Analysing the Patriote assemblies

This paper considers the resolutions passed at the large Patriote assemblies held between May and October 1837. Often written in advance, these resolutions can appear repetitive.[1] Nevertheless, they do identify the fundamental political issues in the months leading up to the Rebellions and about the inspirations, rhetoric, political platform, and the measures taken by the Parti Patriote and its supporters. Before plunging into an analysis of the resolutions passed by the assemblies, it is important to place them in their context.

Following the passage of the Ninety-Two Resolutions in February 1834, the metropolitan government appointed Lord Gosford as the new governor of Lower Canada and also established a Royal Commission to consider Patriote grievances. Arriving in Quebec on 23 August 1835, Gosford and Grey and Gipps, his fellow commissioners noted that, in effect, colonial government had broken down. [2] Following a fruitless attempt to conciliation, conflict between the Legislative Council and the Assembly reached new depths when in 1836 the Council blocked a law on education passed by the Assembly. The result was that the Parti Patriote refused to sit in the Assembly and threatened that, unless the Council became an elective body, it would refuse to vote the Civil List.[3] The commissioners finished their enquiry at the end of October 1836 and Grey and Gipps left for England. The various reports of the Royal Commission were finally laid before Parliament on 2 March 1837 and was immediately followed by the rejection of the Ninety-Two Resolutions in Russell’s Ten Resolutions. [4]

News of these resolutions reached Quebec on 10 or 11 April 1837 and created vocal opposition among Patriotes and reformers. Four of Russell’s resolutions were especially difficult for the supporters of the Ninety-Two Resolutions to accept. Resolutions 4, 5, 6 and 7 rejected demands for an elected Legislative Council, refused to grant responsible government, supported the position of the British American Land Company and finally, authorised Gosford to use public monies without the approval of the Assembly. In La Minerve on 13 April and in The Vindicator the following day, there were calls both for agitation following what many saw as the British betrayal and to follow the example of the American colonies. Then, on 20 April, La Minerve announced the calling of a great assembly in the comté de Richelieu.[5]

On 7 May 1837, the first anti-coercive assembly was held at Saint-Ours and it served as the model for the subsequent assemblies.[6] Although there were a large number of assemblies across the province, only the Patriote assemblies benefited from widespread coverage in the radical press especially in La Minerve, The Vindicator, Le Libéral and Le Canadien. I intend to focus exclusively on the Patriote assemblies from Saint-Ours on 7 May through to the apogee of the movement, the Grande assemblée de la Confédération des Six Comtés in late October 1837.[7]

It is important to recognise the immense importance of the resolutions of Saint-Ours.[8] Its condemnation of Russell’s Resolution was typically repeated as the first resolution at the subsequent assemblies. It is generally accompanied by constitutional arguments based on traditional rights and privileges accorded to British subjects of the Crown. Among these, the principle of ‘no taxation without representation’ was mentioned most often. Jealously defending the principle that control of the public monies should lie with the Assembly and arguing that it is the only constitutional means for the people, through their representatives, to exert pressure on an irresponsible government, the Patriotes were particularly angered by Resolution 8. This type of resolution can be regarded as a direct reaction to Russell’s Resolutions and especially to what Patriotes saw as its coercive reaction to the question of appropriations. However, these resolutions did not affect the confidence of Canadian reformers in the British authorities and they decided that further appeals to the British Parliament were both possible and necessary.

