Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T09:44:15.648Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

SECURING THE ENGLISHMAN'S CASTLE: SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2012

David L. Smith*
Affiliation:
Southeastern University

Extract

In 1839, the Constabulary Force Commission, created by Parliament to study the conditions of crime and policing beyond London and to make recommendations for jurisdictional reforms, published its findings in the First Constabulary Report. To illustrate for readers the necessity of establishing constabularies modeled after London's Metropolitan Police Force in counties and boroughs throughout England and Wales, Edwin Chadwick, utilitarian reformer and principal draftsman of the Report, interwove the Commission's recommendations with numerous testimonies from representatives of the so-called criminal classes that pervaded nineteenth-century society. These sometimes graphic confessions were calculated to shock as much as persuade, which made for popular reading, notwithstanding widespread political opposition to the Commission's proposals (Philips 69). Section twenty eight, for example, contains the account of “J– R–,” a nineteen-year-old ex-sailor from Manchester who had committed a series of petty larcenies before turning to more serious burglaries of homes and businesses, at which he became quite adept. This young-but-seasoned offender's confession included what were intended to be alarming revelations about the physical vulnerabilities of English houses. JR testified that he had “[f]ound none or very few difficulties in the way of committing crime. The readiness with which property was got . . . was an encouragement” (Lefevre, Rowan, and Chadwick 27). In recounting the details of his crimes (and citing anecdotal evidence from fellow thieves), he pointed out that most houses were entered easily with the use of skeleton keys or through cellar windows, and that householders and servants practiced few if any serious security precautions (27–28). JR concluded that he did “not know of any places or kinds of property so protected as to induce depredators to refrain from attacking them” but added, no doubt with pressure from the interviewer, that the “most important obstruction which could be placed in the way of depredations is a more efficient police” (29).

