Irregular marriages: Unorthodox working-class domestic life in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester, 1900-1939

Journal of Family History

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 210-229

  Klein, Joanne ^a  

^a BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Affair; Cohabitation; Marriage; Police; Separation; Working class

Indexed keywords

EID: 16244369470     PISSN: 03631990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0363199004270049     Document Type: Article

References (106)

1. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992); John R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984); Ellen Ross, "'Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep': Respectability in Pre-World War I London Neighborhoods," International Labor and Working Class History 27 (Spring 1985): 39-59; and Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighborhood Sharing in London Before World War I," History Workshop 15 (Spring 1983): 4-27.
2. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992); John R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984); Ellen Ross, "'Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep': Respectability in Pre-World War I London Neighborhoods," International Labor and Working Class History 27 (Spring 1985): 39-59; and Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighborhood Sharing in London Before World War I," History Workshop 15 (Spring 1983): 4-27.
3. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992); John R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984); Ellen Ross, "'Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep': Respectability in Pre-World War I London Neighborhoods," International Labor and Working Class History 27 (Spring 1985): 39-59; and Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighborhood Sharing in London Before World War I," History Workshop 15 (Spring 1983): 4-27.
4. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992); John R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984); Ellen Ross, "'Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep': Respectability in Pre-World War I London Neighborhoods," International Labor and Working Class History 27 (Spring 1985): 39-59; and Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighborhood Sharing in London Before World War I," History Workshop 15 (Spring 1983): 4-27.
5. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992); John R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984); Ellen Ross, "'Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep': Respectability in Pre-World War I London Neighborhoods," International Labor and Working Class History 27 (Spring 1985): 39-59; and Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighborhood Sharing in London Before World War I," History Workshop 15 (Spring 1983): 4-27.
6. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992); John R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984); Ellen Ross, "'Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep': Respectability in Pre-World War I London Neighborhoods," International Labor and Working Class History 27 (Spring 1985): 39-59; and Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighborhood Sharing in London Before World War I," History Workshop 15 (Spring 1983): 4-27.
7. Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992); John R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984); Ellen Ross, "'Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep': Respectability in Pre-World War I London Neighborhoods," International Labor and Working Class History 27 (Spring 1985): 39-59; and Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's Neighborhood Sharing in London Before World War I," History Workshop 15 (Spring 1983): 4-27.
8. Gillis, For Better, For Worse, 258-59.
9. See Ginger Frost, "Bigamy and Cohabitation in Victorian England," Journal of Family History 22, no. 3 (1997): 286-306; and Ginger Frost, "As Husband and Wife: Cohabitation in Nineteenth Century England" (manuscript n.d.).
10. See Ginger Frost, "Bigamy and Cohabitation in Victorian England," Journal of Family History 22, no. 3 (1997): 286-306; and Ginger Frost, "As Husband and Wife: Cohabitation in Nineteenth Century England" (manuscript n.d.).
11. Only one case of bigamy appeared in police files, which will be discussed below.
12. Andrew Davies found a similar working-class resistance to attempts to impose social control in "Leisure in the 'Classic Slum' 1900-1939," in Workers' Worlds: Cultures and Communities in Manchester and Salford, 1880-1939, ed. Andrew Davies and Steven Fielding (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 102-32.
13. Watch Committees were the legal authorities that dealt with police conditions of service in borough forces such as Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. On disciplinary matters, they generally followed the recommendations of chief constables.
14. Birmingham had a reputation for autocratic chief constables but was otherwise fairly average.
15. For examples of the variable nature of working-class respectability, see Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, 72; and Ross, "Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep," 45.
16. For examples of the variable nature of working-class respectability, see Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, 72; and Ross, "Not the Sort that Would Sit on the Doorstep," 45.
17. See A. James Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Married Life (London: Routledge, 1992), x-xi, for a chronology of family legislation and key case laws; and Phillips, Putting Asunder, 525-528, for a brief history of English divorce laws, and p. 607, for inability of most women to afford divorce until 1949. Only one divorce was mentioned in police records. More police divorces most likely existed but did not appear in the records if no problems with the divorce ensued.
18. See A. James Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Married Life (London: Routledge, 1992), x-xi, for a chronology of family legislation and key case laws; and Phillips, Putting Asunder, 525-528, for a brief history of English divorce laws, and p. 607, for inability of most women to afford divorce until 1949. Only one divorce was mentioned in police records. More police divorces most likely existed but did not appear in the records if no problems with the divorce ensued.