The second broad category of resolutions was concrete measures taken to counter the Russell Resolutions and put pressure on the British government to think again. There was widespread support for a boycott on British imports to reduce levels of revenue. However, the assemblies were more divided over the question of smuggling. In this respect, no assembly held on the river north of Montreal apart from those at Malbaie on 25 June supported smuggling as a means of exerting pressure.[9] When the assemblies had voted for the boycott, with the exception of Malbaie and later on 16 July at Deschambault[10], they also elected comités de surveillance for each comté to ensure that the boycott was enforced. It is important to emphasise that there was also widespread support for establishing a convention that brought together members from each comté in the province. Linked to this were calls for support from other colonies and the United States as well as a desire to provide information and education on people’s political rights. The first two types of resolution made up the vast majority of resolutions before 6 August and were reinforced by legal action by the Assembly. This is perhaps better explained by the request from the House of Commons on 3 July 1837 to Queen Victoria to renounce Russell’s Resolution. [11]

The third type of resolution related to long-term grievances and generally restated themes from the Ninety-Two Resolutions. These included the classic themes of the Legislative Council, responsible government, land monopoly by the British American Land Company and the colonial aristocracy. To these were appended new attacks such as on Gosford’s good faith and the bias of the Royal Commission.

The question of seigneurial rights made up the fourth type of resolution. It was the assembly at Sainte-Rose on 11 June that proposed abolishing the seigneurial system with compensation.[12] Then the assemblies at Napierville in Acadie on 12 July and 10 September also called for its abolition.[13] On 6 August, at Saint-François-du-Lac there was an assembly uniquely called to discuss seigneurial tenure or reform of the seigneurial system.[14] The same occurred at Saint-Ignace on 10 September.[15] By contrast, at Vaudreuil[16] on 6 August and Saint-Polycarpe[17] on 15 October, there were explicit calls for abolition. It appears that in the comté de Vaudreuil seigneurial rights was a significant regional issue and all its assemblies called either for their abolition or at least reform. This comté also saw the only resolutions that called for the clergy to keep strictly to spiritual matters and not interfere in more worldly affairs.

The last type of resolution was concerned with establishing a parallel system of justice and also the formation of a force of volunteers and paramilitary organisations. Following his proclamation on 15 June banning further assemblies, Gosford began to dismiss justices of the peace and captains of militia who refused to cooperate with the colonial authorities. Others, who were supporters of the Parti Patriote, resigned.[18] To begin with assemblies were satisfied by denouncing Gosford’s actions but on 10 September at Napierville, the assembly recognised the contribution of those officials who had either been dismissed or resigned. In addition to congratulating them on their patriotism, reformers were informed that they should avoid any business with the ‘unworthy people’ who had accepted Gosford’s new commissions. From the beginning of October 1837, the movement became more threatening. At an assembly in the Deux-Montagnes, its comité permanent established a system of parallel justice on 1 October.[19] For the first time, a comité de comté maintained that its authority had been ‘conferred by the people’, a direct stand against British authority. The same comité recommended that its people should organise and arm themselves by parish under the command of a chosen captain of militia. On 4 October, the Fils de la Liberté in their Address to the young people of America invited Lower Canada to rise up and achieve the sovereign independence of America. [20]

Finally, the Patriote movement reached its peak with the Grande assemblée de la Confédération des Six-Comtés at Saint-Charles on 23-24 October 1837. [21] The 4,000 to 5,000 people present reiterated the resolutions passed in the Deux-Montagnes, discussed the possibility of recourse to arms and while the official resolutions had a pacific appearance, the pompous form of the assembly and also the Adresse de la Confédération des Six-Comtés aux habitants du Canada that borrowed from the preamble of the Declaration of American Independence represented a dangerous precedent for colonial government. [22] Ironically, the largest loyalist assembly was held in Montreal[23] on 23 October and less than a month later the Richelieu valley was embroiled in military action.

