Month: September 2017

An attack in Berner Street in 1888, but not the one you’ve all heard about

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On Saturday 29 September 1888 a man appeared at Thames Police Court on a charge of attempted murder. It wasn’t William Seaman’s first appearance, he had previously been remanded in custody because his victim was too weak to attend court.

Seaman was a builder who gave his address as 11 Princess Street, St George-In-theEast. He was accused of attacking Thomas Simpkin, a chemist, by  ‘striking him on the head with a hammer’. In court Inspector Thresher of H Division, Metropolitan Police informed the magistrate that the chemist was still unable to come to court and requested a further period of remand. The justice agreed to the request and the builder was taken back to police custody.

On the following Tuesday the case resumed, as Simpkin had recovered sufficiently to give evidence. He explained that at about 10 minutes to midnight on Saturday 8 September (some three weeks earlier) the builder had entered his shop and asked to buy some zinc ointment and then some alum powder. Then suddenly, and seemingly without provocation, Seaman leaned across the shop counter and struck the chemist violently with a hammer.

A warehouseman,  Henry John Smith (who lived at 6 Chamber Street) said he was across the road from the chemist’s shop at the time and heard a scream. The chemist’s daughter then came running out into the street shouting:

‘They are murdering my father!’

When Smith ran over and entered the shop he found Seaman covered in blood with one hand around Simpkin’s throat, while he punched him in the chest. The man was clearly drunk he said, and extremely violent. Despite this he managed (with the help of another passer-by, Charles McCarthy) to get him off the chemist and hold him until a police constable (PC 85H) arrived.

Dr Francis Allen (1 Dock Street) told the court that the injuries were serious and consistent with being caused by a hammer. He added that at one point the chemist’s life had been in danger.

The dispute seems to have been over the price of alum powder, or presumably the amount you got for  penny (as that is what Seaman asked for). It was a pretty poor excuse for such a brutal onslaught but Seaman was drunk and perhaps agitated by something else that night. As we will see, however, Seaman was a violent man and perhaps had some underlying psychological condition.

The justice, Mr Saunders, committed him for jury trial.

That trial took place at the Old Bailey on 22 October 1888 and Seaman was duly convicted and sentenced to 7 years penal servitude. The long sentence was probably because he had previously been convicted before at the Bailey, something he admitted in court. Seaman was 38 at the time but the experience of imprisonment didn’t have the deterrent effect society might have hoped for. In 1896 he was back at the Central Criminal Court, and this time he had taken his violence a step further.

On Good Friday (April 3, 1896) he broke into the home of John Goodman Levy, in Turner Street (Whitechapel) presumably with the intention of burgling it. In the early hours of Saturday morning the dead body of Mr Levy was found with his throat cut. When the police arrived they soon discovered that the burglar was still on the premises and a chase began. Eventually Seaman fell through a ceiling, was badly injured and apprehended. The police reportedly found the following on his person:

‘a lady’s gold watch, a gold diamond and turquoise pin, a watch-chain, a gilt half-crown brooch, a pair of gilt threepenny piece earrings, another imitation gold ring set with rubies and pearls, two cigars, a plated caddy spoon, a wedding ring, a single-stone diamond ring, a piece of wash-leather thereon, 10s. 6d. in silver and a penny, the works of a watch, an old purse, a pocket knife, an old comb, and a brass stud ‘.

Quite a haul.

This time penal servitude wasn’t an option and William Seaman was sentenced to death.  Before the judge passed sentenced however, Seaman was asked if he had anything he wanted to say.

[He] stated that he had nothing to say about the case, but that he desired to complain about a statement in a newspaper to the effect that he had previously been charged with an attempt to murder, and assault and theft, and that that statement was false.

William Seaman was hanged at Newgate prison on the 9 June 1896, he was 48.

There is a footnote to this story. The chemist’s shop was at 82 Berner Street, off the Commercial Road, Whitechapel. That little detail may seem insignificant for the case but for the fact that on the 30 September 1888 (the day I took this story from the newspapers)  another violent act took place in Berner Street. Between houses at 42 and 44 Berner Street (now renamed Henriques Street) was what was ‘colloquially known as Dutfield’s  Yard’* and home to the International Working Man’s Educational Club.

At just after 1 am Louis Diemshitz (club steward and ‘jewellery hawker’) turn this horse and cart into the yard when the animal shied at something lying beyond the gates. When Diemshitz investigated he found the body of a woman. She had been attacked and her throat had been cut.

