Youth gangs, masculinity and violence in late Victorian Manchester and Salford

Journal of Social History

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 349-369

  Davies, Andrew ^a  

^a School of History   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0032325988     PISSN: 00224529     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jsh/32.2.349     Document Type: Review

References (128)

1. Stephen Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth 1889-1939 (Oxford, 1981); Geoffrey Pearson, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears (London, 1983).
2. Stephen Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth 1889-1939 (Oxford, 1981); Geoffrey Pearson, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears (London, 1983).
3. There are no British studies which compare with Frederic M. Thrasher, The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago (Chicago, 1927) or William F. Whyte, Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum (Chicago, 1943). For a critical overview of the historical development of the contrasting North American and British literatures on youth and crime, see Geoffrey Pearson, "Youth, Crime and Society," in Mike Maguire, Rod Morgan and Robert Reiner (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Oxford, 1994).
4. There are no British studies which compare with Frederic M. Thrasher, The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago (Chicago, 1927) or William F. Whyte, Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum (Chicago, 1943). For a critical overview of the historical development of the contrasting North American and British literatures on youth and crime, see Geoffrey Pearson, "Youth, Crime and Society," in Mike Maguire, Rod Morgan and Robert Reiner (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Oxford, 1994).
5. There are no British studies which compare with Frederic M. Thrasher, The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago (Chicago, 1927) or William F. Whyte, Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum (Chicago, 1943). For a critical overview of the historical development of the contrasting North American and British literatures on youth and crime, see Geoffrey Pearson, "Youth, Crime and Society," in Mike Maguire, Rod Morgan and Robert Reiner (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Oxford, 1994).
6. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? p. 179.
7. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? pp. 190-93.
8. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? pp. 193-8. Few historians would now endorse Humphries' claim that ethnic violence was a "misdirected expression" of class consciousness among white working-class youths.
9. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? pp. 179-80. Humphries turned his attention more directly to the issue of masculinity in a subsequent account of sexual behaviour among gang members. See his A Secret World of Sex. Forbidden Fruit: The British Experience 1900-1950 (London, 1988), ch. 6. In the case of the late Victorian youth gang, sexual behaviour is extremely difficult to assess given the paucity of the available sources.
10. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? pp. 179-80. Humphries turned his attention more directly to the issue of masculinity in a subsequent account of sexual behaviour among gang members. See his A Secret World of Sex. Forbidden Fruit: The British Experience 1900-1950 (London, 1988), ch. 6. In the case of the late Victorian youth gang, sexual behaviour is extremely difficult to assess given the paucity of the available sources.
11. For a recent assessment of notions of "hardness", see Paul Willis, Common Culture: Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of the Young (Milton Keynes, 1990), p. 103-9.
12. For an insightful discussion of peer recognition as a component of the transition to manhood, see John Tosh, "What Should Historians do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-century Britain," History Workshop Journal 38 (1994): 184.
13. For Humphries' treatment of these themes, see Secret World of Sex, pp. 147-8.
14. Gary Armstrong, "False Leeds: The Construction of Hooligan Confrontations," in John Williams and Richard Giulianotti (eds), Games Without Frontiers: Football, Identity and Modernity (Aldershot, 1994), p. 301. My analysis of gang conflicts as contests over honour has been strongly influenced by this pioneering work on football hooliganism.
15. I have discussed the issue of broader working-class attitudes towards scuttling gangs in a separate paper, as yet unpublished, entitled "A Carnival of Knives and Belts: Youth Gangs and Street Violence in Late Victorian Salford."
16. Andrew Davies, "'These Viragoes are No Less Cruel than the Lads': Young Women, Gangs and Violence in late Victorian Manchester and Salford," British Journal of Criminology (forthcoming).
17. Rob Sindall, Street Violence in the Nineteenth Century: Media Panic or Real Danger? (Leicester, 1990).
18. The one-dimensional nature of police court news reporting was highlighted by Andrew Barrett, "Newspapers as a Source for the History of Crime," paper presented to the Historians of Crime, Policing and Punishment in the North West group, November 1994.
19. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? p. 176.
