drjwbaker/Hitchcock & Shoemaker, London Lives: Crime, Poverty and the Making of the Metropolis

## Hitchcock & Shoemaker, London Lives: Crime, Poverty and the Making of the Metropolis
Bob and Tim, 'London Lives: Crime, Poverty and the Making of the Metropolis'

Work based on ten years of research, building of digital archive for analysis of plebiean lives.

Transformations...
Increase in beaucracy around the law
Increase in sense of need for procedure around criminal justice proceedings
Poor relief increased 8 fold (even accounting of popn increase and inflation)

Change in policing, justice, poor relief shaped by those whose used it:
- plebian Londoners forced the pace of change, not the elites who saw no need for change (and who saw helping the 'feckless' poor as wasteful'

1) settlement
2) escapes and mutinites
3) defendant and distrust of CJS, leading in turn to rise of modern adversarial system
4) role of opposition to workhouses to transforming parochial care

1)
By accident post 1688, 1692 act made the existence of a settlement the norm rather than an exception.
Settlement certificates become a documentation of idetity, new identity of belonging established.
To understand growth in poor relief, new beaucracy of belonging offered a powerful new theatre to claim relief.

2)
prisoners frequently demonstrated the limitations of imprisonment as punishment: security problems
- hence lack of adaption of increase during the 18th century
Implication that escapes could be arranged on request from places such as Newgate.
So when MPs chose to use imprisonment as punishment they chose Houses of Correctuons as venues.
But... escapes.
1713 last year into the mid-century: poor buildings, relatively open access.
1776: crowding in prisons awaiting transportation, hulks act, ++ escape attempts.
Transportation (even when there was nowhere to take them...) tended to be favoured to the hulks.
But those unfit, should be kept in confinement with labour. Soooo, a penitentiary:
1779 Penitentiary Act a direct response to the failure of the Hulks.
Gordon Riots amounted to a whole scale rejection of imprisonment.
Consequential transportation to Australia and hanging not what the poor wanted.
But their rejection of imprisonment kept the elites searching for new ways to punish.

3)
Council
Why did so many defendants choose to hire counsel such that by 1790s it was the norm?
Not the judges responsible for this change, their marginalisation within the courtroom.
Role of users of the courts (plebian) in changing this: demand driven by defendents.
Defence leads the change, prosecution always catching up in terms of numbers.
Worry over panics (and associated rewards) lead to those accused to seek counsel.
Eg 1780s: defendents had a motivation to get 'lawyered up'
- demob, nowhere to transport to, Gordon riots > led to harsher punishment
How did they find the money to pay the fees?
Decisions taken by defendants led to the lawyerisation of the trial

4)
Workhouse mixed the good and the bad.
Pushed the honest (registered - see 1) poor into the same places as criminals in the 1720s/30s.
Pauper demand and agency involved in shifting institutions into something new.
Campaign against the very idea of the workshouse: cruelty of the workhouse degrading the poor.
Move to help for the sick, the elderly, children ... everyone except the able-bodied the legislation was designed to discipline.
From mid-century plebians began to use written language to engage with authority, the system:
- mix of tactics that came to be associated with the 19th century pauper letter.
Knew the system. Played on their position as a householder. Played on system of settlement. Often got the relief they sought.
Third quarter of 18th century saw a dramatic increase in payments for poor relief.
Outcome of new strategies and demands to work the system.

Conclusion...
Elites, justices, rich, powerful, priviledged had their say.
But so did the poor.
Most archives written by the elites.
Most history written from their perspective.
This research sought to look at small change brought about by ordinary people.


QA

[Penny] Binary here: poor vs elites... what about all the stuff in the middle?
[A] Binary implied but not our approach.
We define plebiean Londoners as those who touch the CJS and apply for relief; by their relationship to authority.
Not a class analysis.

[Amanda] Who is paying for this massive increase in poor law expenditure?
And how did this change the relationship between payers and receivers?
[A] It did. Local/parish politics tense.
Relationship between system and need, and how that drove change.

[Adam] Settlement (or not): based on economics, morality, 'birth'?

[Q] Collective resistence.
[A] Rise of the unreformed instiution.