Her name was Elizabeth Stride (or ‘Long Liz”) and she was to be the first of two women murdered that night by a killer whose identify remains a mystery. He will forever be known to history however, as ‘Jack the Ripper’.

[from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, September 30, 1888; Birmingham Daily Post, Wednesday, October 3, 1888]

*Neil R.A. Bell, Capturing Jack the Ripper, (Amberley, Stroud, 2016), p.158

A clerk with an ‘(un)natural fondness for children’ is sent down at Bow Street

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Understandably in today’s society we are very concerned about child abuse, especially sexual abuse. Aside from the terrorist the chief bogeyman in modern times is the paedophile; the man in the ‘dirty mac’, hanging around children’s play areas and tempting children with offers of sweets. Today the reality is that much of this activity begins online and considerable official (and unofficial) effort is being made to thwart the activities of child abusers who use the so-called ‘dark web’ to create internet communities with the aim of sexually exploiting children.

As with most crime we would be mistaken in thinking that this was a peculiarly ‘modern’ phenomenon. Whilst changes and developments in technology might have enabled abusers to find new ways to access children and share their experiences, the urge to commit such offences has a very long history. Today, a man like Matthew Simpkin, who was charged at Bow Street in 1852 for sexually assaulting a child, would be placed on the sexual offenders register and be offered some support in overcoming or coping with his ‘condition’. In 1852, as we shall see, society may have been just as disgusted by his actions, but there was little in place to prevent him offending again.

Simpkin was described in courts as a 35 year-old clerk to an attorney. He was a member of the middle classes, respectable and was – according to his uncle who appeared to vouch for him – a God fearing man.

A passerby had witnessed Simpkin approach a young girl in the public square near the fountains, and he reported the clerk to a nearby constable. He testified that ‘after taking liberties with her’, he saw Simpkin take ‘her to a stall and treated her to some milk and sweet-meats’. The policeman and the other witness followed the man and the girl into the park where they saw him repeat ‘the same disgraceful conduct’.

Note we are told what this ‘conduct’ was; the nineteenth-century press did not describe sexual assaults of any nature in detail for fear of offending their readers. In a way this is somehow worse because we are left to imagine what the poor girl was subjected to.

Finally the girl got away and ran home, at which point the policeman moved in and arrested Simpkin. Why didn’t he intervene earlier?

At Bow Street the little girl was named as Caroline Herbert, aged nine. Today of course she would not be named. She was also described as the prosecutrix which also suggests she had to describe what happened to her in open court, another ordeal that children today are not be exposed to.

In his defence Simpkin said he was fond of children and merely playing with her. He had sent for his friends to provide him with a good character. He was not, he insisted, the sort of man that did that sort of thing. His uncle spoke in his support as we’ve heard and suggested that ‘the conduct of the accused had been misinterpreted, though not wilfully, by the constable and witness’.

Mr Jardine, the  Bow Street magistrate, was unconvinced by Simpkin’s defence and that of his uncle. He declared that ‘sins like this were always committed in private, and only discovered by accident’. However, he was also of the opinion that ‘mischief sometimes resulted from sending these cases to be re-investigated at the sessions’ so he was going to deal with it himself.

What did he mean? I wonder if he believed that Simpkin might escape punishment if he stood before a jury of his peers? Perhaps they might believe his claim that he was only ‘playing’ with Caroline because he was ‘naturally fond of children’. It is impossible to know what Mr Jardine thought but we can be sure of what he did. Simpkin was fined £5  but he didn’t have the funds (and neither, presumably, did his uncle). As a result he went to prison for a month.

This seems a light punishment to me and perhaps reflects a reality that sexual exploitation of children in the 1800s was not a big concern for society. That changed a little in 1885 after the Pall Mall Gazette ran its Maiden Tribute report into the scandal of child prostitution. This led to a change in the law and the raising of the age of consent. It did very little else to protect children from predatory paedophiles though.

