Why they stole: Women in the old Bailey, 1779-1789

Journal of Social History

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 622-639

  MacKay, Lynn ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0033098211     PISSN: 00224529     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jsh/32.3.623     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. John Beattie, "'Hard Pressed to Make Ends Meet': Women and Crime in Augustan London," Women and History, Valerie Firth, ed. (Toronto, 1995), p. 106.
2. Garthine Walker, "Women, theft and the world of stolen goods," Women, Crime and the Courts, Garthine Walker and Jenny Kermode, ed. (Chapel Hill, 1994), p. 99.
3. For a discussion of the reformers of this period, see Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain (New York, 1978), Ch. 3, pp. 44-79.
4. T.S. Ashton, Economic Fluctuations in England 1700-1800 (Oxford, 1959), pp. 162-169.
5. Ashton, p.24.
6. L.D. Schwarz, "The Standard of Living in the Long Run: London 1700-1860," Economic History Review, Second Series, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1 (February 1985): 31.
7. Old Bailey Sessions Papers, British Library, PP 349a 30, 1779-1789.
8. So when I refer to 1780, for instance, I am including the December 1779 session through to that held in October 1780 - the last in the legal year.
9. John Langbein, "Shaping the Eighteenth-Century Criminal Trial: A View from the Ryder Sources," University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Winter 1983): 14. The squibs as a percentage of total male theft cases for the decade are as follows: 1780, 14.7%; 1781, 27.6%; 1782, 32,3%; 1783, 37.4%; 1784, 46.1%; 1785, 36.3%; 1786, 38.1%; 1787, 44.8%; 1788, 44.7% and 1789, 34.7%. For women the respective figures are 18.3%, 26.3%, 28.1%, 34.2%, 51.4%, 40.1%, 44.2%, 44.2%, 50.9% and 31.6%.
10. A potentially serious problem arises from the squibs. If they target one group disproportionately - women who stole items of low value, for instance - then the analysis of this paper would obviously be distorted. It is necessary, then, to identify the defendants whose cases were not fully reported. In examining the squibs over the course of the decade, it is apparent that no one group was being disproportionately targetted. If these ten years are averaged, the squibs account for 37.9 per cent of male thieves and 37 per cent of female. There was considerable variance within the decade, but only in two years did the difference between male and female squibs reach six per cent: in 1786 when females were more numerous, and in 1788 when the converse was true. Moreover, an analysis of the squibs in 1780, 1782, 1784, 1786 and 1788 indicates that most of these cases were minor. A little less than three-quarters of them involved the theft of goods valued at 40s. or less, a pattern which was a little more pronounced than that for all thieves in this decade. As will be seen below, two-thirds of those accused of theft in the 1780s stole goods valued at 40s. or less. Once again, there was almost no difference between male and female squib patterns: 71.4 per cent of male squibs stole goods valued at 40s. or less, while 71.2 per cent of female counterparts did so. The squibs, then, do not significantly distort the analysis of theft in the 1780s.
11. Recording practices changed beginning in 1782. Where previously each individual had been assigned a separate case number (even if several people were named on one indictment), in 1782 case numbers began to be assigned to the indictment rather than to the individuals involved. Thus, if several people were named in one charge, from 1782 onward they were usually all assigned the same number. Given this situation, either the charges or the individuals named in them can be counted throughout the decade. Since I am primarily interested in the behaviour of men and women, I've opted for the latter. Individuals up on the same charge often offered different defences and I wished to attend to this. The figures have not been corrected for repeat offenders since they aren't always identified in the yearly indices or in the cases themselves. Much of the time they are identified, but not always.
12. See Walker, pp.83-87.
13. One way in which females in the 1780s differed from those in Walker's study was their greater propensity when acting in collusion with others, to act with males. In the 1780s, females accused of theft were more than twice as likely to act in consort with males than were the latter to act with women. The percentages, however, were small - three per cent for males and 7.1 per cent for females - which would support Walker's overall claim that males and females rarely acted with members of the opposite sex.
14. In considering the value of the items stolen by males and females, there is an immediate problem. The valuations contained in the lists of items taken are sometimes missing or incomplete. For instance, for 2.4 per cent of the males and 0.4 per cent of the females during the decade no value was given for the items stolen. The value of the goods may also have been deliberately underestimated since a number of charges became capital once goods of a certain value were stolen. No doubt there was also a lot of guesswork in trying to put a value on various small household items or on industrial bits and bobs. In spite of these difficulties, John Beattie has convincingly argued that without claiming great accuracy for these valuations, they do nevertheless indicate "in an approximate way the general levels of prosecuted theft" (See John Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England [Princeton, 1986] p. 183). I am, in any case, less concerned with the precise real value of the goods stolen than with a comparison of male and female patterns.
