Sometime during the 1840s, the Rev. Thomas Guthrie of Edinburgh witnessed the following episode:
I was in Hanover Street, when a vinegar-looking old lady was toddling along, with a huge umbrella in her hand. A little urchin came up who had no cap on his head, but plenty of brains within ⌠I saw him fix upon that venerable old lady to be operated on. He approached her with a most pitiful look and whine. Her response was a snarl and poke of her umbrella. He saw there was no chance of getting at her purse through her philanthropy, so he thought to get at it through her selfishness. In an instant he rolled up the sleeve of a tattered jacket to the elbow of his yellow skinny arm, and running up displayed it, crying out to her, âJust out oâ the Infirmary, maâam, with typhus!â It was a ruse got up for the occasion; but the acting was perfect â the effect sudden, electric ⌠Diving her hand to the very bottom of her pocket, she took out a shilling, thrust it into his palm, and hobbled away, glad to get the wind between the little rogue and her nobility!1
That encounter could equally well have taken place in the streets of London, Glasgow, Birmingham or any other British city. While not without its humorous side, it illustrates a problem that was becoming of serious concern to both the authorities and the general public in the mid-nineteenth century: the perceived rise in the number of predatory children involved in vagrancy, begging and petty criminality and the lack of effective means of dealing with them. In Guthrieâs vivid image, âthe streets swarmed with boys and girls whose trade was begging, and whose end was the jail. They rose every morning from the lower districts like a cloud of mosquitoes from a marsh, to disperse themselves over the cityâŚâ2
In the absence of reliable statistics from the early part of the century, it would be difficult to state categorically that a dramatic increase in juvenile crime had occurred, but there is no doubt that, from about 1840 onwards, contemporaries were convinced that a large proportion of crime was committed by the younger generation.3 Mid-century observers pointed out that while one-tenth of the population of England and Wales was aged between fifteen and twenty, this age group committed nearly a quarter of the crime.4 âIn Newcastleâ, reported Joseph Kay, âJuvenile Crime is increasing FOUR times as fast as the Population, and in thirteen years has doubled its amountâ5 â the capitalisation and underlining only serving to emphasise the authorâs feeling of desperation.
While such alarming figures were regularly quoted, most commentators took an anecdotal rather than an analytical approach, citing specific cases rather than discussing statistics. This is understandable as the phenomenon which Professor Sir Brian Harrison called âthe pursuit of precision in modern social investigationâ had barely commenced in the 1840s: detailed collection and examination of statistical returns was a feature of the second rather than the first half of the century. Equally, writers felt it unnecessary to prove that juvenile crime was on the increase, as this was a belief that was almost universally accepted. Urging the immediate opening of an institution for young offenders in Glasgow in 1838, a correspondent of the Glasgow Herald considered it sufficient to state that âwe all know that juvenile delinquency exists in this city to an alarming extentâ.6 The relative absence of attempts to prove the rise in juvenile crime through analysis of figures, and the fact that no writer attempted to argue that it was on the decline, are in themselves indirect evidence that delinquency was widespread and, by implication, increasing.
The extent of juvenile crime being considered self-evident by contemporaries, discussion centred instead on (i) the factors causing it, (ii) the ineffectiveness of existing approaches and (iii) what should be done to tackle the problem. This chapter will examine these issues from a UK-wide perspective in order to provide a context for the rest of the book which focuses in detail on Scotlandâs contribution to the debate.
Causes of juvenile delinquency
The 1840s and 1850s were the critical decades in the formation of a new approach to juvenile crime. The background to this was the widespread investigation of social abuses by Parliamentary Select Committees and Royal Commissions which had already led to reforms such as the 1833 Factory Act and the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. It must be remembered, too, that at the time, âadopting the device of investigation prior to legislationâ7 was in itself something a novelty.
The subject of juvenile crime was thoroughly examined by two Select Committees: the first, in 1847, examined âthe Execution of the Criminal Law, especially respecting Juvenile Offenders and Transportationâ and the second, in 1852 and again in 1852â1853, reported on âCriminal and Destitute Childrenâ.8 Taken together, these reports reveal much about the attitudes towards delinquency which developed in the middle of the century. The extent of agreement is remarkable: from the testimony of witnesses as far apart geographically as Alexander Thomson of Banchory, Aberdeenshire and G.L. Chesterton of Coldbath Fields House of Correction, London, or as far opposed ideologically as Sir Joshua Jebb, Surveyor-General of Prisons and the social reformer Mary Carpenter, it is clear that a new consensus was emerging in which children who committed petty offences were viewed as the victims of circumstances beyond their control.