[from The Morning Post, Tuesday, September 29, 1852]

No news of the “Ripper” as London carries on as normal in the 1880s

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Charles Booth’s poverty map of London, areas coloured blue or black represent the worst level of poverty in the capital; red and gold indicated relative comfort or wealth

I thought today I’d peer into the pages of the London press a year after the so-called ‘Ripper’ murders reached their height. In late September 1888 the killer struck twice in one night (30 September), murdering Elizabeth Stride in Berner Street before he later killed and savagely mutilated Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square. The ‘double event’ and the infamous ‘dear boss’ letter raised the level of public engagement with the Whitechapel murder series to fever pitch and helped to make it a global news event.

Researchers do not agree on when the murders ceased. There is some consensus that the last victim was Mary Kelly but three other homicides have been attributed (by some) to the unknown assassin known only as ‘Jack the Ripper’. These are are the headless body a woman found in Pinchin Street in 1889, and the murders of Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles (in July 1889 and February 1891). So given that ‘Jack’ was not (officially at least) in custody in September 1889 is there anything in the Police Court reportage that might link at all to the killer that had terrorised London in the autumn of 1888?

The answer for the 28 September 1889 is no, not really.

At Guildhall a general merchant was prosecuted for obtaining 400 sponges by false pretences. The case was complicated and the magistrate adjourned it for further enquiries. A salesman at the London Poultry market was charged with cruelty to chickens and was reprimanded several by the justice and fined 5s.

At Marlborough Street three men were charged with running a disorderly gaming house in St Martin’s Street. The court heard that the Cranborne Club was, despite appearance sot the contact, a ‘common gambling house’. The men were released on substantial recognises to appear again at a later date.

At Dalston a 22 year-old wood turner was committed for jury trial for assaulting and robbing a vicar. The Rev. Matthew Davison had just got home to his house in Downs Park Road, Clapton when Walter Taylor rushed up and rifled his pockets. The vicar lost a valuable watch and chain and worse, when he set off in pursuit one of Taylor’s associates attacked him from behind knocking him to the ground. Taylor was also charged with a similar theft, that of robbing a young woman named Lucy Millard in Hackney. Taylor (and two others) eventually faced a jury at Old Bailey in October 1889, where they were convicted and sent to prison for between 12 and 18 months.

At the West London Police Court violence was the subject of the newspaper report that day but not stranger violence (as the ‘Ripper’s murders were). James Cook was sent down for four months for for beating his common law wife, Caroline Moore. Cook had fractured his partner’s ribs by jumping on them but Caroline was still very reluctant to bring charges.

Over at Bow Street, the senior police court, four men were brought up to answer a charge of conspiracy to burgle the premises of the Railway Press Company. The men were tracked down by undercover detectives to a house in White Hart Street. The four were all in their twenties but a young girl of 16 was found to be living with them. This may have been what prompted the newspaper editor to choose this story from amongst all the others at Bow Street that day. Rose Harris said she ‘had neither money nor any friends’, and had lived in the sam room as the thieves for three weeks. She was, therefore, a possible witness, and  while the men were remanded in custody Rose was taken to the St Giles Mission to be cared for.

Finally there was a case from the Thames Police Court, one of two (with Worship Street) that covered the East End, the area that has since become synonymous with Jack the Ripper. Thomas Booth, a beer and wine retailer, was prosecuted for selling adulterated beer. Booth’s premises had been inspected by an officer from the Inland Revenue and his beer tested. On two occasions his beer was found to contain too much water. Booth tried to argue that his pipers were faulty and this had led to ‘washings’ (the beer slops) ending up back in his barrels. Mr Kennedy, the sitting magistrates, accepted his excuse in part but not in full and fined him 5s plus 10s costs. Watering down beer was inexcusable.

So a casual reading of the police court news from a year after the most notorious murder series in British history had unfolded would perhaps leave us to think that London carried on as normal. The everyday crimes and misdemeanours continued to occupy the columns of the London press and here was to be found ‘all sorts and conditions of men’ (and women).

The only footnote to this was a letter to the editor of the Standard, published in full at the end of the court reports section. It was from a R. C. Bedford, Bishop Suffragan* for East London. It was a long letter and concerned the ‘East End Poor’. He noted that the levels of poverty in the area were higher than usual by the docks, although had improved from the period of the Great Dock Strike earlier in the year. He was particularly concerned for the plight of the casual labourer in the wake of the strike, because while the workers had secured better pay (the ‘dockers’ tanner’) and some security of employment, those reliant on turning up for the ‘call’ in the early morning probably faced a more unpredictable future.

