Class, Servitude, and the Criminal Justice System in Early Victorian London

Class, Servitude, and the Criminal Justice System in Early Victorian London
Author: Allyson Nancy May
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2025
Genre: Capital Punishment
ISBN: 9781032771731

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"This volume draws on the recently discovered and extraordinarily rich scrapbook compiled by prosecuting solicitor Francis Hobler about the 1840 murder of Lord William Russell to consider public engagement with the issues raised from discovery of the murder itself through the ensuing legal processes. The murder of Russell by his valet François Benjamin Courvoisier was a cause célèbre in its own day by virtue of fact that the victim was a member of one of England's most prominent political families. For criminal justice historians, the significance of this case lies instead in its timing. In 1840, England had neither an official detective force to investigate the murder nor a public prosecutor to undertake the prosecution. Those accused of felony had only recently (1836) won the right to full legal representation, and the conduct of Courvoisier's defense was controversial. Reaction to Courvoisier's execution was also noteworthy, testifying to a new public unease with capital punishment. The subject of master and servant relations in early Victorian England is another key component of the book: previous studies have not considered the murderer's motivation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of criminal justice and law, Victorian England, and microhistory"--

Class, Servitude, and the Criminal Justice System in Early Victorian London

Class, Servitude, and the Criminal Justice System in Early Victorian London
Author: Allyson N. May
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2024-09-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040133673

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This volume draws on the recently discovered and extraordinarily rich scrapbook compiled by prosecuting solicitor Francis Hobler about the 1840 murder of Lord William Russell to consider public engagement with the issues raised from discovery of the murder itself through the ensuing legal processes. The murder of Russell by his valet François Benjamin Courvoisier was a cause célèbre in its own day by virtue of the fact that the victim was a member of one of England’s most prominent political families. For criminal justice historians, the significance of this case lies instead in its timing. In 1840, England had neither an official detective force to investigate the murder nor a public prosecutor to undertake the prosecution. Those accused of felony had only recently (1836) won the right to full legal representation, and the conduct of Courvoisier’s defence was controversial. Reaction to Courvoisier’s execution was also noteworthy, testifying to a new public unease with capital punishment. The subject of master and servant relations in early Victorian England is another key component of the book: previous studies have not considered the murderer’s motivation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of criminal justice and law, Victorian England, and microhistory.

Class, Servitude, and the Criminal Justice System in Early Victorian London

Class, Servitude, and the Criminal Justice System in Early Victorian London
Author: Allyson Nancy May
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-09-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781032771700

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This volume draws on the recently discovered and extraordinarily rich scrapbook compiled by prosecuting solicitor Francis Hobler about the 1840 murder of Lord William Russell to consider public engagement with the issues raised from discovery of the murder itself through the ensuing legal processes. The murder of Russell by his valet François Benjamin Courvoisier was a cause célèbre in its own day by virtue of fact that the victim was a member of one of England's most prominent political families. For criminal justice historians, the significance of this case lies instead in its timing. In 1840, England had neither an official detective force to investigate the murder nor a public prosecutor to undertake the prosecution. Those accused of felony had only recently (1836) won the right to full legal representation, and the conduct of Courvoisier's defense was controversial. Reaction to Courvoisier's execution was also noteworthy, testifying to a new public unease with capital punishment. The subject of master and servant relations in early Victorian England is another key component of the book: previous studies have not considered the murderer's motivation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of criminal justice and law, Victorian England, and microhistory.

Reconstructing the Criminal

Reconstructing the Criminal
Author: Martin J. Wiener
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 1990
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521478823

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An account of changing conceptions and treatments of criminality in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

Hooligans, Harlots, and Hangmen

Hooligans, Harlots, and Hangmen
Author: David Taylor
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2010-02-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

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This detailed study of the criminal justice system in Victorian Britain highlights the dilemmas facing those responsible for administering justice and protecting society from "the criminal." Encompassing the crimes of the never-identified Jack the Ripper, as well as many other equally intriguing criminals, Hooligans, Harlots, and Hangmen: Crime and Punishment in Victorian Britain is a detailed study of the criminal justice system as it evolved from the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the outbreak of the "Great War" in 1914. The first section of the book considers crimes and criminals, while the second looks at the ways in which the Victorians sought to explain this deviant behavior. The third section focuses on the creation of criminals through the work of the constabulary and the courts. The final section considers the changing ways in which criminals were punished as the scaffold gave way to the prison as the dominant means of punishment. A brief introduction and conclusion set Victorian crime into its broader sociopolitical context and relates the issues society grappled with then to those of the present day.