Appendix 1: List of assemblies held, May-November 1837

Date	Event	Organisation	Media
May 7	Saint-Ours	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on May 11 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 23-28
May 15	Saint-Laurent	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on May 18 in in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 29-37
May 15	Saint-Marc	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on May 22 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 38-41
May 15	Québec	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on May 23 in The Vindicator; Bernard, pp. 42-46
June 1	Saint-Scholastique	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 5 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 47-56
June 1	Saint-Hyacinthe	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 8 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 57-61
June 4	Longueuil	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 12 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 62-66
June 4	Québec	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 8 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 67-77
June 11	Sainte-Rose	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 15 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 78-83
June 18	Berthier	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 22 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 84-91
June 18	Saint-François-du-Lac	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 26 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 92-100
June 23	Saint-Hyacinthe	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 29 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 101-104
June 25	La Malbaie	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 31 in Le Libéral; Bernard, pp. 105-110
June 26	Saint-Thomas	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on July 3 in Le Canadien; Bernard, pp. 111-116
June 28	Montréal	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on June 30 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 117-121
June 29	Rawdon	Loyalist	Resolutions published on July 14 in Le Populaire; Bernard, pp. 122-125
July 4	Stanbridge	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on July 13 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 126-132
July 6	Montréal	Loyalist	Resolutions published on July 8 in The Montreal Gazette; Bernard, pp. 133-134
July 12	Napierville	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on July 20th in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 135-143
July 16	Deschambault	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on July 24 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 144-147
July 24	Napierville	Loyalist	Resolutions published on August 1 in The Montreal Gazette; Bernard, pp. 148-152
July 25	Trois-Rivières	Loyalist	Resolutions published on July 28 in Le Populaire; Bernard, pp. 153-155
July 26	Yamachiche	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on July 31 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 156-160
July 29	L’Assomption	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on August 3 in La Minerve
July 31	Québec	Loyalist	Resolutions published on August 2 in L’Ami du peuple; Bernard, pp. 167-170
August 4	Aylmer	Loyalist	Resolutions published on August 19 in L’Ami du peuple; Bernard, pp. 171-173
August 6	Yamaska	Loyalist	resolution unique published on August 19 in L’Ami du peuple; Bernard, p. 174
August 6	Saint-Constant	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on August 14 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 175-179
August 6	Saint-François-du-Lac on seignorial tenure	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on August 18th in Le Canadien; Bernard, pp. 180-182
August 6	Vaudreuil	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on August 14 in Le Canadien; Bernard, pp. 183-188
September 10	Saint-Denis	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on September 24 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 189-193
September 10	Napierville	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on September 21 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 194-196
September 10	Saint-Ignace	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on September 21 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 197-201
September 16	Milton	Loyalist	Resolutions published on November 29 in Le Populaire; Bernard, pp. 202-203
September 16	Saint-Antoine	Parti patriote	an account of the country lunch published on September 21 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 204-206
October 1	Permanent committee of Deux-Montagnes	Parti patriote	Resolutions of the 8th sitting published on October 9 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 207-213
October 13	Clarenceville	Loyalist	Resolutions published on November 11 in The Montreal Gazette; Bernard, pp. 223-225
October 15	Saint-Polycarpe	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on October 19 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 226-230
October 23	Montreal at Place d’Armes	Loyalist	Resolutions and addresses published on October 24 and 28 in The Montreal Gazette; Bernard, pp. 231-258
October 23-24	Confederation of the Six Counties in Saint-Charles	Parti patriote	Resolutions and addresses published on October 30 and November 2 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 259-285
November 5	Saint-Athanase	Parti patriote	Resolutions published on November 9 in La Minerve; Bernard, pp. 286-290
November 13	Abbotsford	Loyalist	Resolutions published on November 21 in The Montreal Gazette; Bernard, pp. 291-293
November 20	Sherbrooke	Loyalist	Resolutions published November 2 in The Montreal Gazette; Bernard, pp. 294-298
November 23	Granby	Loyalist	Resolutions published on December 4 in The Morning Courier; Bernard, pp. 299-300

Appendix 2: Analysis of assemblies

This table is based on material found on the Patriotes website.

