Underworld London

Crime and Punishment in the Capital City

Catharine Arnold

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781849832922
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857201171
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Beginning with an atmospheric account of Tyburn, we are set up for a grisly excursion through London as a city of ne'er do wells, taking in beheadings and brutality at the Tower, Elizabethan street crime, cutpurses and con-men, through to the Gordon Riots and Highway robbery of the 18thcentury and the rise of prisons, the police and the Victorian era of incarceration. As well as the crimes, Arnold also looks at the grotesque punishments meted out to those who transgressed the law throughout London's history - from the hangings, drawings and quarterings at Tyburn over 500 years to being boiled in oil at Smithfield. This popular historian also investigates the influence of London's criminal classes on the literature of the 19thand 20thcenturies, and ends up with our old favourites, the Krays and Soho gangs of the 50s and 60s.

London's crimes have changed over the centuries, both in method and execution. Underworld London traces these developments, from the highway robberies of the eighteenth century, made possible by the constant traffic of wealthy merchants in and out of the city, to the beatings, slashings and poisonings of the Victorian era.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 CITY OF GALLOWS: Roots of the Tyburn Tree
• Chapter 2 CASTLE OF DARKNESS: Torture and Death in the Tower of London
• Chapter 3 FRATERNITY OF VAGABONDS: London, Den of Thieves
• Chapter 4 SHADES OF THE PRISON HOUSE: From Newgate Gaol to the Old Bailey
• Chapter 5 STAND AND DELIVER!: The Golden Age of Highway Robbery
• Chapter 6 THE BLACK PARADE: The Road to Tyburn
• Chapter 7 THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW: From Bow Street to Scotland Yard
• Chapter 8 DARKEST LONDON: The Victorian Underworld
• Chapter 9 THE HIDEOUS APPARATUS OF DEATH: Murder and Execution in Victorian London
• Chapter 10 FROM HELL!: A Murder Guide to Victorian London
• Chapter 11 CRIMES PASSIONNELS, FEMMES FATALES: Drama at the Old Bailey
• Chapter 12 EAST END BOYS: The Origins of London's Gangland
• Chapter 13 LONDON MONSTERS: Killers in the Smoke
• Chapter 14 WHO BREAKS A BUTTERFLY UPON A WHEEL?: Miscarriages of Justice and the Abolition of the Death Penalty
• Chapter 15 HARD BASTARDS AND DIAMOND GEEZERS How the Firm Ruled London
• Chapter 16 LONDON BABYLON: From the Old Bailey to Tyburn
• Acknowledgements
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Illustration Credits
• Index
• Copyright