Crime, Punishment, and Children
In this section:
Images from Newcastle Gaol
Child Crime in Nineteenth-Century England
In Their Own Words
Magistrates and the Petty Court
The Police
Tools of the Trade
Images from Newcastle Gaol
Child Crime in Nineteenth-Century England
In Their Own Words
Magistrates and the Petty Court
The Police
Tools of the Trade
Images from Newcastle Gaol
The photos below are mugshots of children sentenced to Newcastle Gaol between December 1871 and December 1873. Though this is many years after Oliver Twist was written, it is still a testament to the problem of juvenile crime.
These photographs are courtesy of the Tyne and Wear Archives & Museum.
Child Crime in Nineteenth-Century England
Fagin’s band of thieves is fictional, but it depicts nineteenth century street criminals in a realistic way. Children, particularly orphans or impoverished children, commonly became pickpockets, often forming small gangs and working together. If caught, these children faced criminal charges, including imprisonment, hard labor, and even death by hanging, although the latter was quite rare and typically reserved for children older than fourteen. In the middle of the nineteenth century, reform schools were founded for criminal youth, and this became an alternative punishment for pickpockets and housebreakers.
When Dickens wrote Oliver Twist, featuring a band of child thieves, juvenile crime was a hot topic in England. Two decades before, in 1816, Parliament instituted the Committee for Investigating the Alarming Increase in Juvenile Crime in the Metropolis, which found that “Juvenile Delinquency existed in the metropolis to a very alarming extent; that a system was in action by which these unfortunate lads were organized into gangs; that they resorted regularly to houses, where they planned their enterprises, and afterwards divided the produce of their plunder.”
The question of how to deal with the problem persisted, however, and it was not until 1847, over ten years after Oliver Twist was written, that the Juvenile Offenders Act was passed, which permitted thieves under the age of fourteen to be tried in a special court. In 1879, the act was expanded to include prosecuted thieves under the age of sixteen.
When Dickens wrote Oliver Twist, featuring a band of child thieves, juvenile crime was a hot topic in England. Two decades before, in 1816, Parliament instituted the Committee for Investigating the Alarming Increase in Juvenile Crime in the Metropolis, which found that “Juvenile Delinquency existed in the metropolis to a very alarming extent; that a system was in action by which these unfortunate lads were organized into gangs; that they resorted regularly to houses, where they planned their enterprises, and afterwards divided the produce of their plunder.”
The question of how to deal with the problem persisted, however, and it was not until 1847, over ten years after Oliver Twist was written, that the Juvenile Offenders Act was passed, which permitted thieves under the age of fourteen to be tried in a special court. In 1879, the act was expanded to include prosecuted thieves under the age of sixteen.
In Their Own Words
In a letter to The Times, published March 1850, a concerned citizen issued a warning about "The Orange Boy":
Sir, - As The Times is always open for the insertion of any remarks likely to caution the unwary or to put the unsuspecting on their guard against the numerous thefts and robberies committed daily in the streets of London, I am induced to ask you to insert a case which happened on Saturday last, and which I trust may serve as a warning to those of your lady readers who still carry purses in their pockets.
A young lady (and, as the police reports add,) of very prepossessing appearance, a relation of the narrator's, was walking between 12 and 1 o'clock with another young lady, a friend of hers, in Albany-street, where she resides, when she was accosted by a boy about 11 years of age, who asked her in the most beseeching tones "to buy a few oranges of a poor orphan who hadn't a bit of bread to eat." She told him to go away, but he kept alongside, imploring assistance, and making some cutting remarks about "the ingratitude of the world in general and of young ladies in particular." As his manner became very troublesome the lady threatened to give him in charge of a policeman, and looked down every area to find one; but there was not one even there, and the boy kept up his sweet discourse and slight pushes alternately (the latter with the basket on which he carried his oranges), until the lady reached her own door-step. It then occurred to her that in the boy's ardour to sell his oranges he might have taken her purse; her friend thought so too. A trembling hand was inserted into the pocket; the purse was gone, and so was the lady's happiness. She flew after the thief, who, knowing young ladies were not made for running, coolly deposited his basket on a door-step a little way off and ran away whistling. This brave young lady ran also, shouting "Stop thief! stop thief!" (but then young ladies are not made for shouting, God forbid!) and she looked in the fond hope that a policeman might be found. But no such luck, the culprit got safely off with the purse and its contents; and no kind passer by tried to help the young lady, who was thus shamefully duped and robbed. Ladies, young and old, never carry your purses in your pockets; beware of canting beggars, and beggars of all sorts, that infest the streets; and, above all, keep a watchful eye about you and give the widest possible berth to The Orange Boy. |
For one of his numerous London Labour and London Poor publications (this one published in January of 1850), Henry Mayhew interviewed a pickpocket, who told him:
My father was a bricklayer in Shoreditch parish, and my mother took in washing. They did pretty well - but they're dead and buried two and a half years ago. I used to work in brick fields at Ball's-pond, living with my parents and taking home every farthing I earned. I earned l8s. a week, working from five in the morning until sunset. They had only me. I can read and write middling. When my parents died. I had to look out for myself. I was off work attending to my father and mother when they were sick. They died within about three weeks of each other, and I lost my work, and I had to part with my clothes; before that I tried to work in brick-fields, and couldn't get it, and work grew slack.
