The London Mob

The London Mob PDF Author: Robert Brink Shoemaker
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9781852853730
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

Book Description
A portrait of London violence in the eighteenth century describes the economic, political, and religious conflicts that resulted in pervasive levels of crime and conflict, citing the role of everyday citizens in keeping the peace and meting out mob justice.

The London Mob

The London Mob PDF Author: Robert Shoemaker
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826433626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410

Book Description
By 1700 London was the largest city in the world, with over 500,000 inhabitants. Very weakly policed, its streets saw regular outbreaks of rioting by a mob easily stirred by economic grievances, politics or religion. If the mob vented its anger more often on property than people, eighteenth-century Londoners frequently came to blows over personal disputes. In a society where men and women were quick to defend their honour, slanging matches easily turned to fisticuffs and slights on honour were avenged in duels. In this world, where the detection and prosecution of crime was the part of the business of the citizen, punishment, whether by the pillory, whipping at a cart's tail or hanging at Tyburn, was public and endorsed by crowds. The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England draws a fascinating portrait of the public life of the modern world's first great city.

The London Mob. Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England

The London Mob. Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 393

Book Description


Gender and Petty Violence in London, 1680-1720

Gender and Petty Violence in London, 1680-1720 PDF Author: Jennine Hurl-Eamon
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 0814209874
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
Looking at a heretofore overlooked set of archival records of London in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Hurl-Eamon reassesses the impact of gender on petty crime and its prosecution during the period. This book offers a new approach to the growing body of work on the history of violence in past societies. By focusing upon low-cost prosecutions in minor courts, Hurl-Eamon uncovers thousands of assaults on the streets of early modern London. Previous histories stressing the masculine nature of past violence are questioned here: women perpetrated one-third of all assaults. In looking at more mundane altercations rather than the homicidal attacks studied in previous histories, the book investigates violence as a physical language, with some forms that were subject to gender constraints, but many of which were available to both men and women. Quantitative analyses of various circumstances surrounding the assaults--including initial causes, weapons used, and injuries sustained--outline the patterns of violence as a language. Hurl-Eamon also stresses the importance of focusing on the prosecutorial voice. In bringing the court's attention to petty attacks, thousands of early modern men and women should be seen as agents rather than victims. This view is especially interesting in the context of domestic violence, where hundreds of wives and servants prosecuted patriarchs for assault, and in the Mohock Scare of 1712, where London's populace rose up in opposition to aristocratic violence. The discussion is informed by a detailed knowledge of assault laws and the rules governing justices of the peace.

Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London

Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London PDF Author: Tim Hitchcock
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 185285281X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Book Description
London in the eighteenth century was the greatest city in the world. It was a magnet that drew men and women from the rest of England in huge numbers. For a few the streets were paved with gold, but for the majority it was a harsh world with little guarantee of money or food. For the poor and destitute, London's streets offered little more than the barest living. Yet men, women and children found a great variety of ways to eke out their existence, sweeping roads, selling matches, singing ballads and performing all sorts of menial labor. Many of these activities, apart from the direct begging of the disabled, depended on an appeal to charity, but one often mixed with threats and promises. Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London provides a remarkable insight into the lives of Londoners, for all of whom the demands of charity and begging were part of their everyday world.

Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century England

Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century England PDF Author: Frank McLynn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136093168
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
McLynn provides the first comprehensive view of crime and its consequences in the eighteenth century: why was England notorious for violence? Why did the death penalty prove no deterrent? Was it a crude means of redistributing wealth?

The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Eighteenth Century, 1688-1820

The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Eighteenth Century, 1688-1820 PDF Author: Jeremy Gregory
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415378826
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

Book Description
"Brings together in a single volume chonological, statistical, tabular and bibliographical information covering all the major aspects of eighteenth-century British history from the 'Glorious' Revolution of 1688-89 to the death of George III - the 'long' eighteenth century"--Back cover.

Print Culture, Crime and Justice in 18th-Century London

Print Culture, Crime and Justice in 18th-Century London PDF Author: Richard M. Ward
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472507118
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
In the first half of the 18th century there was an explosion in the volume and variety of crime literature published in London. This was a 'golden age of writing about crime', when the older genres of criminal biographies, social policy pamphlets and 'last-dying speeches' were joined by a raft of new publications, including newspapers, periodicals, graphic prints, the Old Bailey Proceedings and the Ordinary's Account of malefactors executed at Tyburn. By the early 18th century propertied Londoners read a wider array of printed texts and images about criminal offenders – highwaymen, housebreakers, murderers, pickpockets and the like – than ever before or since. Print Culture, Crime and Justice in 18th-Century London provides the first detailed study of crime reporting across this range of publications to explore the influence of print upon contemporary perceptions of crime and upon the making of the law and its administration in the metropolis. This historical perspective helps us to rethink the relationship between media, the public sphere and criminal justice policy in the present.

Gender and Policing in Early Modern England

Gender and Policing in Early Modern England PDF Author: Jonah Miller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009305182
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Book Description
This book traces the beginnings of a shift from one model of gendered power to another. Over the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, traditional practices of local government by heads of household began to be undermined by new legal ideas about what it meant to hold office. In London, this enabled the emergence of a new kind of officeholding and a new kind of policing, rooted in a fraternal culture of official masculinity. London officers arrested, searched, and sometimes assaulted people on the basis of gendered suspicions, especially poorer women. Gender and Policing in Early Modern England describes how a recognisable form of gendered policing emerged from practices of local government by patriarchs and addresses wider questions about the relationship between gender and the state.

Embodying the Militia in Georgian England

Embodying the Militia in Georgian England PDF Author: Matthew McCormack
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198703643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
The militia was a key institution in Georgian England, and arguably one that was very characteristic of its age. A 'militia' is an informal military organisation made up of part-time civilians rather than professionals. As an island, Britain had historically relied on forces of this type for home defence, but threats of a French invasion during the Seven Years War (1756-63) highlighted that the militia had fallen into disrepair and prompted calls for its revival. In this important new study, Matthew McCormack re-examines the debates on the militia, and argues that this military reform was informed and driven by concerns about politics, nationalism, and gender. The militia tells us a great deal about the political culture of the eighteenth century, which was suspicious of professional armies and executive power, and which placed great emphasis on the liberties and masculine attributes of the ordinary citizen. Its advocates even suggested that mass military service would prompt a reinvigoration of English masculinity. The Militia Act passed into law in 1757. From this date until the New Militia's slow demise after the Napoleonic Wars, Embodying the Militia in Georgian England considers civilian men's experience of military service. How was the militia 'embodied' - both in the contemporary sense of assembling for service, and also as a gendered bodily experience? Chapters explore questions such as physical training, masculine honour, material culture, self-identity, and citizenship. As such, the volume's interdisciplinary approaches offer new perspectives on the history of war.