POVERTY, PROTEST and SPORT: POACHING in the EAST MIDLANDS C.1820-C.1900 ROSEMARY MUGE, MA. Thesis Submitted to the University Of
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POVERTY, PROTEST AND SPORT: POACHING IN THE EAST MIDLANDS c.1820-c.1900 ROSEMARY MUGE, MA. Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2017 Abstract In the East Midlands counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire levels of poaching equalled or exceeded those in many counties which are thought of as prime poaching areas. Using principally Criminal Registers, Game Laws Returns to Parliament, and local newspapers of the period, this study shows that people poached from three motives: because they were poor; because poaching was a sport; and as a protest. Day and night poachers, including night poaching gangs frequently involved in affrays, pursued their activities undeterred by the efforts at prevention of the landowners, police and courts. Poaching here was predominantly for ground game and declined in the last quarter of the century, but continued to be a source of anger and frustration for game preservers and the authorities to the end of the period. The poaching war in these counties, waged in an area with large aristocratic estates but where extreme game preservation was viewed critically, was not perceived as impacting on law and order in general. This was unlike Lancashire, where the activities of poachers were regarded as being a threat to the fabric of society. The causes of these differences between the East Midlands and Lancashire were rooted in police practice, attitudes to game preservation, and differences in gentry sport and hunting. (Total words in thesis: 90,313) Acknowledgements Having begun to study history twenty years ago and finally submitted this thesis in retirement, there are many people to whom I am beholden. Most of all, my two supervisors, Professor John Beckett and Dr Richard Gaunt of the University of Nottingham. Without their advice, criticism and encouragement during the research and the writing up, I would not have been able to achieve this. Secondly to my family, especially my husband, for putting up with me being very boring about poaching for a long time, but always supporting me. I am also indebted to John E. Archer for getting me hooked on poaching in the first place, and for being kind enough to respond most helpfully to my request for further information on his newspaper sources for his work on Lancashire. Finally, I must thank my friend Gerald, a poacher in his youth, who answered many enquiries about game, hunting and guns, and who took me night poaching. Contents List of tables i List of figures ii Abbreviations iii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Methodology 38 Chapter 3 Quantifying and Locating Poaching 73 Chapter 4 Poaching, Poverty and Social Crime 126 Chapter 5 Affrays and the Forces of the Law 164 Chapter 6 The Law, the Courts, and Protest 213 Chapter 7 Sport and Poaching 261 Chapter 8 Conclusion 294 Bibliography 315 List of Tables 1.1 The main game laws 5 3.1 Convictions and imprisonments for game offences by county 78 3.2 Convictions and imprisonments per 100,000 head of population 79 3.3 Months in which different types of game were poached 119 3.4 Months in which reports of poaching were made 119 4.1 Percentage of poachers in each county who paid their fines 143 4.2 Numbers of men and women convicted of poaching, 1827-30 148 5.1 Group affrays reported by newspapers every five years, 1841-91 168 5.2 Percentage totals of occupations involved in affrays in each county 175 5.3 Percentage of poachers aged below 20 and above 30, in the East Midlands and in Lancashire 177 6.1 Sentences given at Quarter Session and Assize courts …. 232 6.2 The contrast between sentencing in 1820-28 and 1829-92 233 i List of Figures 2.1 Extract from Return 1831-32(65) 59 2.2 Extract from Return 1831-32(497) for Leicestershire 60 2.3 Extract from Return 1846(712) for Nottinghamshire 63 3.1 Data from four returns which give imprisonments 81 3.2 Data from four returns which give convictions 82 3.3 Poaching prosecutions per 100,000 population in the last three decades of the century 85 3.4 Imprisonments per 100,000 population annualised 89 3.5 Convictions per 100,000 population annualised 89 3.6 Annual prosecutions per 100,000 population 89 3.7 The counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire 92 3.8 Poaching convictions in Derbyshire, 1857-62 94 3.9 Areas and places of interest in Derbyshire 95 3.10 Poaching Convictions in Nottinghamshire, 1857-62 97 3.11 Areas and places of interest in Nottinghamshire 99 3.12 Poaching Convictions in Leicestershire, 1857-62 101 3.13 Areas and places of interest in Leicestershire 102 3.14 A modern picture of a long net with a rabbit being removed 110 3.15 Drag-netting partridges 111 3.16 Loop snare 113 3.17 Loop snare with trigger 113 3.18 Graph showing total number of poaching events by month…. 