1. Saint-Ours: 7 May 2. Stanbridge: 4 July 3. Napierville: 12 July 4. Deschambault: 16 July 5. Yamachiche: 26 July 6. L’Assomption: 29 July 7. St-Constant: 6 August 8. St-François-du-lac: 6 August

9. Vaudreuil: 6 August 10. St-Denis: 10 September 11. Napierville: 10 September 12. St-Ignace: 10 September 13. Deux-Montagnes: 1 October 14. St-Polycarpe: 15 October 15. Six Comtés: 23 October

RESOLUTIONS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Russell Resolutions denounced

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

7

Denounce attacks on Constitution

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

10

People misled, broken confidence

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

9

Americans as natural allies

X

X

X

X

4

‘No legislation/taxation without rep’

X

X

X

3

Repeal Act of Tenure

X

1

Reduce revenues; boycott

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

8

Smuggling

X

X

2

Develop manufactures/commerce

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

8

Comité de surveillance

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

7

Association patriotique du pays...

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

8

Thank friends in London and Toronto

X

X

X

X

X

5

Attack Legislative Council

X

X

X

X

4

Denounce Gosford

X

X

X

X

X

5

Petition US Congress to abolish customs

X

1

Not vote subsidies

X

X

X

3

Equal citizens without distinction

X

X

2

Elected Legislative Council

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

8

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[1] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, p. 12.

[2] Filteau, Gérard, Histoire des Patriotes, (L’Aurore), 1975, pp. 161-164.

[3] Greer, Allan, Habitants et Patriotes, (Boréal), 1997, pp. 133-134, Ryerson, Stanley-Bréhaut, Capitalisme et Confédération, (Parti pris), 1978, p. 49.

[4] Ibid, Filteau, Gérard, Histoire des Patriotes, pp. 183, 186.

[5] Leclerc, Félix, ‘1837-1838, dates et événements’, in ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Les Rébellions de 1837-1838. Les patriotes du Bas-Canada dans la mémoire collective et chez les historiens, pp. 92-93.

[6] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 23-28.

[7] See Appendix 2 below.

[8] See above, pp. 297-301.

[9] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 105-110.

[10] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 144-147.

[11] Leclerc, Félix, ‘1837-1838, dates et événements’, in ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Les Rébellions de 1837-1838. Les patriotes du Bas-Canada dans la mémoire collective et chez les historiens, p. 100.

[12] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 78-83

[13] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 135-143, 194-196.

[14] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 180-182.

[15] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 197-202.

[16] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 183-188.

[17] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 226-230.

[18] Ibid, Greer, Allan, Habitants et Patriotes, pp. 200-201.

[19] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 207-213.

[20] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 214-222.

[21] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 259-285.

[22] Ibid, Greer, Allan, Habitants et Patriotes, p. 209; ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 277-285.

[23] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 231-258.

Who were the criminals?

Today we are concerned about ‘organised crime’. In the nineteenth century, contemporaries debated the existence of professional criminals and the more ambiguous ‘criminal classes’, a notion given credence by the collection and publication of statistics. The Report of the Royal Commission on the Rural Constabulary 1839, largely drafted by Edwin Chadwick, attempted to explain crime across England and Wales.[1] Criminality was rooted in the poorer classes, especially those who roamed the country: ‘the prevalent cause of vagrancy was the impatience of steady labour’.[2] Chadwick and his fellow commissioners were either unaware of, or simply ignored the seasonal nature of much nineteenth century employment and the need of many, even urban dwellers, to spend time moving from place to place and from job to job. Poverty and indigence did not lead to crime, the Report insisted. Criminals suffered from two vices: ‘Indolence or the pursuit of easy excitement’.[3] They were drawn to commit crimes by ‘the temptation of the profit of a career of depredation, as compared with the profits of honest and even well paid industry’.[4] For Chadwick, criminals made a rational decision to live by crime because of its attractions.