Bishop Bedford was asking for charitable help to be distributed through his church, and not indiscriminately.  However, he clearly believed that charity was not the solution, the real way to help the poor was to provide them with proper work not ‘doles and shelters’. The letter serves to remind us that late nineteenth-century Britain was a desperate place to live if you were poor and that in the 1880s unemployment was rife, and few areas were as badly affected as the East End. It is no coincidence in my mind that the editor of The Standard choose to position the bishop’s letter on the same page as the Police Court news. Here it would seen by the working and middle classes that read these reports (albeit for slightly different reasons). But it also serves to draw a link between crime, environment and poverty; something that was increasingly recognised in the later 1800s.

[from The Standard, Saturday, September 28, 1889]

*’A suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. They may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragan_bishop#Anglican_Communion)

A ‘notorious’ thief’s cross-examination skills backfire at the Guildhall

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Sir Robert Carden by ‘Spy’ (aka Leslie Ward) (Vanity Fair, December 1880)

In yesterday’s post I was able to show that a policeman who stayed in court (when all witnesses had been asked to leave) effectively undermined his own evidence and allowed a magistrate to exercise his discretion in a case he clearly felt slightly uncomfortable about. The newspaper reports of the London Police Courts, anecdotal as they undoubtedly are, can therefore be extremely useful to understanding how the summary process operated in the nineteenth-century capital.

This case, from the Guildhall Police Court in 1859, also reveals the nature of the hearing and, in particular, how the accused’s voice could be heard. In this instance the accused, a young man whom the papers certainly wanted to represent as a ‘bad character’, decided to act as his own defence counsel, cross examining the complainant in court.

As we will see, it probably wasn’t the wisest of strategies.

The complaint was brought by a ‘highly respectable young woman’ named Miss Martha Orange. The young lady in question was walking along Ludgate Street in the City at around 3 o’clock on Sunday afternoon when he realised that a young was at her side. He touched her on the shoulder and startled, she quickly crossed over the road to escape his attentions.

Very soon afterwards he was back and she realised she’d lost her purse. As she turned to confront him he ran off. Calling for others to help her catch him Miss Orange ran off after him. A few streets away he was captured by a policeman (PC Collins 337 City) in London House Yard and taken into custody. The lad had dumped the purse but it was found in the yard by a butcher’s son named Phillips Jeacocks, who handed it in.

The purse had contained quite a lot of money, which is why Miss Orange was aware it had been stolen from her. The prisoner, who gave his name as John Howard, now took it upon himself to challenge the woman’s testimony. In doing so he certainly asserted his rights but the nature of his line of questioning also suggests a familiarity with the legal system. I suspect that this familiarity exposed him as a ‘known’ offender, and he was later described as a member of a notorious local gang of thieves.

Howard started by asking the prosecutor if she had seen her purse in his hands. Miss Orange admitted that she hadn’t.

‘How do you know I took your purse?’ he enquired.

‘Because there was no one else near my pocket’ she replied.

He also cross-examined the butcher’s boy: ‘Will you swear I am the man?’ he demanded. ‘I am most sure you are’, said Phillip Jeacocks.

Having heard from the two principal witnesses the court now listened to the report of the police. Constable Haun (360 City police) declared that he was sure that the prisoner had previous convictions at Guildhall and Mansion House.

‘I was never at either place in my life’ Howard protested.

The arresting officer, PC Collins said he recognised him as someone who had escaped arrest after another man’s pocket had been picked. Now a Met policeman added that Howard belonged to a ‘notorious gang in Golden Lane’. Haun continued his evidence by telling the magistrate, Sir Robert Carden, that Howard had been imprisoned in Holloway and may well have been convicted at Old Bailey. Nowadays a prisoner’s previous convictions would not be revealed in court prior to conviction, but then again in the 1800s a person’s criminal record was not so easy to determine; these were the days before pretty nay kind of forensic science existed.

Unfortunately for Howard (if that was his name) even Sir Robert recognised him. Haun added that several of the lad’s ‘associates’ were in court that day, offering moral support to their chum. At this the magistrate warned the watching public to keep a close eye on their valuables, while he assured them he would make sure that Howard couldn’t pick any pockets for a couple of weeks at least.

This was because he intended to commit the lad for a jury trial where he might expect a severe custodial sentence. Howard twigged this and immediately put in a plea for justice to be served summarily: ‘I would rather you would deal with the case here sir’ he said.

