The criminal justice system in Britain has developed over centuries and the greatest changes took place during the Victorian era, with the establishment of professional police forces, the creation of large-scale prisons, and the introduction of new parliamentary Acts stipulating the nature of crimes and their sanctions.
What crimes were committed in Victorian Britain?
How did the British legal system change in Victorian times?
When was the British police force established?
What crimes were committed in Victorian Britain?
The Industrial Revolution led to thousands of migrant workers leaving the countryside for the towns and cities to seek employment in factories and mills. In Manchester, the world’s first industrialised city, the number of inhabitants increased from 76,788 in 1801 to 543,872 by 1901. By 1870, one in 86 people in the city had committed a crime, which was four times the rate in London.
There were no national crime figures for Great Britain available before 1805, but since 1810 the Government has released them every year. In 1834, the annual judicial statistics were reorganised into six classifications. In England and Wales in 1870, the highest recorded crime was simple larceny (theft without aggravating circumstances), for which 24,470 individuals were tried. There were also some separate theft-related offences on the list, such as stealing horses, cattle, sheep and children. Other common crimes were assault, fraud, burglary and forgery. The incidence of more serious offences was lower, such as murder, for which 101 cases were recorded for that year. In the Victorian period, individuals could also be prosecuted for acts that have since been decriminalised, such as attempting to commit suicide, procuring an abortion and homosexuality.
In the 19th century, crime was not confined to the cities, and rural communities had their fair share of illegal acts. Countryside offences included the theft of livestock, poaching and rioting. These crimes reflected the upheaval in the agricultural environment, where the introduction of machines reduced the ability of farm workers to find regular employment. This frequently led to unrest, theft and the destruction of property.
How did the British legal system change in Victorian times?
In the 18th and 19th centuries, those accused of breaking the law could be tried in three types of courts in England and Wales (Scotland has a different legal system): petty sessions, quarter sessions or assizes. These courts were in place until 1971, when the quarter sessions and the assizes were superseded by the crown courts. In the 18th century, the sanction for those convicted of a crime was defined by the ‘Bloody Code’. Introduced by the 1723 Black Act, so called because it responded to raids against landowners by poachers who blackened their faces, this was a series of statutes that imposed the death penalty for some 200 crimes, including minor thefts. However, in the early 1800s capital punishment was gradually repealed for most of these offences.
During the Victorian period, judicial sanctions varied. For minor offences, most convicts were sentenced to a fine or a short spell behind bars. In the 1840s, the smaller regional gaols and bridewells began to be replaced by large penitentiaries, modelled on Pentonville Prison which opened in London in 1842. The new prisons established harsh regimes including the ‘separate system’, which prevented the inmates from having any contact with each other. For more serious or repeat offences, individuals could be transported to the penal colonies.
Transportation had been used as a form of punishment in Britain since the 1600s and convicts were shipped to distant locations, such as the West Indies, America, Australia and Tasmania. They were often held on the infamous prison hulks before setting out on their perilous journey overseas. The 1857 Penal Servitude Act led to transportation being replaced by penal servitude, which combined imprisonment with hard labour. The last penal ship left British shores in 1867.
When was the British police force established?
In the 1820s, some communities began to implement professional police forces to protect their inhabitants and preserve the peace, such as Carlisle, Cumbria, where a police force was established in 1827 (although some Scottish forces date from the early 1800s). Prior to that, regional policing consisted of unpaid parish constables, and day and night watchmen. When home secretary Sir Robert Peel created the Metropolitan Police in 1829, it set the pattern for professional, paid policing. The 1835 Municipal Corporations Act established local government in the boroughs of England and Wales, and empowered the authorities to create a police force, which was managed by the council’s watch committee. County police forces were accountable to local magistrates. Two decades later the 1856 County and Borough Police Act required every town and city to form their own force. British national policing remained more or less unchanged until forces amalgamated into larger units during the 1960s and 1970s.
Although the primary objective of the new police forces was crime prevention, it was evident from the beginning that crime investigation was essential. During the earliest years of Victorian policing, individual uniformed officers were selected and promoted as detectives. One of the earliest borough detective departments was created in Manchester in 1839, and the iconic Scotland Yard officers of the Metropolitan Police were established in 1842. However, since prosecutions were carried out by detective police officers, who were managed by the local watch committee, patterns of conviction and punishment varied between jurisdictions.