Chadwick and other reformers identified a criminal group within the working-class that possessed the worst habits of the class as a whole. [5] The issue was one of ‘bad’ habits and vices that were then identified as the causes of crime. The 1834 Select Committee enquiring into drunkenness concluded that the ‘vice’ was declining among the middle- and upper-classes but increasing among the labouring classes with a notable impact on crime.[6]

Employment and good wages led to greater consumption of alcohol that, on occasions, contributed to a greater incidence of violent behaviour. The problem, the Committee concluded, was the poor‘s lack of morality.  ‘Lack of moral training’ was not a new issue in 1834, but it was taken up and emphasised by several educational reformers in the next two decades especially as concern grew about juvenile delinquency. Individuals such as Mary Carpenter, John Wade and James Kay-Shuttleworth argued that proper education would lead to a reduction of crime but that it was not secular education merely involving reading, writing and arithmetic that they wanted. Jelinger Symons explained that

When the heart is depraved, and the tendencies of the child or the man are unusually vicious, there can be little doubt that instruction per se, so far from preventing crime, is accessory to it. [7]

Gustav Doré published in 1872 in the book London, with a text by Blanchard Jerrold

What was needed was Christian and moral education that would explain to the working classes their true station in life. This education had to instil in the young habits of industry. If bad parents or the efforts of ragged schools or Sunday Schools failed to do this, then reformatory schools would have to take over. Jelinger Symons again

There must be a change of habit as well as of mind, and the change of habit mostly needed is from some kind of idleness to some kind of industry. We are dealing with a class whose vocation is labour; and whose vices and virtues are infallibly connected with indolence and industry.[8]

The economic and political instability of the 1830s and especially the 1840s saw people at opposite ends of the political spectrum share increasingly ominous visions of society. Friedrich Engels wrote that

...the incidence of crime has increased with the growth of the working-class population and there is more crime in Britain than in any other country in the world.[9]

Crime was an aspect of the new social war that worsened with every passing year. In the mid-1840s, the Chartist G.W.M. Reynolds published the fictional The Mysteries of London that gave his readers a frightening portrait of a brutalised, savage poor, a truly dangerous class.[10] While in Paris, Reynolds had been impressed by Eugène Sue’s Les Mystères de Paris and his serial paralleled Sue’s tale of vice, depravity, and squalor in the Parisian slums with a sociological story contrasting the vice and degradation of London working-class life with the luxury and debaucheries of the hedonistic upper crust.[11] The middle-classes in England readily accepted this vision of their social inferiors if nothing else because the poor looked very different in physique as well as dress. [12]

Between the 1850s and the 1870s, a succession of middle-class commentators, as often as not guided by local policemen penetrated the dark and teeming recesses of working class districts. They then wrote up their exploits for the delight of the reading public as journeys into criminal districts where the inhabitants were best compared with Red Indians or varieties of black ‘savages’. Such literature is at its best in the writings of Henry Mayhew, a reporter for the Morning Chronicle, who incorporated his findings in the massive, four volume London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopaedia of the Conditions and Earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work and those that will not work between 1851 and 1861-1862. Mayhew noted the different physical and mental characteristics of the nomadic street people

There is a greater development of the animal than of the intellectual and moral nature of man.... They are more or less distinguished for their high cheek-bones and protruding jaws -- for their use of a slang language -- for their lax ideas of property -- for their general improvidence -- their repugnance to continuous labour -- their disregard of female honour -- their love of cruelty -- their pugnacity -- and their utter want of religion.[13]

In short these ‘exotic people’ lacked all of the virtues that respectable middle-class Victorian society held dear. Lurking among these people there was a separate ‘class’ of thieves who were mainly young, idle and vagrant and who enjoyed the literature that glorified pirates and robbers. In the final volume of London Labour, first published in 1861-1862, Mayhew concentrated on ‘the Non-Workers, or in other words, the Dangerous Classes of the Metropolis’. Mayhew himself set out to define crime and the ‘criminal classes’. Crime, he argued, was the breaking of social laws in the same way that sin and vice broke religious and moral laws.[14]