15. Walker also found this to be the case, although in her study she considered only grand larceny and burglary.
16. Walker, p.89.
17. For a discussion of the second-hand clothing market, see Beverley Lemire, "Consumerism in Pre-industrial and Early Industrial England: the Trade in Secondhand Clothes," Journal of British Studies, Vol. 27 (January 1988): 1-24.
18. Cynthia Herrup has discussed the defences offered by those accused in the seventeenth century in The Common Peace (Cambridge, 1987), pp.147-148. The tripartite scheme she developed (claims that the goods had been legitimately obtained, that they had been found and that the defendant knew nothing of them) is too broad for my purposes.
19. Before discussing motivation, however, there is a caveat to be considered. The men and women and girls and boys who were accused of theft had a lot to lose - in some cases their lives - should the court believe the prosecutor's version of events. Obviously, the defence statements were tailored to present the accused in the most positive light. This being so, they cannot simply be taken at face value - virtually no one admitted to being a professional thief, for instance, though clearly some were. Nevertheless, it was necessary that defence statements be plausible, that they contain at least some truth when reinterpreting events. It was also necessary that they offer explanations which reflected the realities and rhythms of London plebeian life. The actions described in the statements had to seem to be likely behaviour. So while their strategic purpose must be borne in mind, the statements do give a general picture of the most plausible justifications on offer.
20. See, for instance, OBSP, December 1782, Case 5, William Smith.
21. See, for instance, OBSP, December 1781, Case 7, Mary Carpenter; or January 1788, Case 119, Jane Williams. Claims of pregnancy could also be used to postpone capital punishment.
22. See, for instance, OBSP, September 1780, Case 479, Mary Collins; or February 1783, Case 298, Ann Webb; or again, September 1784, Case 854, Sarah Hull.
23. For the years 1780, 1782, 1784, 1786 and 1788 respectively the percentage of male servants accused of theft who knew their prosecutor was as follows: 53.7%, 60%, 55%, 51.2% and 53.9%. For female servants the corresponding percentages were 47.9%, 55%, 37%, 35.9% and 55.1%.
24. See Peter Earle, A City Full of People (London, 1994) for an extended discussion of this for London in the period 1650 to 1750. Little had changed thirty years later as an examination of the defamation cases from 1780 to 1820 reveals. See also the Consistory Court Depositions, Greater London Record Office, 1780-1820.
25. That is, the pawning was mentioned in passing while some other reason was cited as the main cause of the apparent theft.
26. This claim is based on a close reading of the cases in which the accused gave defence statements for the five years from 1780 to 1784. The cases making up the percentages include those where either the accused or a witness indicated that the goods had been pawned with permission, or that they had been loaned in order to be pawned, or that the accused had intended to redeem them, or finally, that the accused had pawned the goods in order to settle an outstanding debt (usually wages which the prosecutor had failed to pay). The actual percentages of women in 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783 and 1784 respectively were as follows: 19.2%, 16.4%, 12%, 10.6% and 15.1%. For men, they were 2.1%, 1.3%, 2.5%, 2% and 2.5%.
27. Ruth Smith and Deborah Valenze, "Mutuality and Marginality: Liberal Moral Theory and Working-Class Women in Nineteenth-Century England," Signs, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1988); 277-298.
28. Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighbourhood Sharing in London Before World War One," History Workshop Journal, No. 15 (Spring, 1983): 4-27, and Love and Toil (New York, 1993). The makeshifts Ross describes were also common in the late eighteenth century. Indeed, it may be that the establishment of borrowing networks in the face of economic uncertainty, is a fairly standard response. Certainly, Carol Stack has shown that similar behaviour (if on a somewhat more extended basis) existed among Afro-American women whom she studied in All Our Kin (New York, 1974), pp.32-44. My thanks to John Markoff for alerting me to this reference.
29. Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighbourhood Sharing in London Before World War One," History Workshop Journal, No. 15 (Spring, 1983): 4-27, and Love and Toil (New York, 1993). The makeshifts Ross describes were also common in the late eighteenth century. Indeed, it may be that the establishment of borrowing networks in the face of economic uncertainty, is a fairly standard response. Certainly, Carol Stack has shown that similar behaviour (if on a somewhat more extended basis) existed among Afro-American women whom she studied in All Our Kin (New York, 1974), pp.32-44. My thanks to John Markoff for alerting me to this reference.
30. Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighbourhood Sharing in London Before World War One," History Workshop Journal, No. 15 (Spring, 1983): 4-27, and Love and Toil (New York, 1993). The makeshifts Ross describes were also common in the late eighteenth century. Indeed, it may be that the establishment of borrowing networks in the face of economic uncertainty, is a fairly standard response. Certainly, Carol Stack has shown that similar behaviour (if on a somewhat more extended basis) existed among Afro-American women whom she studied in All Our Kin (New York, 1974), pp.32-44. My thanks to John Markoff for alerting me to this reference.