19. Gillis, For Better, For Worse, 251-52; and Pat Ayers and Jan Lambertz, "Marriage Relations, Money, and Domestic Violence in Working-Class Liverpool, 1919-1939," in Labour and Love: Women's Experiences of Home and Family 1850-1940, ed. Jane Lewis (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 194-219.
20. Gillis, For Better, For Worse, 251-52; and Pat Ayers and Jan Lambertz, "Marriage Relations, Money, and Domestic Violence in Working-Class Liverpool, 1919-1939," in Labour and Love: Women's Experiences of Home and Family 1850-1940, ed. Jane Lewis (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 194-219.
21. Liverpool Watch Committee Minutes, Liverpool City Local History Library and Archives (hereafter, LWCM), December 8, 1925, 606-7. The Watch Committee must have considered her to be a worthy woman since they awarded her her husband's pension deductions of nearly thirty pounds. They were under no obligation to do so since her husband had been forced to resign from the police. Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 114, cited a similar case of a "court's sympathy for the wife, who had supported herself in the face of her husband's unmanly failure to provide." See Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, 49, for examples of good and bad husbands.
22. Liverpool Watch Committee Minutes, Liverpool City Local History Library and Archives (hereafter, LWCM), December 8, 1925, 606-7. The Watch Committee must have considered her to be a worthy woman since they awarded her her husband's pension deductions of nearly thirty pounds. They were under no obligation to do so since her husband had been forced to resign from the police. Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 114, cited a similar case of a "court's sympathy for the wife, who had supported herself in the face of her husband's unmanly failure to provide." See Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, 49, for examples of good and bad husbands.
23. Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 36-41; and Phillips, Putting Asunder, 496-97.
24. Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 36-41; and Phillips, Putting Asunder, 496-97.
25. Liverpool City Police Head Constable to Watch Committee Reports, Liverpool City Local History Library and Archives (hereafter, LHCWC), November 16, 1903, 6-7; LWCM, January 4, 1904, 472. The Watch Committee decided to pay half of Williamson's pension directly to his wife, more than the usual third awarded to wives, even though she had left him. See Roberts, A Woman's Place, 120-21; and Melanie Tebbutt, Women's Talk? A Social History of "Gossip" in Working-Class Neighborhoods, 1880-1960 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997), 129, for similar cases.
26. Liverpool City Police Head Constable to Watch Committee Reports, Liverpool City Local History Library and Archives (hereafter, LHCWC), November 16, 1903, 6-7; LWCM, January 4, 1904, 472. The Watch Committee decided to pay half of Williamson's pension directly to his wife, more than the usual third awarded to wives, even though she had left him. See Roberts, A Woman's Place, 120-21; and Melanie Tebbutt, Women's Talk? A Social History of "Gossip" in Working-Class Neighborhoods, 1880-1960 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997), 129, for similar cases.
27. Liverpool City Police Head Constable to Watch Committee Reports, Liverpool City Local History Library and Archives (hereafter, LHCWC), November 16, 1903, 6-7; LWCM, January 4, 1904, 472. The Watch Committee decided to pay half of Williamson's pension directly to his wife, more than the usual third awarded to wives, even though she had left him. See Roberts, A Woman's Place, 120-21; and Melanie Tebbutt, Women's Talk? A Social History of "Gossip" in Working-Class Neighborhoods, 1880-1960 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997), 129, for similar cases.
28. LWCM, November 11, 1915, 601; January 11, 1916, 82. Francis Bainbridge's drinking and violence were so appalling that Mrs. Bainbridge convinced the Liverpool watch committee to pay her fifteen shillings to help her move out (LWCM, May 10, 1927, 454.)
29. Manchester Watch Committee Minutes, Greater Manchester Police Museum (hereafter, MWCM), September 12, 1930; November 27, 1930, no. 28, vol. 144. He complained of this but his letter of complaint was left to "lie on the table." He had been discharged after twenty-three years of service as medically unfit, though records did not mention if this included mental illness.
30. Liverpool City Police Chief Constable's Disciplinary Reports, Merseyside Police Headquarters (hereafter, LCCDR), October 10, 1929, PSH 118 Wright.