From the middle of the century, many commentators confidently maintained that crime was being checked. There remained, however, an irredeemable, residuum that, with the end of transportation, could no longer be shipped out of the country. This group was increasingly called the criminal class: the backbone of this class was those defined by Mayhew as ‘professional’ and by legislators as ‘habitual’ criminals. The Times commented in a leading article in 1870 that these men

Are more alien from the rest of the community than a hostile army, for they have no idea of joining the ranks of industrious labour either here or elsewhere. The civilised world is simply a carcass on which they prey, and London above all, is to them a place to sack.[15]

In the late 1860s, James Greenwood, a journalist, noted that many juveniles resorted to crime because of hunger, yet in general habitual criminals were rarely perceived as bring brought to crime by poverty.[16] Bad, uncaring parents, drink, the corrupt literature that glamorised offenders and the general lack of moral fibre continued to be wheeled out as the causes of crime. The problem that contemporaries had was to explain the persistence of crime in spite of the advantages and opportunities provided by the advance of civilisation and the expansion of the mid-century panacea of education. The old stand-bys of poor parenting, corrupting literature etc. were combined with the mixing of first-time offenders with habitual offenders in prisons, concepts of hereditary and ideas drawn from the development of medical science.[17]

Early in the century, phrenologists[18] had visited prisons to make case studies of convicts in the belief that inordinate mental faculties led to crime. A visitor to Newgate prison in the 1830s said the prisoners had ‘animal faces’. From 1850, doctors like James Thompson, who worked in Perth prison, began collecting biological analyses of convicts, thus providing an academic veneer to these perceptions of ‘animal propensities’ through empirical research.

The work of Charles Booth in the 1880s and 1890s, with its exposure of bad housing and inadequate diet, encouraged a perception of the residuum as the product of the inevitable workings of social Darwinism. Arnold White, who in the 1900s was the central figure in warning the public about the degeneration of the British race, first expressed his concerns in the 1880s.[19] The fundamental problem was not class but ‘degeneracy’ and hereditary and urban environment were the keys to understanding. Degeneracy was inherited or could be acquired when an individual adopted and deliberately persisted in a life of crime. The problem was made worse by the highly concentrated nature of cities that led to the ‘creation of a large degenerate caste’.[20]

The key elements about the perceptions of the criminal class were, first, that the criminal class was perceived as overwhelmingly male; and secondly, the perceptions were those of middle-class commentators who were speaking to a predominantly, though not exclusively, middle-class and ‘respectable’ audience. There were occasional references to women committing crimes, even to them being afflicted by criminal ‘diseases’, but in general, they were seen as accessories in crime.[21] There was, however, a parallel between perceptions of the male criminal and the female prostitute. Prostitution was not in itself a criminal offence, but there was growing concern about ‘the Great Social Evil’ and from 1850 determined attempts at control. Dr William Acton‘s Prostitution, Considered in its Moral, Social and Sanitary Aspects, in London and Other Large Cities did not see prostitution as the slippery slope of damnation and noted that young women often became prostitutes only for a short while.  But there are important parallels between his list of the causes of prostitution and the causes of crime among the criminal and/or dangerous classes

Natural desire. Natural sinfulness. The preferment of indolent ease to labour. Vicious inclinations strengthened and ingrained by early neglect, or evil training, bad associates, and an indecent mode of life. Necessity, imbued by the inability to obtain a living by honest means consequent on a fall from virtue. Extreme poverty. To this blacklist must be added love of drink, love of dress, love of amusement.[22]

Contemporaries across much of Europe and North America, as well at in Britain, were convinced that the crux of the question of what caused crime was the existence of a separate criminal class. This view was reinforced by prevailing social and scientific attitudes and by the publication of sensationalist literature and through factual reporting in the burgeoning popular press. There were individuals and groups who were ‘professional criminals’ and who made a significant part of their living from crime but whether there was a ‘criminal class’ is far more debatable. The use of ‘class’ implies a larger number and a more homogeneous group than actually existed. Contemporaries drew a dubious parallel, grounded in fear and a slanted reading of criminal statistics between offenders who came largely from the working class and the location of the causes of crime within what were generally perceived as the vices of this class.