20. Manchester's municipal boundaries were significantly extended during the late nineteenth century. Bradford was incorporated in 1885, and Openshaw and West Gorton in 1890. See Alan Kidd, Manchester (Keele, 1993), p. 154.
21. Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898.
22. Alan J. Kidd, "'Outcast Manchester': Voluntary Charity, Poor Relief and the Casual Poor 1860-1905," in Alan J. Kidd and K.W. Roberts (eds), City, Class and Culture: Studies of Social Policy and Cultural Production in Victorian Manchester (Manchester, 1985), pp. 51, 68.
23. See the comments of the Mayor of Manchester to the Home Secretary Manchester Guardian 13 December 1890. Neither of the principal commentators on scuttling featured ethnicity or sectarianism in their accounts of the conflicts. See Devine, Scuttlers and Scuttling and Charles E. B. Russell, Manchester Boys: Sketches of Manchester Lads at Work and Play (Manchester, 1905). Only in the first reports of scuttling in the Manchester press, following disturbances in the Rochdale Road district of Manchester during the autumn of 1871, were the conflicts characterised in terms of sectarian violence. See the Manchester Courier, 25 October 1871. Sectarianism appears to have been rapidly superseded by territorial rivalries as gang conflicts spread across the conurbation by the mid-1870s.
24. See the comments of the Mayor of Manchester to the Home Secretary Manchester Guardian 13 December 1890. Neither of the principal commentators on scuttling featured ethnicity or sectarianism in their accounts of the conflicts. See Devine, Scuttlers and Scuttling and Charles E. B. Russell, Manchester Boys: Sketches of Manchester Lads at Work and Play (Manchester, 1905). Only in the first reports of scuttling in the Manchester press, following disturbances in the Rochdale Road district of Manchester during the autumn of 1871, were the conflicts characterised in terms of sectarian violence. See the Manchester Courier, 25 October 1871. Sectarianism appears to have been rapidly superseded by territorial rivalries as gang conflicts spread across the conurbation by the mid-1870s.
25. See the comments of the Mayor of Manchester to the Home Secretary Manchester Guardian 13 December 1890. Neither of the principal commentators on scuttling featured ethnicity or sectarianism in their accounts of the conflicts. See Devine, Scuttlers and Scuttling and Charles E. B. Russell, Manchester Boys: Sketches of Manchester Lads at Work and Play (Manchester, 1905). Only in the first reports of scuttling in the Manchester press, following disturbances in the Rochdale Road district of Manchester during the autumn of 1871, were the conflicts characterised in terms of sectarian violence. See the Manchester Courier, 25 October 1871. Sectarianism appears to have been rapidly superseded by territorial rivalries as gang conflicts spread across the conurbation by the mid-1870s.
26. Steven Fielding, "A Separate Culture? Irish Catholics in Working-class Manchester and Salford, c. 1890-1939," in Andrew Davies and Steven Fielding (eds), Workers' Worlds: Cultures and Communities in Manchester and Salford, 1880-1939 (Manchester, 1992), pp. 26-8, 36-7.
27. See the insistent comments of local stipendiary magistrates to the Home Secretary, Manchester Guardian, 13 December 1890. I have profiled the occupational and family backgrounds of the members of Salford's Hope Street gang in "A Carnival of Knives and Belts" (forthcoming).
28. See the insistent comments of local stipendiary magistrates to the Home Secretary, Manchester Guardian, 13 December 1890. I have profiled the occupational and family backgrounds of the members of Salford's Hope Street gang in "A Carnival of Knives and Belts" (forthcoming).
29. Keith McClelland, "Masculinity and the 'Representative Artisan' in Britain, 1850-80," in Michael Roper and John Tosh (eds), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (London, 1991), p. 81.
30. Fielding, "A Separate Culture?", pp. 28-9, 37.
31. The most heavily-publicised fatality occurred in the Ancoats district of Manchester in May 1892. See the Manchester Guardian, 12 May 1892.
32. See the account of a series of cases involving the Salford scuttler John Joseph Hillyar, below.
33. Devine, Scuttlers and Scuttling, pp. 2-3. For an account of an affray in which a Salford youth suffered a fractured skull, see the Solford Chronicle, 10 February 1894.
