The London Journal

Volume 28 No.2 2003

ABSTRACTS

Between 1784 and 1815, the nature and scope of policing in the City of London was quietly but radically transformed. The number of people policing the City grew dramatically, hired by wards, merchants' associations and the Corporation of the City of London to control public order in the broadest sense: executions, pillories, elections, vagrancy and small disturbances of all kinds. Public discussion of policing - its scope, priorities and costs - only took place, however, after policing itself had changed. In the 1820s and 1830s, national legal reformers rationalized the burgeoning criminal code, decreased the number of capital crimes, relied more heavily on imprisonment, and argued for more centralized, accountable and efficient policing.

Focusing on centralization and efficiency leaves out the real change that had already taken place: by the 1820s, residents, ward and City leaders and merchants had radically altered their understanding of what policing was and how much they were willing to pay for it. Policing was remade in the City between 1785 and 1815, so that when later reformers talked about centralization and accountability, they spoke in this context of increased expense and higher expectations of the role of policing within the criminal justice system. This helped support the argument that more police should accomplish more within the criminal justice system, and in the realm of public order generally. Every level of City governance policed its jurisdiction far more aggressively in 1815 than in 1785. This essay attempts to explain how and why such an expansion took place, and to understand better the attitudes that underlay it.

This article examines a series of angry confrontations which took place at the Old Bailey in 1789 between judges and a group of capital convicts who refused the royal pardon. Using the ideas of James Scott as a framework, the article analyses the court and press responses to these protests, tries to explain why the pardon was rejected in the first place and finally, explores what can be learned from this episode about the nature of deference. The court was not able simply to impose its will; its leverage for doing so was limited given the need to maintain the appearance of humanity and mercy. The press marginalised the protests by creating a fictive melodrama focussing on the leading female refuser. The reactions of the court and press also emphasised the humane concern of the court officials thus underwriting the legitimacy of the legal system. The prisoners were in part protesting against the re-imposition of transportation, but this was part of a larger hidden transcript which developed in Newgate Prison and on the hulks. The logic of their actions indicates that the prisoners were aware of the court's lack of room to manoeuvre on this issue. These women and men were able to mock with impunity the court's pretensions to justice and humanity. Finally, the article proposes an alternative way of understanding deference. Rather than making the degree to which it is internalised a central issue, deference is more usefully understood as a site of continuous struggle. The outward appearance of deference become tactical weapons used by both the powerful and the weak in different ways to suit their own needs and interests.

For many middle-class women, especially those from the lower ranks, the need to work was pressing. Providing accommodation as a lodging-house keeper was one form of employment that allowed women to undertake a business that was closely linked to their domestic role and which was also considered to be 'respectable'. Demand for lodgings was high in London, and women were heavily involved in the accommodation trade. Detailed record linkage using evidence from trade directories, fire insurance records and census enumerator's books allow us to explore the contexts in which such women operated. Typically, lodging-house proprietors were single women, both widows and spinsters, either working alone or with other women. Establishments were relatively small and relied on word of mouth rather than directories to advertise their existence. They ranged in social status from those lodging-houses that provided more or less permanent accommodation for wealthy fund-holders to the low lodgings provided for poor migrants to the city. Either way, operating a lodging-house allowed women to extend their domestic role and make accommodation a business.

In the 1850s there was a busy passenger steamboat traffic along the Thames provided by private companies. By 1902 there was none, but then in 1905 the London County Council, then under control of the Progressives, inaugurated a new service. It was abandoned as a failure after little more than two years. This paper explores the economic background to the decision to run a municipal service, asks why it failed and seeks to answer why the LCC persisted in its belief that such a service could ever work, given that attempts to re-establish a private enterprise service had previously been unsuccessful.