Miss Orange had one last statement to make saying that at the police station Howard had admitted his crime and told her he was driven to it by his mother’s poverty and the need to look after her. He hoped she might forgive him and promised to mend his ways. His attempt to appeal to her good nature didn’t work but was overhead by PC Haun. Whether it was true or a lie he now denied it anyway, perhaps to avoid admitting guilt but maybe also to save face in front of his friends.

Sir Robert commended Miss Orange for the ‘coolness and courage’ she had displayed in apprehending and prosecuting the supposed thief. As for Howard, he turned to him and said: “I shall send you for trial, where you will have the opportunity of convincing a jury of your innocence’.

Howard did appear at the Old Bailey, on the 24 October 1859, indicted for stealing Miss Orange’s purse. Just as he had failed to undermine Miss Orange’s case at Guildhall Howard singularly failed to convince the jury of his innocence either. They found him guilty and when an officer from the Clerkenwell Sessions appeared to confirm that the prisoner had a previous conviction from August 1858 – for larceny for which he received a 12 months prison term) his goose was cooked. The judge at Old Bailey sent him into penal servitude for four years.

[from The Morning Post, Tuesday, September 27, 1859]

Delays at Clapham Junction lead to a punch up in the bar

Starzina Z Railways Direct Line Clapham Junction station 1889

Sometimes the press reports from the Police Courts inadvertently reveal elements of the summary process which are not otherwise made obvious. For example, in the case I’ve selected today, the sitting magistrate cautioned a police witness for remaining in court while evidence is being heard. This undermined the authority of his testimony and ultimately led to the discharge of the accused (who were clearly guilty as charged). This may seem like a minor detail, but it is exactly this sort of detail that helps me establish exactly how these courts operated in the 1800s.

Henry Clark (an architect) , John Lumsden (no trade given, so perhaps an ‘independent man’) and Thomas Oliver (engineer) had been watching the cricket at the Oval and had returned to Clapham Junction to catch a train home. Having just missed one they were forced to wait an hour for the next service and headed for the station’s ‘refreshment bar’ for a few drinks.

Here two very different stories emerge.

According to constable White of the South Western Railway Police the men arrived at the bar to find it closed. Annoyed, they complained loudly and constable White was called to intervene. However, his appearance just irritated them more and as he approached Oliver the engineer attempted to grapple him to the floor. The constable’s helmet was knocked off and rolled over to Clark who picked it up and threw it.

White managed to retrieve it and now attempted to regain his authority, placing the damaged helmet on his head and demanding they all leave at once, as he wanted to lock up. The men were having none of it however, and Clark hit the railway policeman and the pair wrestled. As they were down Lumsden came up and started aiming kicks at the stricken officer.

Either because the noise they made alerted a local bobby, or perhaps because a nearby passenger witnessed the assault and went for help, because soon afterwards a Metropolitan Police constable (PC Hooper of V division) turned up and arrested all three men and took them to the nearest police station.

Appearing in court at Wandsworth the next day the trio, all respectable lower middle class men it would seem, were represented by a lawyer, Mr Haynes. His version of events different somewhat to constable White’s. Haynes explained that the three had arrived at the station and gone to the bar. There White had joined them for a few drinks and had got quite drunk in the process.

The drinking led to horse play (or ‘larking’ to use the contemporary term for rough house behaviour). When constable White felt things had  gone too far he called for help and PC Hooper appeared.

So the magistrate, Mr Dayman, was presented with conflicting testimony; did he believe PC Hooper and the railway constable, or the three cricket fans? He clearly thought there was fault on both sides. He told White that it was clear that he ‘had been larking, and, getting the worst of it, he gave the prisoners in charge fancying his uniform would protect him’.

But it was also pretty obvious that the men had assaulted a police man (albeit a railway policeman not a member of the Met), so what to do with them? I think he fell back on a procedural dodge here by turning his attention to PC Hooper’s evidence (or rather his actions). He may well have suspected the two men were in cahoots, as ‘brothers in arms’ so to speak. PC Hooper had stated that as he took the men into custody they had tried to bribe him. The men ‘had offered him a sovereign to swear that White was drunk’, yet he insisted that he was sober.

However, Mr Dayman remarked that the policeman had ‘remained in court though all the witnesses had been ordered outside during the hearing of the case’.