31. Manchester City Police Personnel Files, Greater Manchester Police Museum (hereafter, MPF), September 1937, PCF 91 James Higgens, appt. May 1920.
32. Tebbutt, Women's Talk? 133.
33. LWCM, September 8, 1925, 496. The Walls were most likely in their fifties. The Watch Committee arranged to pay a third of Wall's pension directly to his abandoned wife.
34. One-night stands and similar incidents of simple sexual gratification are excluded from consideration in this article.
35. Roberts. A Woman's Place, 115.
36. MWCM, May 20, 1909, vol. 43, no. 167, PCC 167 Timothy Braddock, twenty-five years' service, seven defaults, last in 1894. He was not dismissed presumably because of his long record and instead was reduced to the lowest class, amounting to a drop in weekly pay of 7/4d. He had been paying the woman 7/- a week to support his children by her. Since he had a family with his wife as well, the punishment meant that he could no longer afford to support two families.
37. Gillis, A World of Their Own, 32-33.
38. See Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, for the separation of genders in working-class social and work life.
39. MWCM, January 28, 1929, no. 1, vol. 130. Rodgers was dismissed in spite of his sixteen years of service with only one default. The chief constable "caused observations to be taken of the dwelling house," which resulted in Rodgers being caught by two officers with his boots off but otherwise clothed.
40. LCCDR, February 1, 1928, PCH 264 Tandy, complainant Supt Gill, no action taken for four months to see if gossip resulted and if Tandy behaved; finally cautioned.
41. Gillis, For Better, For Worse, 302-4; and Judith Walkowitz, "Jack the Ripper and the Myth of Male Violence," Feminist Studies 8, no. 3 (1982): 543-74.
42. Gillis, For Better, For Worse, 302-4; and Judith Walkowitz, "Jack the Ripper and the Myth of Male Violence," Feminist Studies 8, no. 3 (1982): 543-74.
43. Liverpool City Police Daily Report Books, Merseyside Police Headquarters (hereafter, LDRB), February 10, 1911, PCC 288 Piltam, two years service. Piltam had to resign because affair became known. PCE 194 Fawcett carried on with a married woman in the absence of her husband until one of her neighbors reported him. He was warned to keep away from the woman in future (LCCDR, June 18, 1932, cautioned, complainant Mrs. E. Everden, Rockhouse, Haslingden Lane).
44. LDRB, March 18, 1913, PCC 136 Cleall, four years, resigned.
45. LWCM, July 24, 1917, 574-75. Frederick Hines was less forgiving of his wife, "since he had divorced his wife in 1920 for misconduct while he had been abroad with the military during the war and his mother had received custody of the children." He was killed in an accident in January 1921. He was the only divorced officer mentioned in police records (MWCM, April 14, 1921, no. 102, vol. 86).
46. LCCDR, February 5, 1934, PCF 225 Stokes. The chief constable decided that "the only thing possible at the moment is to await further developments."
47. Typical examples include Thomas Gardiner: "Behaving in a manner unbecoming a Police Officer and paying addresses to a single woman to whom he falsely represented himself as a single man. To Resign Forthwith" (Manchester City Police General Orders, Greater Manchester Police Museum [hereafter, MGO], March 31, 1911); and William Symms: "Acting in a manner likely to bring discredit upon the reputation of the Force, viz:- posing as a widower and keeping company with a single woman, he being a married man. Dismissed" (MGO, December 20, 1929).
48. Typical examples include Thomas Gardiner: "Behaving in a manner unbecoming a Police Officer and paying addresses to a single woman to whom he falsely represented himself as a single man. To Resign Forthwith" (Manchester City Police General Orders, Greater Manchester Police Museum [hereafter, MGO], March 31, 1911); and William Symms: "Acting in a manner likely to bring discredit upon the reputation of the Force, viz:- posing as a widower and keeping company with a single woman, he being a married man. Dismissed" (MGO, December 20, 1929).
49. Birmingham City Police Disciplinary Report Book, West Midlands Police Authority (hereafter, BDRB), December 5, 1923, PCE 35 Henry Charles Cole; Birmingham City Police Orders, West Midlands Police Authority (hereafter, BPO), December 5, 1923, 7141, dismissed.
50. LCCDR, February 9, 1924, PCF 119 Bolam, resigned prior to hearing.
51. MPF, September 15, 1934, PCB 107 William Sumner, appointed November 1924, reduced in class for a year. The letter writer could have been his wife or a neighbor attempting to warn the girl.
