Solutions for dealing with ‘delinquent’ or ‘wayward’ girls have been a source of discussion and contention since the establishment of the first juvenile institutions in the nineteenth-century. The Youthful Offenders Act (1854) and the Industrial Schools Act (1857) marked a watershed moment inthe history of the treatment of juveniles by establishing Reformatory and Industrial schools. Never had juvenile institutions been set up on such a scale across England. Reformatory Schools were reserved for girls who committed a criminal offence whereas Industrial schools were for those girls deemed ‘at risk’ and in need of protection. This presentation will explore three specific juvenile institutions; namely, Red Lodge Reformatory, Manchester Sale and Carlton Industrial School.
Utilising archival and digital sources, I profile the admissions and discharges of the girls that entered the institutions in the period between 1854 to 1920. I examine not only the pathways in and out of
the institutions, but also the period of the girls’ incarceration. This study foregrounds the dynamics and intersection of both class and gender, interrogating how the dominant hegemonic discourses of
respectability, domesticity and motherhood, underpinned by religious and medical ideologies, were used to regulate female behaviour, both within and outside the institutions.
Book link: Wayward Girls in Victorian and Edwardian England: Pathways In and Out of Juvenile Institutions, 1854-1920: History of Crime, Deviance and Punishment Tahaney Alghrani Bloomsbury Academic
All welcome- this seminars is free to attend but registration is required.