‘By remaining inside’, he explained, ‘he saw the point of the case, and therefore he (Mr Dayman) could not place that reliance on his evidence as he should otherwise have done. He was always ready to uphold railway officials as they had an arduous duty to perform, but they must come into court with clean hands’.

The three men were discharged and thus cleared of any wrongdoing and as a result both White and Hooper were effectively reprimanded and reminded that their authority was conditional on them maintaining the highest standards of conduct. For me though, the real interest in this story is in what it tells me about the process of summary court hearings. If we can extrapolate from this example it would seem that those giving evidence that was important to a given case would be expected (at least when they were instructed) to wait outside the court to be called in and sworn. This may sound obvious from a modern context but, given that we have little in the way of printed material on the procedural nature of the summary courts, it is nice to see this recorded.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, September 26, 1866]

Mr Tyrwhitt sends a message

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I am coming to recognise the names of several of the men that served as Police Court magistrates in the second half of the nineteenth century. Some, like Mr Lushington at Thames seemed to have little time for wife beaters or drunks, while others reveal a tender side to their nature when presented with cases of genuine need and despair.

Magistrates had considerable discretion in determining what to do with those brought before them; a ‘rule book’ existed (they might use Richard Burn’s Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, or Oke’s Magisterial) but within the penalties available for a variety of offences there was considerable room for manoeuvre. Indeed while the prosecutor had the ultimate choice of bringing a case in the first place, the magistrate chose then whether to dismiss a charge, convict summarily, or send the prisoner up to a jury court (where they might expect a much more serious form of punishment).

Over at Marlborough Street, one of the busier police courts in London, Mr Tyrwhitt presided in the late 1860s. In late September 1867 two cases were reported at his court which suggest that he had a low tolerance level for nuisance and repeat offenders.

First up was Alice Smith, a ‘young woman’ who refused to give her address in court. I doubt this endeared her to the justice who may well have assumed she had something to hide or was a ‘down and out’. Alice had been caught picking flowers from a bed near the Serpentine in Hyde Park. PC William Cowell had seen the woman take the flowers but as soon as she saw him she hurriedly dropped them. Alice pleaded with the constable not to take her in and charge her, ‘offering to give him whatever he liked to let her go’.

She was probably intending to sell them for the few pennies she might get. It was a petty offence, hardly a serious crime but the magistrate was in an unforgiving mood. He told Alice that she was:

‘one of those mischievous persons that must be restrained. The business of that court was much increased by people that did mischief in the park’.

He fined her 5s or four days imprisonment and let it be known that in future he would hand down a fine of 40s (a significant amount in 1867) to anyone caught ‘plucking flowers’ belonging to the Board of Works.

Having dealt with such a serious theft of the capital’s flora Tyrwhitt was presented with three juvenile felons. George Vial (17), Frederick Williams (15) and James Brougham (14) had been seen loitering around Piccadilly by a plain clothes detective. Phillip Shrives, of C Division Metropolitan Police, said he had been watching the lads follow railway vans (‘evidently for the purpose of robbing them’) and arrested them.

With no other evidence presented against them another justice might have warned them or considered sending them to a reformatory school, but not Mr Tyrwhitt; he sent them all to prison for three months at hard labour.

And so, in this way, were ‘criminal careers’ created.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, September 25, 1867]

p.s I would add that despite what must come across as a rather liberal attitude towards these nineteenth-century offenders I do think we should recognise that for many of those caught up in the justice system, terrible as it could be in the 1800s, a considerable proportion of them had committed an offence that had left behind a victim or victims. On Sunday (yesterday that is) my brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s home was broken into in the early hours while they were away at a family gathering in Manchester.

The thieves broke in through the back patio doors, made a considerable mess as they ransacked all the upstairs room, and stole a small amount of personal and irreplaceable jewellery. The burglary meant I spent half the day waiting for the police and the glass replacement man but it was of course much worse for my in-laws who returned home to find their home violated. Historians of crime need to start to recognise the very real effect of crime on those that were victim to it; as one fellow historian of crime noted to me today:

‘There’s temptation to treat it as colourful history from below with juicy sources and too little recognition that many criminals hurt the poor and vulnerable. Time for the Victim Turn?’

A Dartmoor prison warder has an expensive encounter with a ‘lady of the town’.