The Unwritten Law

The Unwritten Law
Author: Carolyn Conley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 257
Release: 1991
Genre: Criminal justice, Administration of
ISBN: 0195063384

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In the 1870s, a Kentish woman who had been repeatedly beaten by her lover retaliated by blinding him with sulphuric acid. The judge sentenced her to five years in prison. In contrast, a man who put out the eyes of a woman who left him was sentenced to only four months after telling the judge that he `was regularly drove to do it from her aggravation'. Making innovative use of court and police records, Carolyn Conley has written a lively account of criminal justice in Victorian England. She examines the gap between the formal laws and the unwritten law of the community, as well as the ways in which judges, juries, and police officers acted as mediators between the two. The book analyses the treatment of lawbreakers according to class, gender, and community status, and in so doing presents a vivid portrait of standards of propriety and justice at the time.

Combating London’s Criminal Class

Combating London’s Criminal Class
Author: Matthew Bach
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2020-07-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350156221

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The criminal class was seen as a violent, immoral and dissolute sub-section of Victorian London's population. Making their living through crime and openly hostile to society, the lives of these criminals were characterised by drunkenness, theft and brutality. This book explores whether this criminal class did indeed truly exist, and the effectivenessof measures brought against it. Tracing the notion of the criminal class from as early as the 16th century, this book questions whether this sub-section of society did indeed exist. Bach discusses how unease of London's notorious rookeries, the frenzy of media attention and a [word deleted here] panic among the general public enforced and encouraged the fear of the 'criminal class' and perpetuated state efforts of social control. Using the Habitual Criminals Bills, this book explores how and why this legislation was introduced to deal with repeat offenders, and assesses how successful its repressive measures were. Demonstrating how the Metropolitan Police Force and London's Magistrates were not always willing tools of the British state, this book uses court records and private correspondence to reveal how inconsistent and unsuccessful many of these measures and punishments were, and calls into question the notion that the state gained control over recidivists in this period.

Policing and Punishment in Nineteenth Century Britain

Policing and Punishment in Nineteenth Century Britain
Author: Victor Bailey
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2015-08-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317374894

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In the years between 1750 and 1868, English criminal justice underwent significant changes. The two most crucial developments were the gradual establishment of an organised, regular police, and the emergence of new secondary punishments, following the restriction in the scope of the death penalty. In place of an ill-paid parish constabulary, functioning largely through a system of rewards and common informers, professional police institutions were given the task of executing a speedy and systematic enforcement of the criminal law. In lieu of the severe and capriciously-administered capital laws, a penalty structure based on a proportionality between the gravity of crimes and the severity of punishments was erected as arguably a more effective deterrent of crime. This book, first published in 1981, examines the impact of these two important developments and casts new light on the way in which law enforcement evolved during the nineteenth century. This title will be of interest to students of history and criminology.

Crime and Society in England

Crime and Society in England
Author: Clive Emsley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317864492

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Acknowledged as one of the best introductions to the history of crime in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,Crime and Society in England 1750-1900 examines thedevelopments in policing, the courts, and the penal system as England became increasingly industrialised and urbanised. The book challenges the old but still influential idea that crime can be attributed to the behaviour of a criminal class and that changes in the criminal justice system were principally the work of far-sighted, humanitarian reformers. In this fourth edition of his now classic account, Professor Emsley draws on new research that has shifted the focus from class to gender, from property crime to violent crime and towards media constructions of offenders, while still maintaining a balance with influential early work in the area. Wide-ranging and accessible, the new edition examines: the value of criminal statistics the effect that contemporary ideas about class and gender had on perceptions of criminality changes in the patterns of crime developments in policing and the spread of summary punishment the increasing formality of the courts the growth of the prison as the principal form of punishment and debates about the decline in corporal and capital punishments Thoroughly updated throughout, the fourth edition also includes, for the first time, illuminating contemporary illustrations.

Men of Blood

Men of Blood
Author: Martin J. Wiener
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2004-01-12
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0521831989

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