Type
Work in Progress
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Altick, Richard. The Presence of the Present: Topics of the Day in the Victorian Novel. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1991.Google Scholar
Arnheim, Michael. The Handbook of Human Rights Law: An Accessible Approach to the Issues and Principles. Sterling: Kogan Page, 2005.Google Scholar
Berenger, Baron de. Helps and Hints How to Protect Life and Property: With Instructions in Rifle and Pistol Shooting, &c. London: T. Hurst, 1835.Google Scholar
Binny, John. “Thieves and Swindlers.” Mayhew 4: 273–392.Google Scholar
Briggs, Asa. Victorian Things. London: B. T. Batsford, 1988.Google Scholar
“The Burglary Season.” All the Year Round 3rd ser. 8 (5 Nov. 1892): 437–41.Google Scholar
Burke, Anthony. “Aporias of Security.” Alternatives 27 (2002): 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, Tony. “Spoiled Home Identities: The Experience of Burglary.” Ideal Homes?: Social Change and Domestic Life. Ed. Chapman, Tony and Hockey, Jenny. London: Routledge, 1999. 133–46.Google Scholar
Chase, Karen, and Levenson, Michael. The Spectacle of Intimacy: A Public Life for the Victorian Family. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000.Google Scholar
Christy, Miller. “Man-Traps and Spring-Guns.” Windsor Magazine 13 (May 1901): 695702.Google Scholar
Chubb, George Hayter. Protection from Fire and Thieves. London: Longmans, Green, 1875.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Charles Tempest, and Richardson, J. Hall. Police! London: Field and Tuer, 1889.Google Scholar
C. P. F. [Cobbe Frances Powers]. “The Terrors of the Suburbs.” Once a Week 2 (24 Nov. 1866): 573–74.Google Scholar
Cohen, Monica F.Professional Domesticity in the Victorian Novel: Women, Work and Home. New York: Cambridge UP, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Philip. Dickens and Crime. London: Macmillan, 1962.Google Scholar
Connor, Steven. Charles Dickens. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985.Google Scholar
Crawford, Adam. The Local Governance of Crime: Appeals to Community and Partnerships. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Crime and Its Repression.” Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 8 (4 May 1839): 174–76.Google Scholar
“Crimes and Criminals: No. II. – Burglars and Burgling.” Strand Magazine 7 (March 1894): 273–84.Google Scholar
Cross, Francis. Hints to All about to Rent, Buy, or Build House Property. 3rd ed.London: J. K. Starling, 1851.Google Scholar
Cruikshank, George. Stop, Thief; Or Hints to Housekeepers to Prevent Housebreaking. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1851.Google Scholar
Davidoff, Lenore, and Hall, Catherine. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.Google Scholar
“Diary for the Month of December.” London Magazine 3rd ser. 3 (Jan. 1829): 66–78.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. 1860–61. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles [unsigned]. “The Ruffian.” All the Year Round 20 (10 Oct. 1868): 421–24. Print.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles, and Wills, W. H. [unsigned]. “The Metropolitan Protectives.” Household Words 3 (5 April 1851): 97105.Google Scholar
Dupuis, Ann, and Thorns, David. “Gated Communities as Exemplars of ‘Forting Up’ Practices in a Risk Society.” Urban Policy and Research 26.2 (2008): 145–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England. Trans. Henderson, W. O. and Chaloner, W. H.. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1968.Google Scholar
“England in 1850! – Burglars Carousing.” Punch 19 (1850): 178.Google Scholar
Flanders, Judith. Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.Google Scholar
Gilling, Daniel. Crime Prevention: Theory, Policy and Politics. New York: Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar
Guernsey, A. H.Robbery as a Science.” Harper's New Monthly Magazine 26 (May 1863): 738–47.Google Scholar
“Hall-Doors, Past and Present.” Furniture Gazette 19 (13 Jan. 1883): 2022.Google Scholar
Hay, Helen Selina [unsigned]. “A Few Thoughts on Keys.” Cornhill Magazine 12 (Nov. 1865): 623–28.Google Scholar
Hill, Matthew Davenport. Suggestions for the Repression of Crime. London: Parker, 1857.Google Scholar
Holland, Henry W.[unsigned]. “The Science of Garotting and Housebreaking.” Cornhill Magazine 7 (Jan. 1863): 7992.Google Scholar
“The Homicide at Stepney.” London Review 10 (10 June 1865): 604–05.Google Scholar
“The House and the Home; or, Hints Towards a Grammar of Decorative Art.” Punch 69 (21 Aug. 1875): 6869.Google Scholar
“House-Breaking and Burglaries.” True Briton 1 (1 March 1851): 60.Google Scholar
Howard, Herbert. “Burglar Proof – and Otherwise: Seasonal Hints for Householders from a Reformed Burglar.” Harmsworth London Magazine 8 (July 1902): 587–91.Google Scholar
Joyce, Simon. Capital Offences: Geographies of Class and Crime in Victorian London. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2003.Google Scholar
Kerr, Robert. The Gentleman's House: Or, How to Plan English Residences, from the Parsonage to the Palace. 3rd ed.London: John Murray, 1871.Google Scholar
Langland, Elizabeth. Nobody's Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Lefevre, Charles Shaw, Rowan, Charles, and Chadwick, Edwin. First Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire as to the Best Means of Establishing an Efficient Constabulary Force in the Counties of England and Wales. Reports from Commissioners. 16 vols. London: HMSO, 1839. 6: 1225.Google Scholar