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Tothill Street, Westminster in the early 1800s (from http://spitalfieldslife.com/2014/04/01/more-long-forgotten-london/)

London was a huge draw for visitors in the nineteenth century, especially after the nation’s railway network was built. London was also the country’s criminal justice hub and many of those sentenced to terms of penal servitude were processed in the capital before being sent to institutions as far away as Devon or the Isle of wight. So Daniel Mahoney, a principal warder (prison officer in today’s terminology) at Dartmoor may have been in the capital for work or pleasure. Regardless of which it was he soon fell victim to one of the oldest tricks in the book.

As he was walking in Tothill Street (not far from where St James’ Park station is today) he was ‘accosted’ (his words) by Mary Brown. Mary was a ‘woman of the town’, a prostitute, but Mahoney (who was wearing his uniform) later made out that he didn’t realise this at first. According to the warder Mary asked him if he was looking for somewhere to stay and when he said he was she ‘told him she would take him to a nice clean place’ and went with him to an address in Orchard Street (near Marble Arch).

Once at the house she asked him if ‘he would treat her with some gin’. This was part of the usual transaction of prostitution and for Mahoney to later pretend otherwise was risible. Gin was fetched and two other women joined the party. The warder relaxed and took off his neck-stock (an uncomfortable early version of the stiff collar) and placed it on the table along with his handkerchief, watch and a purse of money.

Without detailing what happened next it must have been pretty obvious to the readership of The Morning Chronicle that Mahoney was enjoying the company of these ‘ladies’ and not paying attention to the danger he was in. London’s prostitutes had been decoying men into low lodging houses, getting them tipsy and parting them from their valuables for hundreds of years and a prison officer must have offered a particularly tempting prospect.

Before he realised what was going on the women had seized his goods and ran off with them. The next day (after Mahoney had reported the theft to the police) one officer made his way undercover to Orchard Street to make some enquiries. He probably had a fair idea from the warder’s description of who he was looking for even if Mary had not revealed her real name.

As police constable John Toomer (221B) strolled along Orchard Street Mary Brown came out into the street from her lodging at number 57 and spoke to him. Seemingly not realising who he was she started to brag about her successful exploits the night before.

Clutching a glass of brandy, ‘She told him she’d had  “a good pull” on the previous night’, that her victim was  ‘one of the Penitentiary officers; and she had got £3 10s in money, a beautiful watch and gold guard, and other things’.

The policeman asked her what she had done with he things and she admitted passing them on to one of her ‘companions’, Emma and spending some of the cash.  She then invited the policeman to go and have a drink with her. He agreed so he could pump her for more information and they walked on for a while. However, as soon as they got within striking distance of the nearest police station PC Toomer revealed himself and took her into custody.

Charged with robbery before the Westminster magistrate (Mr Paynter) Mary denied everything. In her version of events she had summoned by the warder to a house in Almonry. He had apparently paid a lad a shilling to fetch her, for sex one presumes. He had left his handkerchief there she told the justice. Thereafter they had continued on to Tothill Street where they met up with some other women and the warder bought them all something to drink. The last time she had seen Mahoney he was enjoying the company of one these women in a room in Orchard Street but Mary had left and knew nothing of the robbery.

Whatever the truth was the weight of evidence was fairly damning for Mary; especially her supposed confession to the plain-clothes policeman. But Mahoney did not come out of this very well either. The magistrate said he ‘was sorry to see a person of the prosecutor’s official position capable of such conduct’. He remanded Mary for a week for further enquiries.

[from The Morning Chronicle, Thursday, September 24, 1857]

‘A monstrous thing’ is avoided in Bethnal Green

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The most common charges heard at the London police courts were those of being drunk and disorderly or drunk and incapable. In fact, whilst being drunk was not in itself an offence, once another misdemeanour was added (assault, using obscene language, refusing to quite licensed premises, etc.) you were likely to whisked off to the police station and produced in court in the morning.

Because such charges were so common and generally not very newsworthy, the press rarely reported them. Much better, they presumably believed, to offer their readers a staple fare of wife beaters, fraudsters, juvenile thieves, and robbers than a depressing catalogue of London’s inebriates. Just occasionally however, a case was reported because it had something out of the ordinary, as this one does.

Thomas Phillips (50) from Clarkson Street, Bethnal Green, and Robert Cable (64) from Millwall, were charged before the magistrate at Worship Street Police Court with being ‘drunk and incapable in the public thoroughfare’. Both men were described as ‘master greengrocers’ and they had clearly been out drinking at the end of the working week. They had been arrested by PC Kitchener (630K) as he made his beat along Green Street in Bethnal Green.