Certainly, temptations lurked everywhere in the Victorian city. The practice of displaying goods outside shops made it easy for a child to steal, and there were many seemingly respectable businessmen who encouraged young thieves by receiving stolen goods. In parts of London, these individuals hung about the streets, ready to take any stolen item âeasily carried, easily soldâ from a child in return for a few pennies which would then be spent on gingerbread or cakes. When asked a leading question by the 1847 Committee â âDo [young offenders] appear to be persons set on by Receivers of Stolen Goods, or by other Thieves?â â Lieutenant Tracy, Governor of Tothill Fields House of Correction, readily concurred: âThat appears most distinctly; they are the Dupes and Victims of others who reward them.â9
The 1837 Report of the Prison Inspectors for the Northern and Eastern District gives a particularly incisive analysis of the multiplicity of causes behind the growth of juvenile crime in Liverpool, showing how just about every social and economic trend of the time had some bearing on the problem. The report highlighted
the fluctuating variety and vicissitudes of the population of a great maritime town; the continual ingress of poor Irish; the absence of factory employment or other work for children; the number of destitute orphans, from the deadly visitation of cholera and fever; the temptation afforded to want and idleness by the comparatively unguarded and careless exposure of valuable property in the markets, stores, and about the docks; the excitements to criminal pursuits induced by the low shows and theatres, and the little attention paid to [childrenâs] condition by a community deeply engaged in the absorbing transactions of commercial enterprise.â10
Some of these have a familiar ring to modern ears. Current concerns about the effects of computer games on young minds, for instance, had their mid-Victorian equivalent in fears over the malign influence of âlow shows and theatresâ. Caroline Francis Cornwallis (1786â1858), a champion of the poor and under-privileged, gives a fascinating account of this forgotten side of popular culture in her 1851 book The Philosophy of Ragged Schools in which she describes how âboys and girls of the very lowest descriptionâ flocked to establishments known as âpenny gaffsâ to watch âscenes of grossness, crime, and blood, all represented with a revolting coarsenessâ. A typical production was âThe Red-Nosed Monsterâ or âThe Tyrant of the Mountainâ, with a cast of characters that included âThe Assassinâ, âThe Ruffian of the Hutâ and âThe Villain of the Valleyâ. As an encore, the youngsters were treated to a performance of âthe Blood Stained Handkerchiefâ or âThe Murder in the Cottageâ. Cornwallis quotes one young offender who admits that âthe first beginning of my bad conduct was seeing a play acted at the theatre ⌠the play was about a highwayman so we thought we would try to do as he didâ, while another precocious young thief explains that âI noticed them picking one anotherâs pockets on the stage. It gave me a great insight into how to do it.â11
If theatres planted ideas in the young criminalâs mind, they also provided ideal opportunities to put them into practice. One (presumably reformed) offender, identified only by his initials â âM.C., alias W.R.â â gave the following account of his first steps on the road to ruin:
I first met with bad companions at the Sanspareil12 ⌠We used to put our hands over the rails when the people were going down stairs, and take off shawls, hats or anything else; the people that had lost them could not get back, the crowd was so strong. If the hat was a good one, we used to put our own inside and put it on our heads; we also used to creep under the seats; strangers would have their pockets hanging down, (men or women). We used to cut them off sometimes. I have found bottles with liquor in them, copper, oranges and other things; in the womenâs we sometimes found purses. My father has often said those cursed places have been my ruin.â13
At least âM.C.â had a father who, albeit retrospectively, offered some kind of moral guidance. Others were less fortunate. A common response to the first question usually put to witnesses who appeared before the Select Committees â âwhat in your opinion are the main causes of juvenile crime?â â was to blame negligent parents. John Adams, Serjeant at Law, of London, believed delinquent children were not ânaturally worse than other Children; but that their offences spring from the Want of proper moral and religious Education, and in the Want of proper Friends to attend to themâ.14 John MacGregor of the Ragged School Union talked of children âsliding into gaol [from] their...