[Sarah] Chronology: poor law change early-18th, legal system change late-18th - where does 1832 fit into this?
[A] 1830s has its own reforms. Accumulation of experience of plebiaen agency re law/CJS over the century.
Paupers involved learn from the process and pass on that learning.

[Arthur] Agency has different consequences when applied to different parts of the hierarchy.
How do you control for more or less significant change?
[A] EG, 1760s industrial protests: more significant than often been thoughts.
Rise of counsel is clearly significant even without the need for controls, comparisons to other changes.
The poor found ways to pay, it wasn't a judge led thing.
We have made choices. That is what historians do.

[Q] Spcial status of defendants.
[A] OB not great as a resource, we haven't really looked at it, but there is a great project here.

[Q] Charity?
[A] Rise of instiutional charities one more element in complex landscape of things that every pauper needs to know about.

[Q] Escapes. Celebrity. Another form of plebiean agency?
[A] Yes. Escapees, like highwaymen, are able to use print to gain support, money ... another tactic.

[R Poole] Model of 18th century contrast to Wrighton/Hindle of citizen participation.
Emphasis of big authority and the bottom of the leap. Bulk of crime often between those not economically far apart.
How would you go about looking at how the middling sort sought justice against all those they felt threatened against?
[A] Hindle. Reflects 17th century practices. Doesn't work for London, doesn't feel right for early-18th century London.
David Lemmings latest book: MC gradually excluded from CJS, government in the 18th century.
Argument that the words of Wrighton and Hindle disappears.

[Q] Transnational stories?
[A] Archival structures we've inherited: unless we look in the local we don't see much at all.

[Q] Another continuity is war. How does this fit into the story?
Individuals with agency looking for agency upon return.
[A] Key narrative in history of crime. Skeptical, more moral panic than actual increase in crime.
Noone has actually looked at the people who are supposed to be committing these post-demob crimes.

[Q] Encouraging that stats broadly support the empirical research of Beattie, Landsman.
[A] Much of the graphs re rise in legal counsel show the choice of OB to report presence of counse
...as much as rise of counsel itself.

***This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.***
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License</a>.
	Bob and Tim, 'London Lives: Crime, Poverty and the Making of the Metropolis'

	Work based on ten years of research, building of digital archive for analysis of plebiean lives.

	Transformations...
	Increase in beaucracy around the law
	Increase in sense of need for procedure around criminal justice proceedings
	Poor relief increased 8 fold (even accounting of popn increase and inflation)

	Change in policing, justice, poor relief shaped by those whose used it:
	- plebian Londoners forced the pace of change, not the elites who saw no need for change (and who saw helping the 'feckless' poor as wasteful'

	1) settlement
	2) escapes and mutinites
	3) defendant and distrust of CJS, leading in turn to rise of modern adversarial system
	4) role of opposition to workhouses to transforming parochial care

	1)
	By accident post 1688, 1692 act made the existence of a settlement the norm rather than an exception.
	Settlement certificates become a documentation of idetity, new identity of belonging established.
	To understand growth in poor relief, new beaucracy of belonging offered a powerful new theatre to claim relief.

	2)
	prisoners frequently demonstrated the limitations of imprisonment as punishment: security problems
	- hence lack of adaption of increase during the 18th century
	Implication that escapes could be arranged on request from places such as Newgate.
	So when MPs chose to use imprisonment as punishment they chose Houses of Correctuons as venues.
	But... escapes.
	1713 last year into the mid-century: poor buildings, relatively open access.
	1776: crowding in prisons awaiting transportation, hulks act, ++ escape attempts.
	Transportation (even when there was nowhere to take them...) tended to be favoured to the hulks.
	But those unfit, should be kept in confinement with labour. Soooo, a penitentiary:
	1779 Penitentiary Act a direct response to the failure of the Hulks.
	Gordon Riots amounted to a whole scale rejection of imprisonment.
	Consequential transportation to Australia and hanging not what the poor wanted.
	But their rejection of imprisonment kept the elites searching for new ways to punish.