He had found them in a cart at about 10 o’clock at night. Phillips was sitting (or rather sat slumped) in the driver’s seat holding the reins but ‘quite unable to take care of the horse’, according to PC Kitchener. Cable was asleep (or passed out from drink) and face down in the back of the cart.

In court the constable and his sergeant (Johnson KR) fully proved the charge to the satisfaction of the magistrate, Mr Hannay,  who imposed a fine of 10s on Phillips.  Neither men had denied the charge anyway but Hannay was unsure whether the law applied to Cable. After all what had he done wrong? He was merely drunk in someone else’s cart, he wasn’t causing a nuisance or attempting to drive the vehicle.

He declared that:

‘It would be a monstrous thing if a gentleman going home in his carriage from a dinner was to be taken out and charged because he had drunk too much wine’.

So applying the law and common sense he discharged Cable without penalty than the night in the cells he had already ‘enjoyed’.

[from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, September 23, 1877]

The struggle for the breeches (or the ‘bloomers’ in this case!)

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The nineteenth-century Police Courts were full of assault, much of it perpetrated by men and most of that ‘domestic’ (in other words where the wife or female partner was the victim). Most studies of interpersonal violence have found that men are most likely to be accused of assault in all its forms (from petty violence to serious wounding and homicide); women tended not to be violent or at least were not often prosecuted as such. When women did appear before the magistracy charged with assault it tended to be for attacking subordinates (children and servants) or other women. It was very rare for a woman to accused of hitting or otherwise assaulting a man.

There are good reasons for this and it is not simply because women were somehow ‘weaker’ or even less violently disposed than men. For a violent action to become a statistic it needs to be reported and then (usually) prosecuted if we are going to be able to count it. Historians talk of the ‘dark figure’ of unreported crime and there is widespread agreement that this figure is particular dark where domestic violence is concerned.

The gendered nature of Victorian society made it very hard for a man to report an assault against him by a woman. The mere fact that he had allowed a female to abuse him (to repudiate his ‘authority’) was bad enough in a society which was highly patriarchal. But to compound that by admitting in public that he had been bested by a woman was considered shameful. I am not suggesting that women were frequently beating up their male partners but I suspect the real figure is higher than the records suggest.

So when a man did bring a prosecution against a woman it is not surprising that it made the papers, and (as in this case) provided an opportunity for amusement at the man’s expense.

When Jeremiah Lynch lost his first wife to cholera he took on a woman to help him keep his house together. Lynch, a tailor living in Redcross Street near the Mint, was elderly and employed a vibrant young Irish woman named Carolina. He had hired Carolina in October 1850 and for nine months she had performed her duties admirably. In fact so diligent was she that in July 1852 Jeremiah (despite the age difference) proposed marriage to her which she accepted.

This soon turned out to be a terrible mistake however as Carolina, now Mrs Lynch, appeared to transform into quite a different person from the amenable servant he had married.

He ‘had not been tied to her many days before she exhibited her true temper, by demanding possession of all his money, and wanting to wear the breeches’.

When he refused her demands she smashed all his crockery. At first he ‘overlooked her mad conduct’ but on Friday 19 September 1851 she came home at six and started on him again. She complained (in an example of gender role reversal) that he had not prepared anything ‘nice for tea’ and knocked him about the head and body. She declared that ‘she would wear the breaches’ he told the magistrate at Southwark Police Court on the following Saturday morning.

‘So’, the magistrate asked him (to mounting laughter in the court) ‘she is desirous of wearing the Bloomer costume?’

If Lynch responded it was not recorded but Carolina did speak in her own defence. She told his Worship that the tailor (described as ‘sickly-looking old man’ by the Standard‘s reporter) was ‘a nasty old brute’ who ‘ill-used and starved her’.

Jeremiah Lynch denied this but the magistrate didn’t convict her of the assault. Instead he granted a separation, perhaps acknowledging that Lynch had some responsibility in the matter. He further required that the tailor should pay his former housekeeper 10s a week. In the end then this was probably a fairly successful outcome for Carolina, if not for Jeremiah. In this struggle for the breaches then, it was victory for the ‘fairer’ sex.

[from The Standard, Monday, September 22, 1851]