Combating Recidivist Crime in London: the Origins and Effectiveness of Legislation against Habitual Criminals, 1869 to 1895 Matthew Bach (159451) Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2017 School of Historical and Philosophical Studies The University of Melbourne Abstract There has been much research beginning in the 1970s regarding efforts of the mid and late Victorian state to control repeat offenders. These offenders were widely believed to be habitual criminals, who collectively constituted a criminal class. The overall image that emerges from the literature is of increasingly organised police forces working with the courts in order to successfully target members of the so-called criminal class for arrest and harsh punishment. However, little is known about the operation of the only two acts of parliament that specifically targeted this group: the Habitual Criminals Act 1869 and the Prevention of Crime Act 1871. This study investigates the genesis of these measures and the outcomes desired by their proponents. It then assesses the extent to which these outcomes were achieved in London, which was the focal point of many anxieties regarding crime and the activities of repeat offenders. An analysis of the available evidence contradicts the widely held assumption that in Victorian Britain the police and the courts willingly worked alongside parliament, with significant success, to repress elements of the working class that were deemed a threat to law and order. Indeed, in London the police and courts did not cooperate closely with the parliament to enforce these acts. ii Declaration This thesis comprises my own work, and due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used. The thesis is fewer than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of text accompanying tables and the bibliography. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements v List of tables vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Origins of the Habitual Criminals Act 1869 35 Chapter 2 The Passage and Early Operation of the Habitual Criminals Act 1869 74 Chapter 3 The Registration of Habitual Criminals, 1871-1895 106 Chapter 4 Police Supervision of Habitual Criminals, 1871-1895 140 Chapter 5 The Sentencing of Habitual Criminals, 1871-1895 168 Conclusion 201 Bibliography 210 iv Acknowledgements I would very much like to thank my supervisor, Professor Elizabeth Malcolm, for her expert advice, great patience and fulsome encouragement. Without her this work would certainly not have been possible. My other supervisors, Professors Joy Damousi and Gillian Russell and Dr Una McIlvenna, were also of much help. Lastly, but by no means least, I would like to thank my wife Amy for her unfailing love and support over the course of this study. v List of tables 3.1. Use and success of the Registry in London, 1870-3, p. 114 3.2. Attendances at the Convict Supervision Office, 1890-4, p. 122 3.3. Search forms filed at the Convict Supervision Office, 1891-4, p. 122 3.4. Identifications made at the Convict Supervision Office, 1890-4, p. 123 3.5. Prisoners identified in Holloway by Criminal Investigations Officers and Warders as having been previously convicted, p. 129 3.6. The rate of prosecution of habitual criminals in various English cities, 1871-90, p. 136 4.1. People convicted within the Metropolitan Police District and sentenced to a period of police supervision, 1870-3, p. 149 4.2. Habitual criminals apprehended in the Metropolitan Police District for failure to report, 1888-94, p. 161 4.3. Licence holders, supervisees, and expirees apprehended for fresh offences, 1888-94, p. 161 5.1. Persons convicted within the Metropolitan and City of London Police Districts of crime, with sentences and proportion of all convictions, 1870-3, p. 178 5.2. Sentences of penal servitude in London, including as a percentage of all those convicted, 1870-3 and 1893-5, p. 190 vi Introduction The criminal classes … is [sic], in fact, a great army – an army making war on society, and it is necessary that society should for its own defence make war upon them … Now, the question that presents itself is this – How are we to deal with this vast mass of criminals – with this great army of crime with which we have to contend?1 The Earl of Kimberley, Liberal peer, 26 Feb. 1869. In 1869 the new Liberal government of the United Kingdom, led by William Gladstone, provided a response to this question through the introduction of a remarkable piece of legislation. The Habitual Criminals Act 1869 introduced a system of police supervision in the community for specified repeat offenders and a central registry containing information regarding all so-called habitual criminals. The former measure, the government hoped, would lead to a decrease in crime among this group of offenders. The latter was intended to aid police supervision and to