34. Devine, Scuttlers and Scuttling, pp. 2-3. For an account of an affray in which a Salford youth suffered a fractured skull, see the Solford Chronicle, 10 February 1894.
35. James Bent, Criminal Life: Reminiscences of Forty-Two Years as a Police Officer (Manchester, 1891), p. 225.
36. On the youthful dedication to fashion in Manchester's working-class districts, see the colourful descriptions in local magazines such as The Shadow, 20 March 1869 and The City Lantern, 6 August 1875.
37. On the youthful dedication to fashion in Manchester's working-class districts, see the colourful descriptions in local magazines such as The Shadow, 20 March 1869 and The City Lantern, 6 August 1875.
38. Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898, Russell, Manchester Boys, p. 51. I am grateful to David Taylor of Manchester Central Reference Library for the first of these references.
39. Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898, Russell, Manchester Boys, p. 51. I am grateful to David Taylor of Manchester Central Reference Library for the first of these references.
40. Devine, Scuttlers and Scuttling, p. 5.
41. Four Salford scuttlers, members of "Buffalo Bill's Gang", were convicted following an affray in January 1890, Salford Chronicle, 25 January, 1 February 1890.
42. The notion of multiple masculinities is beginning to be developed across a range of social science disciplines. For a wide-ranging critical survey, see R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Cambridge, 1995). For a discussion of the contrasting lifestyles of family" men and "hard" men in working-class districts in the early twentieth century, see Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham, 1992).
43. The notion of multiple masculinities is beginning to be developed across a range of social science disciplines. For a wide-ranging critical survey, see R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Cambridge, 1995). For a discussion of the contrasting lifestyles of family" men and "hard" men in working-class districts in the early twentieth century, see Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham, 1992).
44. Paul Thompson highlighted the range of violence both suffered and witnessed by the children of two poor Salford families at the close of the nineteenth century in his "Voices from Within," in H. J. Dyos and Michael Wolff (eds), The Victorian City: Images and Realities, vol. I (London, 1976), pp. 73-9. See also Michael J. Childs, Labour's Apprentices: Working-Class Lads in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (London, 1992), pp. 106-9.
45. Paul Thompson highlighted the range of violence both suffered and witnessed by the children of two poor Salford families at the close of the nineteenth century in his "Voices from Within," in H. J. Dyos and Michael Wolff (eds), The Victorian City: Images and Realities, vol. I (London, 1976), pp. 73-9. See also Michael J. Childs, Labour's Apprentices: Working-Class Lads in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (London, 1992), pp. 106-9.
46. Roberts, Classic Slum, pp. 28-9.
47. Ellen Ross, "Fierce Questions and Taunts: Married Life in Working-Class London, 1870-1914," Feminist Studies 8, 2 (1982).
48. Robert Roberts, A Ragged Schooling: Growing up in the Classic Slum (Manchester, 1976), p. 118.
49. Salford Weekly Chronicle, 30 May 1885.
50. Salford Weekly Chronicle, 3 September 1887.
51. See the case of Michael Green and John McGratton, Salford Weekly News, 12 June 1875.
52. Henry Hill, The Story of Adelphi: Sixty Years' History of the Adelphi Lads' Club (Salford, 1949), p. 121.
53. Childs, Labour's Apprentices, p. 107.
54. Thompson, "Voices from Within," pp. 74-6. I have retained the pseudonym 'Doyle' used by Thompson. The term "flag floors" is used here to denote bare stone floors.
55. Joe Toole, Fighting through Life (London, 1935), pp. 5-6.
56. Bart Kennedy, Slavery: Pictures from the Depths (London, 1905), pp. 138-46. For an account of the frequent and public fights between youths in Greengate in Salford, see the Sphinx, 19 June 1869.
57. Bart Kennedy, Slavery: Pictures from the Depths (London, 1905), pp. 138-46. For an account of the frequent and public fights between youths in Greengate in Salford, see the Sphinx, 19 June 1869.