52. Birmingham Watch Committee Minutes, Birmingham City Library (hereafter, BWCM), October 5, 1927, 1, report no. 8.
53. The Maintenance of Wives (Desertion) Act, 1886, set support at no more than two pounds per week for wives and ten shillings per week for each child. This was not changed until 1949 (Phillips, Putting Asunder, 606).
54. MPF, November 5, 1931, PSB George Norman Lloyd, appointed August 1919.
55. Gillis, For Better, For Worse, 236, 303.
56. LCCDR, October 18, 1929, PCH 457 Williams.
57. LHCWC, August 14, 1905, 264; April 17, 1905, 110.
58. LWCM, June 16, 1925, 379.
59. LWCM, April 28, 1925, 311-12; October 13, 1925, 551.
60. LWCM, October 10, 1905, 513; November 20, 1905, 571; January 8, 1906, 685-86; LHCWC, October 16, 1905, 352; November 20, 1905, 395; January 8, 1906, 472.
61. LHCWC, April 27, 1903, 306.
62. LWCM, April 26, 1909, 35-36; August 22, 1910, 640.
63. LCCDR, September 15, 1922, PCH 392 Price, cpt. Mrs. V. Price.
64. BWCM, April 1, 1925, 4, report no. 2; December 1929, 3-4, report no. 4.
65. LCCDR, November 27, 1933, PCE 129 Pirie, appointed 1926; LDRB, February 13, 1934.
66. LCCDR, February 6, 1933, PCC 226 Faulker, cautioned and forfeited amount of rent underpaid.
67. Ellen Ross found that most working-class people were married or in long-term cohabiting relationships (Ross, "Survival Networks," 6).
68. LCCDR, October 8, 1923, 14-15: PCG 168 Wolf, resigned prior to the hearing.
69. LCCDR, November 13, 1923, PCG 119 Barker: "Not proceeded with but the unmarried couple cannot be allowed to lodge with him."
70. "Referring to the General Order dated the 29th instant, the attention of the Superintendents is called to that paragraph making provision for men who are married to produce their marriage certificates. A recent case proved that there has been considerable laxity in the Divisions on this subject, in as much as a man was living with a woman other than his wife. Having regard to the fact that rent allowance is made and that a higher rate of bonus is payable to married men, it is most essential that an accurate record should be preserved not only at Divisional Stations, but at Headquarters, of all married men" (MGO, January 31, 1921). The Birmingham Police kept lists of marriage certificates in books but no doubt had problems with accurate records as well.
71. LDRB, March 24, 1912, PCE 212 Pahn, three years: "Live in a state of adultery Cohabits with a married woman separated from her husband at No. 1 Nansen Grove for several months past. Recommended for dismissal. Confirmed."
72. LCCDR, March 7, 1921, PCA 245 Bygrave, resigned.
73. MWCM, May 1904, vol. 24, no. 78. The legal wife apparently was still alive, but what happened to her or how the authorities became aware of her were not mentioned.
74. See Tebbutt, Women's Talk? 68, 78, for the use of gossip to punish members of neighborhoods.
75. LDRB, November 24, 1905, PCB 196 Waldron, fifteen years' service, two defaults, reduced to probationary class, resigned.
76. MWCM, October 24, 1912, no. 100, vol. 56. The married constable was reduced two classes.
77. LCCDR, October 13, 1921, PCC 83 McKeown; LDRB, October 18, 1921, PCC 83 McKeown, four years' service, fined two pounds.
78. See Joanna Bourke, Working-Class Cultures in Britain 1890-1960: Gender, Class and Ethnicity (London: Routledge, 1994), 143, for the ability of working-class families to distance themselves from neighbors to avoid gossip and interference.
79. Gillis, For Better, For Worse, 251-52, 303.
80. Birmingham City Police Roster Books, West Midlands Police Authority (hereafter, BRB), March 21, 1923, PCG 97 Neil, complainant Mrs. Annie Neil. Mr. Neil resigned in May.
81. MPF, July 11, 1924, PCD 83 Byrne.
82. Chief constables would try to reconcile couples if possible, similar to the judges discussed by Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 40.
83. BRB, PCA 23 George Horton, joined November 8, 1900, entries January 21, 1918, July 22, 1918, June 23, 1919; BPO, June 22, 1919, 848.
