have not an account of abundance of his robberies, though it is said he
committed a great many; but there is this remarkable particular recorded of
him, that he frequently robbed in the habit of a bishop, with four or five of his
companions at his heels in the quality of servants, who were ready to assist
him on occasion. Collet had once the ill fortune to lose his canonical habit at
dice, so that he was forced to take a turn or two on the road to supply his
present necessities in unsanctifying garments. But it was not long before he
met with a good opportunity of taking orders again and becoming as holy as
ever. Riding from London down into Surrey, a little on this side of Farnham, he
met with Dr Mew, Bishop of Winchester, and commanded his coachman to
stop. The Bishop was not at all surprised at being asked for his money,
because when he saw his coach stopped he expected that would follow. But
when Collet told him he must have his robes too, his lordship thought him a
madman. There was no resisting, however; the old doctor was obliged to strip
into his waistcoat, besides giving him about fifty guineas, which Collet told him
he had now a right to demand, by having the sacerdotal habit in his
possession. Collet followed this trade till he was about thirty-two years of age,
and, as if he had been determined to live by the Church, he was at last
apprehended for sacrilege and burglary, in breaking open the vestry of Great
St Bartholomew's, in London, in company with one Christopher Ashley, alias
Brown, and stealing from thence the pulpit cloth and all the communion plate.
For this fact he received sentence of death, and was executed at Tyburn on
Friday, the 5th of July, in the year 1691. This Brown and Collet had before
robbed St Saviour's Church, in Southwark.
smuggling
• ‘wrecking’ seen as a customary right
• Often tea, though reduction in tax in 1784
reduced levels
• 1746 it became a capital offence to
smuggle or prevent capture of smugglers;
1784 act make it a capital offence not to
surrender goods to a revenue officer
Was there a rise in crime?
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Contemporary perceptions – Henry Fielding, An Enquiry into the Causes of
the late Increase of Robbers, and some Proposals for Remedying this
Growing Evil (1751). Patrick Colquoun estimated in early C19th that of pop
of 10.5m, 1.3m were indigent and criminal. Role of the press?
but problem of evidence – does increasing number of indictments reflect
actual rise or better prosecution?
Regional variation. London was a special case – 0.5m in late C17th but 1m
by early C19th, 1/10th of population. Anonymity. Gangs and footpads
(armed robbers on foot) eg Jumping Joe Lorrison, executed 1792, had catlike ability to jump into carts and rob them. Pickpockets – around the
theatres. Duke of Cumberland had is sword stolen on way in to theatre;
George III had his watch stolen in Kensington palace gardens. The Thames
as source of smuggled goods.
Regional studies suggest violent crime was falling. Beattie found that in
Surrey and Sussex murder and manslaughter cases fell from 2.5% per
100,000 in 1660-1679, to 0.3% per 100,000 in 1780-1802.
Property offences increased after a dip in mid C18th; blips after
demobilisation. Study of crime in North East [Morgan and Rushton] showed
peak of property offences in 1750s and then 1780s and 1790s; but also high
incidence of female involvement [a third of accused in Durham and
Northumberland were women, half in Newcastle]; and increasingly urban
phenomenon
Gin Lane.
1736 act attempted to regulate it; 1751 act most successful, and this print from that year (when
consumption was about 11m gallons; one in every 15 houses sold alcohol; excessive drinking thought
to be cause of death for about one in eight adults c. 1800
Sexual crime
• petty treason was a servant killing a
master or a wife killing a husband (1351
act)
• Sexual offences including bigamy [1753
Hardwicke Marriage act clarified what
constituted a marriage]
• 1782 comments by one judge on beating
wives
Judge Buller and the rule of thumb
Prostitution –
c.40-50,000 in early C19th London; Defoe, Moll Flanders (based on Moll King, executed 1720);
Hogarth’s Harlot’s progress depicted decline of country girl into a poxed whore
Campaigns for moral reform
• Impact of religious toleration?
• Two major campaigns: 1689-1720 (75,000
prosecutions0; 1780s (crisis after war with America),
1787 proclamation vs vice and 1787 Proclamation
Society, had strong Pittite support but never really a
popular movement; 1802 Society for the Suppression of
Vice did have greater lower social appeal, to bring about
prosecutions.
• Drew on religious zeal and fear of immorality but also
idea of moral failings of criminals and political loss of
virtue/public spirit
• Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge founded
1699
• 1702 Society for Propagation of the Gospel Overseas
• 1783-4 Sunday school movement, 1785 Sunday School
Society; evangelical movement;
What is the purpose of
punishment?
• Deterrent?
• Retribution?
• Rehabilitation?