31. See Pat Hudson and Lynette Hunter, ed. "The Autobiography of William Hart, Cooper, 1776-1857, A Respectable Artisan in the Industrial Revolution," London Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1981), Part 1, Also see Mary Thale, ed., Autobiography of Francis Place (Cambridge, 1972).
32. See Pat Hudson and Lynette Hunter, ed. "The Autobiography of William Hart, Cooper, 1776-1857, A Respectable Artisan in the Industrial Revolution," London Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1981), Part 1, Also see Mary Thale, ed., Autobiography of Francis Place (Cambridge, 1972).
33. OBSP, February 1780, Case 127, Ann Friend and June 1780, Case 341, Ann Powell.
34. OBSP, September 1782, Case 516, Sarah Skettles.
35. OBSP, January 1784, Case 155, Martha Ray.
36. OBSP, January 1781, Case 104, Ann Braidy.
37. OBSP, September 1782, Case 504, Margaret Rowe.
38. OBSP, September 1785, Case 761, Elizabeth Bland.
39. OBSP, February 1782, Case 276, Ann Mitchell.
40. OBSP, September 1787, Case 859, Elizabeth Gosling.
41. OBSP, December 1785, Case 112, Elizabeth Cooper.
42. OBSP, January 1788, Case 119, Jane Williams.
43. Melanie Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet (New York, 1983), Ch. 2, pp.37-67. Tebbutt's findings for the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also held for the late eighteenth century. See my dissertation "Myths of Power: the Knowing of Poverty in London, 1790-1815" (York University, 1991).
44. Melanie Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet (New York, 1983), Ch. 2, pp.37-67. Tebbutt's findings for the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also held for the late eighteenth century. See my dissertation "Myths of Power: the Knowing of Poverty in London, 1790-1815" (York University, 1991).
45. OBSP, May 1781, Case 336, Mary Robinson.
46. OBSP, June 1785, Case 705, Catherine Knock.
47. OBSP, April 1780, Case 179, Ann Wood.
48. OBSP, April 1781, Case 198, Mary Williams.
49. OBSP, December 1782, Case 67, Susanna Kelly.
50. OBSP, September 1781, Case 565, Elizabeth Green.
51. OBSP, June 1785, Case 642, Jane Curtey.
52. OBSP, January 1781, Case 10, Elizabeth Jones.
53. OBSP, April 1781, Case 204, Mary Hughes.
54. Hans Medick, "Plebeian Culture in the Transition to Capitalism," Culture, Ideology and Politics, Raphael Samuel and Gareth Stedman Jones, ed. (London, 1982), p.92.
55. The question, of course, is what the increase actually measures - whether the figures represent an actual increase in appropriation, that is, instances of theft (and whether this is simply a reflection of population growth), or whether the figures measure changes in what has often been called 'control' - the behaviour of authorities. It is unclear that this question can ever be definitively answered; certainly it cannot on the basis of the OBSP material. It may be that the increase measures a combination of these various factors. Douglas Hay has shown in "War, Dearth and Theft in the Eighteenth Century: the Record of the English Courts," Past and Present, No. 95, (May 1982), that, as contemporaries believed, after every war in the eighteenth century the amounts of theft did increase dramatically, thus delineating a clear relationship between historical eventuation and indictment levels. The economic problems of the 1780s also make it very probable that the increase does more or less reflect actual appropriations. On the other hand, it is difficult not to believe that faced with continually increasing numbers of charges (whatever their prime cause), the authorities and prosecutors did not act more stringently.
56. John Beattie, "The Criminality of Women in Eighteenth-Century England," Journal of Social History, Vol. VIII (Summer 1975): 102-103. A shorter discussion of the same issue is to be found in his Crime and the Courts in England, pp.242-243.
57. John Beattie, "The Criminality of Women in Eighteenth-Century England," Journal of Social History, Vol. VIII (Summer 1975): 102-103. A shorter discussion of the same issue is to be found in his Crime and the Courts in England, pp.242-243.
58. See my dissertation, "Myths of Power: the Knowing of Poverty in London, 1790-1815," and my article, "A Culture of Poverty? The St. Martin in the Fields Workhouse, 1817," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. XXVI, No. 2 (Autumn, 1995).
59. Between 1800 and 1803 Matthew Martin interviewed 2,000 mendicants, of whom 90 per cent were women. Matthew Martin, Letter to the Rt. Hon. Lord Pelham on the State of Mendicity in the Metropolis (London, 1803). The Society also investigated begging letters, some 85 of which are to be found in the papers of the second Earl Spencer from the years 1825 and 1826. Of these, 56 or 65.9 per cent were from women. British Library, Manuscripts Room, Althorp Papers, G 141 and G 145.