“Living in Boxes.” All the Year Round 3rd ser. 6 (14 Nov. 1891): 464–68.Google Scholar
Logan, Thad. The Victorian Parlour: A Cultural Study. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.Google Scholar
Lowman, John, Menzies, Robert, and Palys, T. S., eds. Transcarceration: Essays in the Sociology of Social Control. Aldershot: Gower, 1987.Google Scholar
Machray, Robert. “Are Burglars Baffled?Ludgate Monthly 5 (Dec. 1897): 197202.Google Scholar
“The Manchester Smoke Abatement Exhibition.” Sanitary Record 3 (15 April 1882): 424–25.Google Scholar
Marcus, Sharon. Apartment Stories: City and Home in Nineteenth-Century Paris and London. Berkeley: U of California P, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayhew, Edward. “Midnight Mishaps.” Bentley's Miscellany 2 (1837): 193206.Google Scholar
Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor. 1861–62. Ed. Rosenberg, John D.. 4 vols. New York: Dover, 1968.Google Scholar
Meason, M. Laing. “The London Police.” Macmillan's Magazine 46 (July 1882): 192202.Google Scholar
“Metropolitan Police.” Accounts and Papers. 13 vols. London: HMSO, 1830. 5: 121.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. 1859. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. 1861. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Sally. Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2004.Google Scholar
Monk, Eric. Keys: Their History and Collection. 2nd ed.Princes Risborough: Shire, 1999.Google Scholar
Neocleous, Mark. “Security, Liberty and the Myth of Balance: Towards a Critique of Security Politics.” Contemporary Political Theory 6 (2007): 131–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Notes on Books, etc.” Notes and Queries 3rd ser. 3 (10 Jan. 1863): 3940.Google Scholar
O'Block, Robert L., Donnermeyer, Joseph F., and Doeren, Stephen E.. Security and Crime Prevention. 2nd ed.Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1991.Google Scholar
O'Malley, Pat, and Hutchinson, Steven. “Reinventing Prevention: Why Did ‘Crime Prevention’ Develop So Late?British Journal of Criminology 47 (2007): 373–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“The One Subject.” London Magazine 3rd ser. 3 (April 1829): 305–27.Google Scholar
Philips, David. “Policing.” An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776–1832. Ed. McCalman, Iain. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 6673.Google Scholar
Platt, J. C. “Prison and Penitentiaries.” London. Ed. Knight, Charles. 6 vols. London, 1843. 5: 321–36. Print.Google Scholar
“The Police of London.” Quarterly Review 129 (July 1870): 4668.Google Scholar
“Police of the Metropolis.” Journal of the Statistical Society of London 1 (June 1839): 96103.Google Scholar
“The Police System of London.” Edinburgh Review 96 (July 1852): 133.Google Scholar
“Prevention Better than the Best Cure.” Punch 19 (1850): 192.Google Scholar
Price, George. A Treatise on Fire & Thief-Proof Depositories, and Locks and Keys. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1856.Google Scholar
Ruskin, John. Sesame and Lilies. 1865. Sesame and Lilies and Crown of Wild Olives. Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1891.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Max. Saunterings in and about London. Trans. Wenckstern, Otto. London: Nathaniel Cooke, 1853.Google Scholar
Sindall, Rob. “The London Garotting Panics of 1856 and 1862.” Social History 12.3 (1987): 351–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
South, Nigel. “Security and Surveillance of the Environment.” Lowman, Menzies, and Palys. 138–52.Google Scholar
Spitzer, Steven. “Security and Control in Capitalist Societies: The Fetishism of Security and the Secret Thereof.” Lowman, Menzies, and Palys. 43–58.Google Scholar
“State of Trade.” Times of London. 16 Oct. 1854: 5.Google Scholar
Steedman, Carolyn. Policing the Victorian Community: The Formation of English Provincial Police Forces, 1856–80. Boston: Routledge, 1984.Google Scholar
“Suburban Villas.” Building News 9 (31 Oct. 1862): 331.Google Scholar
Taylor, Howard. “Rationing Crime: The Political Economy of Criminal Statistics since the 1850s.” Economic History Review 51.3 (1998): 569–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Thieves v. Locks and Safes.” Strand Magazine 8 (Nov. 1894): 497506.Google Scholar
Thomas, William A. [unsigned]. “An Englishman's Castle.” Household Words 4 (27 Dec. 1851): 321–24.Google Scholar
Tildesley, James C. “Locks and Lock-Making.” The Resources, Products, and Industrial History of Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District: A Series of Reports Collected by the Local Industries Committee of the British Association at Birmingham. 1865. Ed. Timmins, Samuel. London: Cass, 1967.Google Scholar
Tomlins, Thomas Eldyne. The Law Dictionary, Explaining the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the British Law. Vol. 1. 4th ed.London: J. and W. T. Clarke, 1835.Google Scholar
Tuckniss, William. “The Agencies at Present within the Metropolis, for the Suppression of Vice and Crime.” Mayhew 4: xi-xl.Google Scholar
“The Villa Residence.” Lamp 24 (1883): 381–84.Google Scholar
Wade, John. A Treatise on the Police and Crimes of the Metropolis. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1829.Google Scholar
Wills, W. H. [unsigned]. “The Modern Science of Thief-Taking.” Household Words 1 (13 July 1850): 368–72.Google Scholar
Yates, Edmund, and Harrington, N. H.. A Night at Notting Hill. 1857. Rpt. in New York Drama: A Choice Collection of Tragedies, Comedies, Farces. Etc. 4 (1878): 281–85.Google Scholar