	3)
	Council
	Why did so many defendants choose to hire counsel such that by 1790s it was the norm?
	Not the judges responsible for this change, their marginalisation within the courtroom.
	Role of users of the courts (plebian) in changing this: demand driven by defendents.
	Defence leads the change, prosecution always catching up in terms of numbers.
	Worry over panics (and associated rewards) lead to those accused to seek counsel.
	Eg 1780s: defendents had a motivation to get 'lawyered up'
	- demob, nowhere to transport to, Gordon riots > led to harsher punishment
	How did they find the money to pay the fees?
	Decisions taken by defendants led to the lawyerisation of the trial

	4)
	Workhouse mixed the good and the bad.
	Pushed the honest (registered - see 1) poor into the same places as criminals in the 1720s/30s.
	Pauper demand and agency involved in shifting institutions into something new.
	Campaign against the very idea of the workshouse: cruelty of the workhouse degrading the poor.
	Move to help for the sick, the elderly, children ... everyone except the able-bodied the legislation was designed to discipline.
	From mid-century plebians began to use written language to engage with authority, the system:
	- mix of tactics that came to be associated with the 19th century pauper letter.
	Knew the system. Played on their position as a householder. Played on system of settlement. Often got the relief they sought.
	Third quarter of 18th century saw a dramatic increase in payments for poor relief.
	Outcome of new strategies and demands to work the system.

	Conclusion...
	Elites, justices, rich, powerful, priviledged had their say.
	But so did the poor.
	Most archives written by the elites.
	Most history written from their perspective.
	This research sought to look at small change brought about by ordinary people.


	QA

	[Penny] Binary here: poor vs elites... what about all the stuff in the middle?
	[A] Binary implied but not our approach.
	We define plebiean Londoners as those who touch the CJS and apply for relief; by their relationship to authority.
	Not a class analysis.

	[Amanda] Who is paying for this massive increase in poor law expenditure?
	And how did this change the relationship between payers and receivers?
	[A] It did. Local/parish politics tense.
	Relationship between system and need, and how that drove change.

	[Adam] Settlement (or not): based on economics, morality, 'birth'?

	[Q] Collective resistence.
	[A] Rise of the unreformed instiution.

	[Sarah] Chronology: poor law change early-18th, legal system change late-18th - where does 1832 fit into this?
	[A] 1830s has its own reforms. Accumulation of experience of plebiaen agency re law/CJS over the century.
	Paupers involved learn from the process and pass on that learning.

	[Arthur] Agency has different consequences when applied to different parts of the hierarchy.
	How do you control for more or less significant change?
	[A] EG, 1760s industrial protests: more significant than often been thoughts.
	Rise of counsel is clearly significant even without the need for controls, comparisons to other changes.
	The poor found ways to pay, it wasn't a judge led thing.
	We have made choices. That is what historians do.

	[Q] Spcial status of defendants.
	[A] OB not great as a resource, we haven't really looked at it, but there is a great project here.

	[Q] Charity?
	[A] Rise of instiutional charities one more element in complex landscape of things that every pauper needs to know about.

	[Q] Escapes. Celebrity. Another form of plebiean agency?
	[A] Yes. Escapees, like highwaymen, are able to use print to gain support, money ... another tactic.

	[R Poole] Model of 18th century contrast to Wrighton/Hindle of citizen participation.
	Emphasis of big authority and the bottom of the leap. Bulk of crime often between those not economically far apart.
	How would you go about looking at how the middling sort sought justice against all those they felt threatened against?
	[A] Hindle. Reflects 17th century practices. Doesn't work for London, doesn't feel right for early-18th century London.
	David Lemmings latest book: MC gradually excluded from CJS, government in the 18th century.
	Argument that the words of Wrighton and Hindle disappears.

	[Q] Transnational stories?
	[A] Archival structures we've inherited: unless we look in the local we don't see much at all.

	[Q] Another continuity is war. How does this fit into the story?
	Individuals with agency looking for agency upon return.
	[A] Key narrative in history of crime. Skeptical, more moral panic than actual increase in crime.
	Noone has actually looked at the people who are supposed to be committing these post-demob crimes.

	[Q] Encouraging that stats broadly support the empirical research of Beattie, Landsman.
	[A] Much of the graphs re rise in legal counsel show the choice of OB to report presence of counse
	...as much as rise of counsel itself.

	*This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.*
	<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License</a>.