Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Narratives of Crime and Disorder: Representations of Robbery and Burglary in the London Press, 1780-1830 Thesis How to cite: Hopps, Robert Stephen (2017). Narratives of Crime and Disorder: Representations of Robbery and Burglary in the London Press, 1780-1830. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2017 The Author https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.0000ce4e Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk Narratives of Crime and Disorder: Representations of Robbery and Burglary in the London Press, 1780-1830 Robert Hopps Department of History Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The Open University, March 2017. ABSTRACT This thesis is a qualitative and quantitative study of crime and justice reportage of several London newspapers during two periods – the 1780s and the early nineteenth century focusing on two felonies: highway robbery and burglary, two of the most feared crimes at that time and used by contemporaries to assess the moral health of the capital. The press’s reliance on unsolved crime reports provide a more realistic guide to the extent and nature of offending than court records. Reports show how these felonies changed: ‘hustlers’ replaced highwaymen and burglary became proportionately more significant than robbery. Press accounts were constructed to satisfy perceived reader interest, thereby proportionately exaggerating these felonies, their violence and special characteristics, providing a distorted image of crime. Newspapers were the main source of information and influenced public perceptions about crime making it seem endemic and normative. As the press became more professional, reports changed. The press, no longer content to remain chroniclers, produced longer, more detailed accounts representing certain types of property theft as socially and culturally problematic, such as juvenile offending and errant servants, creating criminal stereotypes and giving rise to beliefs in the existence of organised gangs, a criminal class and a criminal underworld, serving to demonise the poor as inherently deviant. Such representations found a targeted and receptive audience in the thriving urban bourgeoisie and middling classes, already anxious about political radicalism and social change, who were not only the principal purchasers of newspapers, but who were also disproportionately portrayed in the press as most frequently the victims of these two crimes. Furthermore the state, needing public legitimation for its administration of criminal justice, found this in the burgeoning press, which, through its positive portrayal of justice as fair, created narratives of public justice and authority justifying the state’s increasing powers. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the librarians of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, the British Library and former British Newspaper Library at Colindale and Cambridge University Library for their assistance and many kindnesses. I would also like to express my gratitude to a former supervisor, the late GR Elton of my previous alma mater, the University of Cambridge, for teaching me the value of scholarship and a tutor from my undergraduate days, Christopher Haigh, for the inspiration to become an historian. I also owe a debt to my fellow students and attendees at the International Centre for Policing and Criminal Justice History meetings at The Open University for their creative support over informal discussions over the years. My partner, Bob Coultas, has provided unfailing encouragement over the many years this thesis has taken. Above all I must thank my supervisors Peter King and Paul Lawrence for their outstanding contributions, and without whom this thesis could not have been written. I, of course, remain entirely responsible, for any mistakes. Robert Hopps, Cambridge. Table of Contents Page Table of Contents i List of Tables and Figures ii Chapter One: The Representation of Crime in Print 1 Chapter Two: London, Crime and the Newspaper Trade 25 Chapter Three: Stores of Crime and Disorder: Robbery and the Press in the 1780s 67 Chapter Four: Narratives of Order, Public Justice and Class: Early Nineteenth Century Newspaper Reportage of Robbery and Burglary 138 Conclusion 200 Bibliography 213 i List of Tables and Figures Page Tables 3.1 Column space dedicated to robbery stories, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 86 3.2 Newspaper space and levels of violence in robbery reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 87 3.3 Levels of violence in unsolved robbery reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 90 3.4 Violence according to gender in newspaper reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 95 3.5 Burglary and Robbery: Incidents and reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 107 3.6 Burglary and Housebreaking by month, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 108 3.7 Old Bailey convictions for burglary and housebreaking, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 109 3.8 Column space given to burglary and housebreaking in newspaper reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 110 3.9 Items stolen in press reports of burglary and housebreaking in newspaper reports, Jul/Aug- Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 113 3.10 Use of violence in burglary/housebreaking reports in newspaper reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 117 3.11 Social status of victims in incidents of burglary and housebreaking in newspaper reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 118 3.12 Social status of victims of highway and street robbery in newspaper reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 124 4.1 Length of victim reports in newspapers, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 143 4.2 Levels of violence in newspaper reports for highway robbery and burglary, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 155 ii Page Tables 4.3 Old Bailey trials for robbery with guilty verdicts, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 159 4.4 Length of newspaper reports for highway robbery and burglary, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 159 4.5 Seasonal distribution of burglary reports in newspapers, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 160 4.6 Occupations of victims of highway robbery and burglary in newspaper reports, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 161 4.7 Offender gender in newspaper reports of highway robbery and burglary, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 171 4.8 Old Bailey guilty verdicts for highway robbery and burglary: a comparative table, 1780, 1785, 1790; 1816, 1821 and 1828 190 4.9 Column space in newspaper reports about highway robbery and burglary: a comparative table, 1780, 1785, 1790; 1816, 1821 and 1828 191 4.10 Violence levels in victim reports for highway robbery and burglary: a comparative table, 1780, 1785, 1790; 1816, 1821 and 1828 193 Figures 3.1 Newspaper reports of unsolved robberies, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 by Year 71 3.2 Newspaper reports of unsolved robberies, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 by Month 72 3.3 Prosecutions for robbery at the Old Bailey, 1780-1790 73 3.4 Breakdown of newspaper reports about robbery, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 81 iii Page Figures 3.5 Methods of street robbery in newspaper reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 102 3.6 Nos of burglars and housebreakers in newspaper reports, Jul/Aug-Dec 1780, 1785 and 1790 116 4.1 Categories of newspaper reports for highway robbery and burglary, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 142 4.2 Incidents of highway robbery and burglary in newspapers, Aug-Dec 1816, 1821 and 1828 158 iv CHAPTER ONE The Representation of Crime in Print Crime and the criminal eternally fascinate; they rather than politics supply the journalists daily bread, nor is this a particularly modern order of preference.1 GR Elton Introduction This thesis is a quantitative and qualitative cultural study of late-eighteenth and early nineteenth-century printed newspaper reportage concerning highway robbery (including street robbery), and burglary and housebreaking. It will address several core research questions. First, how informative are press reports of robbery and burglary about its nature, prevalence, characteristics, victims and the felonies perpetrators? Second, how did newspapers report these crimes and did this develop over time and, if so, in what ways did reportage change? Does the constructed nature of the reportage limit the usefulness of the accounts to create a better understanding of these offences? The thesis will carefully consider the pressures and limitations facing newspaper editors, and examine the various criteria they used in order to produce their reports of robbery and burglary. Furthermore the study will consider the ways in which press accounts of serious crimes may have impacted readers. What were the likely responses of newspaper readers to the numerous descriptions of felonies they read about, and can we say with any accuracy whether these reports shaped readers’ perceptions about the nature and incidence of robbery and burglary? Finally the thesis will question whether crime reports fulfil any other function than the provision of factual information and entertainment. Did the press, wittingly or unwittingly, help to legitimise the state’s power to punish property transgressors in an economically and socially unequal society? The study will focus upon selected newspapers between the years 1780 to 1790, and 1816 to 1830, thereby adding a dimension that is markedly different to research studies of these offences based primarily upon court material. In recent years analysis of newspapers has assumed an increasingly significant place in the historiography of crime and criminal justice.