58. County Telephone, 25 May 1889; Manchester Guardian, 30 May 1889.
59. County Telephone, 25 May 1889; Manchester Guardian, 30 May 1889.
60. See, for example, the case of William Choularton, Salford Reporter, 13 January 1894.
61. P.O. Register, 8 July 1890, case no. 18; Salford Chronicle, 12 July 1890.
62. Salford Chronicle, 22 May 1897.
63. Salford Reporter, 8 February 1890.
64. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels, p. 208. See also Barbara Weinberger, "L'Anatomie de l'Antagonisme Racial et de la Violence Urbaine: Les Bandes à Birmingham dans les Années 1870," Déviance et Société 15, 4 (1991): 417.
65. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels, p. 208. See also Barbara Weinberger, "L'Anatomie de l'Antagonisme Racial et de la Violence Urbaine: Les Bandes à Birmingham dans les Années 1870," Déviance et Société 15, 4 (1991): 417.
66. P.O. Register, 21 January 1889, case no. 11; Salford Weekly Chronicle, 26 January 1889.
67. Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898.
68. Manchester Guardian, 24 June 1892.
69. Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898.
70. Russell, Manchester Boys, pp. 52-3.
71. Manchester Guardian, 13 December 1890, 5 February 1898.
72. Manchester Courier, 7 June 1890.
73. The feud between the two gangs is explored in depth in Davies, "Carnival of Knives and Belts."
74. Manchester Courier, 22 October 1889; Manchester Guardian, 23 October 1889.
75. Manchester Courier, 22 October 1889; Manchester Guardian, 23 October 1889.
76. Devine, Scuttlers and Scuttling p. 3.
77. Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898.
78. Manchester Guardian, 12 May 1892.
79. Russell, Manchester Boys, p. 52.
80. Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898; Salford Reporter, 3 June 1899.
81. Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898; Salford Reporter, 3 June 1899.
82. Salford Chronicle, 30 January, 13, 27 February 1897; Salford Reporter, 30 January 1897.
83. Salford Chronicle, 30 January, 13, 27 February 1897; Salford Reporter, 30 January 1897.
84. Charles E. B. Russell and Lilian M. Rigby, Working Lads' Clubs (London, 1908), p. 12; Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898.
85. Charles E. B. Russell and Lilian M. Rigby, Working Lads' Clubs (London, 1908), p. 12; Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1898.
86. Devine, Scuttlers and Scuttling, p. 3.
87. Salford Weekly News, 1 April 1882; Salford Chronicle, 10 June 1893.
88. Salford Weekly News, 1 April 1882; Salford Chronicle, 10 June 1893.
89. Salford Weekly News, 26 May 1877; Salford Chronicle, 20 June 1891.
90. Salford Weekly News, 26 May 1877; Salford Chronicle, 20 June 1891.
91. See, for example, the case of John Devaney, Manchester Guardian, 31 October 1890.
92. Toole, Fighting through Life, p. 48. Providence Street, Salford was labelled the "She Battery" by locals, on account of the prostitutes who worked from the street, drawing the majority of their clients from a nearby barracks.
93. For two from a series of such cases, see the Salford Weekly News, 15 March 1879 and 21 August 1880.
94. The 1891 census recorded the family as living at 29 Woden Street. I have taken the spelling of Hillyar from the census entry. The local press generally used the alternative of Hillier.
95. Salford Chronicle, 18 November 1893.
96. P.O. Register, 4 June 1889, case no. 11.
97. P.O. Register, 7 November 1889, case no. 3; County Telephone, 9 November 1889; Salford Chronicle, 9 November 1889.
98. P.O. Register, 7 November 1889, case no. 3; County Telephone, 9 November 1889; Salford Chronicle, 9 November 1889.
99. Manchester Guardian, 5, 13, 20 May, 13 June 1891; Salford Reporter, 9 May 1891.
100. Manchester Guardian, 5, 13, 20 May, 13 June 1891; Salford Reporter, 9 May 1891.
101. Manchester Guardian, 28 August, 1 September 1891. The "Cass" was the popular name for the Casino music-hall, previously known as the People's Concert Hall. One of Manchester's most popular music-halls, the audiences were notoriously "rough". See Toole, Fighting through Life, p. 2.