When my parents died I was 13; and I sometimes got to sleep in the unions - but that was stopped, and then I took to the lodging-houses, and there I met with lads who were enjoying themselves at push halfpenny, and cards; and they were thieves, and they tempted me to join them, and I did for once - but only once. I then went begging about the streets and thieving, as I knew the others do. I used to pick pockets. I worked for myself, because I thought that would be best. I had no fence at all - no pals at first, nor anything. I worked by myself for a time. I sold the handkerchiefs I got to Jews in the streets, chiefly in Field-lane, for 1s. 6d., but I have got as much as 3s. 6d. for your real fancy ones. One of these buyers wanted to cheat me out of 6d., so I would have no more dealings with him. The others paid me. The kingsmen they call the best handkerchiefs - those that have the pretty-looking flowers on them. Some are only worth 4d. or 5d., some's not worth taking. Those I gave away to strangers, boys like myself, or wore them myself round my neck. I only threw one away, but it was all rags, though he looked quite like a gentleman that had it. Lord Mayor's Day and such times is the best for us. Last Lord Mayor's Day I got four handkerchiefs, and I made us. There was a sixpence tied up in the corner of one handkerchief; another was pinned to the pocket - but I got it out, and after that, another chap had him, and cut his pocket clean away, but there was nothing in it. I generally picked my men - regular swells or good-humoured looking men. I've often followed them a mile. I once got a purse with 3s. 6d. in it from a lady when the Coal Exchange was opened. I made 8s. 6d. that day - the purse and handkerchiefs. That's the only lady I ever robbed. I was in the crowd when Manning and his wife were hanged. I wanted to see if they died game, as I heard them talk so much about them at our house. I was there all night. I did four good handkerchiefs and a rotten one not worth picking up. I saw them hung. I was right under the drop. I was a bit startled when they brought him up and put the rope round his neck and the cap on, and then they brought her out. All said he was hung innocently; it was she that should have been hung by herself. They both dropped together, and I felt faintified, but I soon felt all right again. The police drove us away as soon as it was over, so that I couldn't do any more business; besides I was knocked down in the crowd and jumped upon, and I won't go to see another hung in a hurry. He didn't deserve it, but she did, every inch of her. I can't say I thought, while I was seeing the execution, that the life I was leading would ever bring me to the gallows. After I'd worked by myself a bit, I got to live in a house where lads like me, big and little, were accommodated. We paid 3d. a night. It was always full; there was twenty or twenty-one of us. We enjoyed ourselves middling. I was happy enough; we drank sometimes, chiefly beer, and sometimes a drop of gin. We would say 'I've done so much,' and another, 'I've done so much;' and stand a drop. The best lever heard done was £2 for two coats from a tailor's, near Bow-church, Cheapside. That was by one of my pals. We used to share our money with those who did nothing for a day, and they shared with us when we rested. There never was any blabbing. We wouldn't do one another out of a farthing. Of a night some one would now and then read hymns, out of books they sold about the streets - I'm sure they were hymns; or else we'd read stories about Jack Sheppard and Dick Turpin, and all through that set. They were large thick books borrowed from the library. They told how they used to break open the houses and get out of Newgate, and how Dick got away to York. We used to think Jack and them fine fellows. I wished I could be like Jack (I did then), about the blankets in his escape, and that old house in West-street - it is a ruin still. We played cards and dominoes sometimes at our house, and at pushing a halfpenny over the table along five lines. We struck the halfpenny from the edge of the table, and according to what line it settled on was the game - like as they play at the Glasshouse - that's the 'model lodging house' they calls it. Cribbage was always played at cards. I can only play cribbage. We have played for 1s. a game, but oftener 1d. It was always fair play. That was the way we passed the time when we were not out. We used to keep quiet, or the police would have been down upon us. They knew of the place. They took one boy there. I wondered what they wanted. They catched him at the very door. We lived pretty well; anything we liked to get when we'd money; we cooked it ourselves. The master of the house was always on the look-out to keep out those who had no business there. No girls were admitted. The master of the house had nothing to do with what we got. I don't know of any other such house in London; I don't think there are any. The master would sometimes drink with us - a larking like. He used us pretty kindly at times. I have been three times in prison, three months each time; the Compter, Brixton, and Maidstone. I went down to Maidstone-fair, and was caught by a London policeman down there. He was dressed as a bricklayer. Prison always made me worse, and as I had nothing given me when I came out, I had to look out again. I generally got hold of something before I had been an hour out of prison. I'm now heartily sick of this life. I wish I'd been transported with some others from Maidstone, where I was tried. |
The Police
"Policeman, Scarborough."
London's first proper police force, the Metropolitan Police Force, was created in 1829 by Robert Peel (after whom officers would come to be called "bobbies" and "peelers"). Before this, crime deterrents were untrained, unpaid constables. There were also those such as the Bow Street Runners, who were like for-hire detective/police.
In the 1830s, the newly created police force found its place in local government, working with the existing magistrates and organizing manpower to successfully keep peace in London. These officers were uniformed and carried wooden billy clubs. The image to the right is a painting of a policeman, created by William Dempsey circa 1800 and provided by The Old Bailey website.
In the 1830s, the newly created police force found its place in local government, working with the existing magistrates and organizing manpower to successfully keep peace in London. These officers were uniformed and carried wooden billy clubs. The image to the right is a painting of a policeman, created by William Dempsey circa 1800 and provided by The Old Bailey website.
Tools of the Trade
A 1926 newspaper documented the discovery of housebreaking tools, saying "the police found a brown paper parcel containing housebreaking tools, including jemmies, a hack saw, and a huge pair of pliers. On the ground nearby was a tin of treacle, which by thieves (in conjunction with brown paper) is often used to deaden the sound of breaking windows." (See full article here.) Although this article appeared ninety years after Bill Sikes would have been committing robberies, it is entirely likely that he was also using pliers, jemmies (crow bars), and saws.