Law and Order in London in the Late Nineteenth Century.

David Astarita

Law and order! What Law and Order?

In nineteenth century London it was very complex. There was so much crime around, especially in the East End. The conditions of London allowed criminals to act quickly because lighting was very very poor and it was pitch black in many streets. The industrial revolution made the population grow rapidly because people came from around the country looking for work. Workers also needed homes so it became crowded and with the extreme rise in the population came more crime. But why was there so much crime around? This is because of the industrial revolution. Many people who couldn’t get jobs turned to a life of crime to basically feed themselves. There were many different types of crimes but no really serious crimes. The main problem was that the metropolitan police at the time couldn’t handle it.

So, what types of crime existed in London in the late nineteenth century?

There were so many “Petty” crimes that it was almost unbelievable it was happening. There were three main categories of the types of crime around. The three were Property, Violent and Immoral. The types of crimes in these three categories are:

Property – This consisted of crimes like robbery and stealing. The police were very busy with these types of crimes because they were most frequent. Pickpockets were very common, just the simple theft of a wallet or purse. Another common theft was food. Because people were usually criminals because they needed food, instead of stealing the money to buy it they just stole the food instead which was better in some ways but not others.

Violent – This consisted of crimes such as fighting and crimes which generally someone got hurt in. There was never a day go by where a group of rowdy drunk people didn’t get into a fight which meant people got robbed/pick pocketed when they weren’t looking.

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Immoral – This consisted of crimes which were/are not right in some ways. The types of crime were cock fighting, baby farming and prostitution. Cock fighting was a very easy way of making a small amount of money and of course there weren’t much cruelty to animals' laws. Baby farming was the selling of babies who had been left by there parent/s at the young age. The “farmer” would then sell them for a small price to anyone who could pay for them. Prostitution at the time was NOT illegal and there were many women, and some men, out there doing it. They didn’t really have to be good looking and many of them didn’t care who they slept with as long as they were paid.

There weren’t only these three categories. There were also crimes such as begging and east end gangs. This was people’s lively hoods a way of surviving.

David Astarita

But what types of punishments were given out to the criminals of the late nineteenth century London?

Punishment, not one of the key words at the time for London and its Londoners. You could almost say there were Inconsistencies in punishment. Violent crime was hardly ever punished because it was poor on poor class situations which weren’t considered as important. They were not taken very seriously and they were getting out of control. The police considered property crime more important because the higher/richer classes were often the victims. The police were never highly thought of because of the nature that surrounded the police.

The metropolitan police of London are one of the oldest in the world but it never started out as well as it is now. In 1829 the Metropolitan Police of London were founded by the home secretary of the time Robert Peel. The common name for them at the time was the Peelers, named after the founder. The police were there to protect everyone but the poorer areas of London had little to no respect to them because the poor believed they were only there to keep them down. In the late nineteenth century, the Met Police had an expansion so more was expected of them.

After the expansion, the police went under a few changes in the methods of policing. The police were more concerned with preventing crime than solving it which meant crime was lower. One method the police used in trying to prevent crime was undercover policing which helped a lot more in the prevention of crimes because they could listen out for plans on crime. One major step in the prevention and solving of crime was the power of inspections e.g. checking pubs for illegal gambling and to inspect a suspect’s property. The police were like criminals in ways as they had contacts in the “underworld” otherwise known as spies.

Preventing crimes against property flew up near to the top of the list and police tried to slow and even stop the Irish terrorism that took place in the 1880’s and because of this the number of riots had decreased and a war against riots had been declared by the police.

However, there was a big decline in the reputation of the police. There were many instances of Police officers insulting women who didn’t matter much to men but women were outraged. Also it seemed that the police were more concerned with solving and preventing the crime in the West End instead of the East End. This lead to a lot of corruption, blackmail and bribery which took place within the police and because the police were a relatively new idea made people resent and felt like there was intrusion of their privacy.

But it wasn’t all bribery and bad reputation in the police. There were quite a few successes as well. The police by the early 1900 have seemed to be winning the war against crime and by 1900, a majority of the people of London accepted that a role of the police WAS to stop political riots if one ever arose and no-one else’s. One major improvement in the police was the amount of CID in 1868 when they only had 15 men but by 1884 there were over 800 men.

So the Law & Order in the late nineteenth century was poor but gradually got better. No-one at the time could care less about what the police were doing for them. They just saw them there as a novelty. Robert Peel’s Police force in London did what they could at the time and with no modern techniques they did what they could to keep Law & Order in London in the late nineteenth under control even if it was late after the crime had been committed.

David Astarita