102. Manchester Guardian, 28 August, 1 September 1891. The "Cass" was the popular name for the Casino music-hall, previously known as the People's Concert Hall. One of Manchester's most popular music-halls, the audiences were notoriously "rough". See Toole, Fighting through Life, p. 2.
103. Salford Chronicle, 18 November 1893.
104. Salford Reporter, 13 January 1894.
105. Salford Reporter, 21, 28 July 1894; Salford Chronicle, 1 September 1894.
106. Salford Reporter, 21, 28 July 1894; Salford Chronicle, 1 September 1894.
107. Salford Reporter, 2 March 1895.
108. Salford Reporter, 2 March 1895.
109. For examples of Hillyar's pleas of self-defence, see the reports of his court appearances in the Manchester Guardian, 28 August, 1 September 1891; Salford Reporter, 13 January 1894; Salford Reporter, 2 March 1895.
110. For examples of Hillyar's pleas of self-defence, see the reports of his court appearances in the Manchester Guardian, 28 August, 1 September 1891; Salford Reporter, 13 January 1894; Salford Reporter, 2 March 1895.
111. For examples of Hillyar's pleas of self-defence, see the reports of his court appearances in the Manchester Guardian, 28 August, 1 September 1891; Salford Reporter, 13 January 1894; Salford Reporter, 2 March 1895.
112. Salford Reporter, 2 March 1895.
113. Salford Reporter, 13 January 1894.
114. Manchester Guardian, 13 June 1891.
115. For example, in a case reported in the Manchester Evening News, 9 May 1892, Hillyar alleged that he had been stabbed as he was leaving a ragged school in Deansgate, by a youth named William Wood, who was sentenced to a month's imprisonment.
116. "Family Life and Work Experience" interviews, Qualidata Archive, University of Essex, tape no. 90. I am grateful to Professor Thompson for his permission to consult this tape. The pseudonym "Collier" was used by Paul Thompson in "Voices from Within," pp. 77-9.
117. Ibid. I have re-transcribed this extract, which was originally cited in Thompson, "Voices from Within," p. 78. I am grateful to Dave Moore for alerting me to this reference.
118. Salford Chronicle, 29 July, 5 August 1899; Salford Reporter, 29 July, 5 August 1899.
119. Salford Chronicle, 29 July, 5 August 1899; Salford Reporter, 29 July, 5 August 1899.
120. Salford Reporter, 13 January 1894. Further thanks are due to Dave Moore for this reference.
121. For reports of cases in which John Joseph Hillyar brought prosecutions against rival scuttlers, see the Manchester Evening News, 9 May 1892; Salford Reporter, 21, 28 July 1894; Salford Chronicle, 1 September 1894.
122. For reports of cases in which John Joseph Hillyar brought prosecutions against rival scuttlers, see the Manchester Evening News, 9 May 1892; Salford Reporter, 21, 28 July 1894; Salford Chronicle, 1 September 1894.
123. For reports of cases in which John Joseph Hillyar brought prosecutions against rival scuttlers, see the Manchester Evening News, 9 May 1892; Salford Reporter, 21, 28 July 1894; Salford Chronicle, 1 September 1894.
124. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? p. 208.
125. Davies, "Young Women, Gangs and Violence."
126. The same question has vexed anthropologists studying football hooligan gangs in modern Britain. See Armstrong, "False Leeds", p. 321, and his "Like that Desmond Morris?" in Dick Hobbs and Tim May (eds), Interpreting the Field: Accounts of Ethnography (Oxford, 1993), p. 37.
127. The same question has vexed anthropologists studying football hooligan gangs in modern Britain. See Armstrong, "False Leeds", p. 321, and his "Like that Desmond Morris?" in Dick Hobbs and Tim May (eds), Interpreting the Field: Accounts of Ethnography (Oxford, 1993), p. 37.
128. See the portrayal of "Mr Carey", the father of a childhood friend, by Robert Roberts, Ragged Schooling, pp. 75, 79, 102, 119.