122 4.1 Poaching convictions in the East Midlands and the average real wage index allowing for unemployment, 1870-1898 130 ii 4.2 An old working man in the late nineteenth century 153 5.1 Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, showing the location of affrays 171 5.2 Ages of poachers involved in affrays in the East Midlands 177 5.3 A contemporary illustration of a poaching affray 197 6.1 ‘A County Magistrate interrupted in his drive home’. 215 6.2 A poacher before the bench 248 6.3 Captain Welfitt, and his signature, in 1880 252 7.1 ‘The Celebrated Dog Billy Killing 100 Rats at the Westminster Pit’ 263 7.2 An engraving of two gentlemen out with their dogs…. 266 7.3 Kedleston Hall, c. 1865, by R. Keene 267 7.4 Clumber House, before 1897 268 7.5 Leicester cycle club returning from their picnic outing in 1896 288 7.6 Leicester County Cricket Club Team, between 1860 and 1878 289 7.7 ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’. 291 Abbreviations TNA The National Archives PP House of Commons Parliamentary Papers DRO Derbyshire Record Office ROL Record Office of Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland NA Nottinghamshire Archives NG Nottinghamshire Guardian LC Leicester Chronicle DM Derby Mercury For the purposes of this study, the ‘East Midlands’ refers to the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. iii Chapter 1 Introduction From the late eighteenth century through most of the nineteenth, rural England was riven by conflicts which were at times so fierce that they have been referred to as wars. The ‘Poaching Wars’, also dubbed ‘The Long Affray’,1 had long been a feature of the countryside but escalated from about 1750,2 and remained a significant issue in some parts until the 1880s or 1890s.3 At the root of this conflict was a piece of legislation, enacted in 1671 and unchanged until 1831, which gave the right to hunt game solely to the landed gentry. Tenant farmers no matter how substantial, even owner occupiers whose land was worth less than £100 a year, or £150 if it was leasehold or copyhold, could see their crops ravaged by game but were prohibited from taking action.4 The rural poor, frequently short of the necessities of life and at best living with extreme frugality, were forbidden to take any game. However, poaching was endemic and the poacher an ordinary figure of country life.5 In 1831, with the Game Laws Amendment Act, the law was radically changed by making it legal for anyone who could buy a game certificate to hunt. In practice this made little difference to working class poachers, from urban as well as rural areas, who continued their activities unabated.6 1 John E. Archer, ‘ “A Reckless Spirit of Enterprise”: Game-Preserving and Poaching in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire’, in David W. Howell and Kenneth O. Morgan (eds.), Crime, Protest and Police in Modern British Society (Cardiff, 1999), p.155. 2 P.B. Munsche, Gentlemen and Poachers: The English Game Laws 1671-1831 (Cambridge 1981), pp.65-6. 3 John E. Archer, ‘By a Flash and a Scare’: Arson, Animal Maiming and Poaching in East Anglia 1815-1870, first pub. 1990 (London, 2010), p.147, ‘Reckless Spirit’, p. 170; John Fisher, ‘Property Rights in Pheasants: Landlords, Farmers and the Game Laws 1860-80’, Rural History, vol. 11, 2 (2000), p. 167. 4 Munsche, Gentlemen and Poachers, pp. 9, 163; J. J. Tobias, Crime and Police in England 1700-1900 (Dublin, 1979), p. 24; Frank McLynn, Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century England (London, 1989), p. 203. 5 David Jones, Crime, Protest, Community and Police in Nineteenth Century Britain (London, 1982), p. 62; Archer, Flash and Scare, pp. 152-3. 6 Game Laws Amendment Act, 1831, 1 & 2 Will. 4, c. 32, hereafter referred to as the Game Reform Act, 1831. 1 This thesis looks at poaching in Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, c.1820-c.1900, to discover the patterns and impacts of poaching in this area, to consider the similarities and contrasts with other areas of England, and to shed some light on the causes and consequences of poaching. For the purposes of this study the East Midlands is defined as the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. This introductory chapter provides the background necessary to place the research in context, giving an overview of the game laws, preservation and poaching. An account of the historiography of poaching and a summary of the current historiography follows. This leads on to the main themes of the study and the questions which it seeks to answer, and an outline of the structure of the thesis with an indication of what is covered in each chapter.