84. LCCDR, January 18, 1938, PCC 116 Smith.
85. LWCM, April 26, 1909, 35-36; August 22, 1910, 640.
86. LCCDR, September 24, 1937, PCG 76 Hanley: "Further information may come to hand & if so it should be reported."
87. LCCDR, December 6, 1928, 76, PCF 146 Kitchen, resigned voluntarily.
88. Birmingham City Police Orderly Room Book, West Midlands Police Authority (hereafter, BOR), July 10, 1937, PCC 47 Rufus Joseph Haywood, twenty-five years, eight months' service; forty-five years old; admitted. Also Birmingham City Police Defaulter's Books, West Midlands Police Authority (hereafter, BDB), June 30, 1937, PCC 47 Rufus Joseph Haywood, joined October 1911. "Cautioned that any immoral association with Mrs. Walker whilst he is in the Police service will be severely dealt with." Also LCCDR, April 5, 1933, PCH 193 Byrne, complainant Mrs. Byrne (wife): "That he associated in a discreditable manner with Miss Lilian Peters, 14 Inigo Rd. Admitted 28.3.33. Con Resigned. No charge framed."
89. Birmingham City Police Orderly Room Book, West Midlands Police Authority (hereafter, BOR), July 10, 1937, PCC 47 Rufus Joseph Haywood, twenty-five years, eight months' service; forty-five years old; admitted. Also Birmingham City Police Defaulter's Books, West Midlands Police Authority (hereafter, BDB), June 30, 1937, PCC 47 Rufus Joseph Haywood, joined October 1911. "Cautioned that any immoral association with Mrs. Walker whilst he is in the Police service will be severely dealt with." Also LCCDR, April 5, 1933, PCH 193 Byrne, complainant Mrs. Byrne (wife): "That he associated in a discreditable manner with Miss Lilian Peters, 14 Inigo Rd. Admitted 28.3.33. Con Resigned. No charge framed."
90. LCCDR, October 10, 1929, PSH 118 Wright.
91. LCCDR, June 8, 1922, PCB 198 McKeown.
92. LCCDR, May 31, 1937, PCG 192 Jones.
93. Frost, As Husband and Wife, chap. 4.
94. Birmingham Minutes of the Judicial Sub-Committee, West Midlands Police Authority (hereafter, BJSC), June 30, 1919, 49; BRB, August 26, 1919, PCD 207 William Hudson, joined June 1913; BWCM, August 26, 1919, 118; BPO, August 27, 1919, 1068. The fourteen-day sentence for bigamy conforms to the pattern that Frost found of particularly light sentences for women. (Frost, As Husband and Wife, chap. 4).
95. LCCDR, February 14, 1921, PCB 218 White, probationary period extended six months.
96. LCCDR, July 26, 1927, PCF 127 Batterham.
97. LCCDR, November 30, 1929, PCA 341 Bowe.
98. LCCDR, October 10, 1929, PSH 118 Wright.
99. Higgens joined the Manchester City Police in 1920 when recruits had to be younger than thirty years old and were usually at least twenty years old. So by 1927, he could have been anywhere from twenty-seven to thirty-six years old.
100. Carl Chinn, They Worked All Their Lives: Women of the Urban Poor in England, 1880-1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 23.
101. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making, 73.
102. Tebbutt, Women's Talk? 108.
103. Ayers and Lambertz, "Marriage Relations," 201. See Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 84, for a husband making similar excuses for his own misconduct. Catherine Hall interviewed a woman who defined domestic happiness in words very similar to Higgens in "Married Women at Home in the 1920s and 1930s," Oral History 5, no. 2 (1977): 62-83.
104. Ayers and Lambertz, "Marriage Relations," 201. See Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 84, for a husband making similar excuses for his own misconduct. Catherine Hall interviewed a woman who defined domestic happiness in words very similar to Higgens in "Married Women at Home in the 1920s and 1930s," Oral History 5, no. 2 (1977): 62-83.
105. Ayers and Lambertz, "Marriage Relations," 201. See Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 84, for a husband making similar excuses for his own misconduct. Catherine Hall interviewed a woman who defined domestic happiness in words very similar to Higgens in "Married Women at Home in the 1920s and 1930s," Oral History 5, no. 2 (1977): 62-83.
106. All information on this case came from MPF, September 1937, PCF 91 James Higgens, appointed May 1920.