...Victorian criminal records tell us that women also stole foodstuffs and fuel, and some men (or boys) resorted to prostitution. ...despite the promise offered by some of the sources Ager uses in ...this study-for example, the paupers' complaint book from Hoo Union in Kent, and those in the chapter on workhouse disobedience and rural protest-the approach taken and the research questions posed fail to account for the excellent work historians have done on recovering the agency of the poor.
During his tour of England in 1826, the German Prince Puckler-Muskau recorded in his diary the vast array of travelling showmen and their colourful entertainments that crowded the streets below his ...London lodgings. While he wrote that the barrel organs, in particular, proved ‘ insufferable’, one diversion caught his attention, the English puppet Punch. The Prince provided a long description of the macabre violence mixed with comedy in this puppet show, as Punch beat each opposing character to death with his stick, from his wife, to the doctor, constable, hangman and, finally, the Devil. He concluded that:
It is not
London 1800–1850 Rosalind Crone
Violent Victorians,
05/2016
Book Chapter
In his autobiography, which described a life encompassing several turbulent but momentous decades in metropolitan history, the famous Charing Cross tailor, Francis Place, reflected on the changes he ...had witnessed. In particular, Place sought to emphasise the difference between life in London during the eighteenth century, and life in the nineteenth, identifying 1820 as the key turning point. In sum, he wrote, ‘we are a much better people now than we were then, better instructed, more sincere and kind hearted, less gross and brutal, and have fewer of the concomitant vices of a less civilised state’.¹
Despite his obviously self-interested
Prologue Rosalind Crone
Violent Victorians,
05/2016
Book Chapter
In 1846 a new serial appeared in Edward Lloyd’s popular weekly magazine, the People’s Periodical and Family Library, under the slightly obscure title, ‘The String of Pearls’. Surrounded by other ...instalments of romantic fiction and short advisory articles on marriage and family matters, it is clear that Lloyd intended it to be read by working-and lower-middle-class men, women and children. The tale proved to be a hit with this audience. Not only was Lloyd encouraged by the profits to successfully republish ‘The String of Pearls’ as a penny novelette just three years later with the addition of several hundred pages,
Describing the range of items on sale at one of the largest Sunday markets in London, located on the border between the City and the East End, in 1850, Charles Manby Smith made reference to:
the ...species of literature which finds encouragement among the frequenters of the Sunday Market. Books we saw none, but good store of single sheets of all sizes, and varying in price from one halfpenny up to sixpence. All the Sunday newspapers are regularly placarded and sold; and in addition to them, there was all abundance of the blood-and-murder, ghost and goblin journals.
Smith captured an
Epilogue Rosalind Crone
Violent Victorians,
05/2016
Book Chapter
Identifying a turning point in history, a moment at which society became noticeably different, can be a relatively simple task. Explaining why that date holds significance, and accounting for the ...change that happened, is much more difficult. That is why this epilogue was long in the writing and went through many versions. Then in the first half of November 2010, a series of events occurred which encouraged me to think much more critically about the violent entertainments that feature in this book, in particular their function and legacy in British society.
At first, these events seemed rather trivial, as I