ensure magistrates and judges had all relevant information about offenders before them at the point of sentencing. The legislation, which was re-enacted in 1871 with several alterations, was remarkable for its repressive potential and for the manner in which it reversed the parliament’s long-held position on police supervision. The threat posed by repeat offenders was apparently so great that individual liberty was now relegated to a position of secondary import. Historians have offered differing views regarding the motivation for and effects of mid and late Victorian efforts to control elements of the working class that were deemed unruly. However, the genesis and impact of the only two pieces of legislation that were specifically designed to combat the so-called criminal class are poorly understood. This thesis aims to assess why the legislation was introduced and why it was re-enacted so soon after. Then, it seeks to explore the extent to which the key aims of the government were achieved in London’s Metropolitan Police District in the period up to 1895. In doing so this thesis will, in 1 The Earl of Kimberley (Liberal), 194 Parl. Deb., H.C. (3rd ser.), col. 338 (26 Feb. 1869). 1 particular, contribute to broader debates concerning the ability of the mid and late Victorian state to control the working class. Firstly, it is necessary to explain why this location and time period have been chosen. The legislation applied throughout the United Kingdom. Yet London was the focal point of many anxieties regarding crime and the activities of a so-called criminal class.2 As will be discussed below, concerns about a criminal class were fostered by published statistics estimating its size, and because of the gradual cessation of transportation to Australia, which occurred between 1840 and 1868. Such concerns centred on London because of the opportunities for concealment of criminal activity presented by a city of its size and character, its great wealth, and a significant media-inspired panic regarding crime in the capital in 1862. The 1851 census revealed that London’s population was 2,362,236. This figure grew significantly over the coming decades, reaching 4,231,431 in 1891. The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force consistently noted that such a large, and growing, population centre presented great opportunities for criminals to evade the police.3 Anonymity was made easier by the physical layout of the city. In 1869 the journalist James Greenwood listed various ‘vile nests’ – often called rookeries – that appeared almost to have been designed for the concealment of crime.4 Other contemporary sources also noted that London appeared to be a ‘maze’.5 In addition, London was the seat of much wealth. According to the social commentator Henry Solly, this made it a magnet for what he labelled ‘the rough’.6 In short, evidence reveals 2 S. J. Stevenson, ‘The ‘Habitual Criminal’ in Nineteenth-Century England: Some Observations on the Figures’, Urban History, vol. 13 (May 1986), pp. 37-60; Donald Thomas, The Victorian Underworld, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1998, p. 3; Lynda Nead, Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000, pp. 3-10, 71-2. 3 For representative comments see the Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, [C 150] H.C. 1870, xxxvi, p. 2; Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, [C 358] H.C. 1871, xxviii, p. 3; Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, [C 652] H.C. 1872, xxx, p. 3; Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, [C 839] H.C. 1873, xxxi, p. 1. 4 James Greenwood, The Seven Curses of London, London: Stanley Rivers and Co., 1869, p. 68. 5 Nead, Victorian Babylon, p. 4; Jon Mee, The Cambridge Introduction to Charles Dickens, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 56. 6 Henry Solly, A Few Thoughts on how to Deal with the Unemployed Poor of London, and with its ‘Roughs’ and Criminal Classes, n.p.p.: Society of Arts, 1868. 2 significant concern that London was, in Gareth Stedman Jones’ words, ‘the Mecca of the dissolute’.7 The impact of the 1869 and 1871 legislation in the City of London, which was policed by a small and separate force, is not considered here. This is because there is limited data for London’s financial and business centre, which covers only slightly more than one square mile. A press-inspired panic regarding violent crime in London by repeat offenders in 1862 heightened these anxieties.8 Between midnight and one o’clock on the morning of 17 July 1862 James Pilkington, M.P. for Blackburn, was attacked by two men while en route to the Reform Club following a late sitting of the House of Commons. This attack was widely reported as an example of garotting, in which the victim is attacked from behind and incapacitated by pressure from the assailant’s arm upon the throat.