In fact, there were perhaps no more than 4,000 ‘habitual criminals’ in the 1870s and the scale of the problem was considerably less than the middle-classes believed. Most thefts and most crimes of violence were not the work of professional criminals. Court records suggest that the overwhelming majority of thefts that were reported and prosecuted were opportunist and petty. Most incidents of violence involved people who were either related or who were known to each other. Evidence from the Black Country and London suggests that no clear distinction can be made between a dishonest criminal class and a poor, but honest, working class.[23] The working-classes were more likely to be victims of crime in inner city areas than members of the middle-classes. Despite this, belief in a criminal class persisted and was convenient for insisting that most crime was something committed on law-abiding citizens by an alien and ‘dangerous’ group and, since no reformation was possible, justified the use of draconian punishment.

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[1] Philips, David, ‘Three “moral entrepreneurs” and the creation of a “criminal class” in England, c.1790s-1840s’, Crime, Histoire et Sociétés, Vol. 7, (2003), pp. 79-107 considers Colquhoun, Chadwick and Miles. See also, Ekelund, Robert B. and Dorton, Cheryl, ‘Criminal justice institutions as a common pool: the 19^th century analysis of Edwin Chadwick’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 50, (3), (2003), pp. 271-294.

[2] First Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the Best Means of Establishing an Efficient Constabulary Force in the Counties of England and Wales, (W. Clowes and Son), 1839, p. 63

[3] Ibid, First Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the Best Means of Establishing an Efficient Constabulary Force in the Counties of England and Wales, p. 64.

[4] Ibid, First Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the Best Means of Establishing an Efficient Constabulary Force in the Counties of England and Wales, p. 128.

[5] The problems involved in defining a ‘criminal class’ are explored in Bailey, V., ‘The fabrication of deviance: ‘dangerous classes’ and ‘criminal classes’ in Victorian England’, in Rule J. and Malcolmson, R., (eds.), Protest and survival: the historical experience; essays for E.P. Thompson, (Merlin Press), 1993, pp. 221-256, McGowen, Randall, ‘Getting to Know the Criminal Class in Nineteenth-Century England,’ Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Vol. 14, (1990), pp. 33-54, Taylor, David, ‘Beyond the bounds of respectable society: The “dangerous classes” in Victorian and Edwardian England’, in Rowbotham, Judith and Stevenson, Kim, (eds.), Criminal conversations : Victorian crimes, social panic, and moral outrage (Ohio State University Press), 2005, pp. 3-22, Wiener, M., Reconstructing the criminal: culture, law and policy, 1830-1914, (Cambridge University Press), 1991 and Men of blood: violence, manliness and criminal justice in Victorian England, (Cambridge University Press), 2004. See also, Carpenter, Mary, Reformatory schools for the children of the perishing and dangerous classes and for juvenile offenders, (C. Gilpin), 1851 and Adshead, Joseph, ‘On juvenile criminals, reformatories, and the means of rendering the perishing and dangerous classes serviceable to the state’, Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society, (1855-6), pp. 67-122.

[6] Speech by James Silk Buckingham, Evidence on Drunkenness presented to the House of Commons, (Benjamin Bagster), 1834, pp. 2-24.

[7] Symons, Jelinger C., ‘Special Report on Reformatories in Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and in Wales’, printed in the Minutes of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Parliamentary Papers, 1857-58, p. 236.

[8] Ibid, Symons, Jelinger C., ‘Special Report on Reformatories in Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and in Wales’, p. 238.

[9] Engels, F., The Condition of the Working-class in England, 1844, translated, with foreword by V. Kiernan, (Penguin), 1987, p. 146.

[10] The Mysteries of London, a penny dreadful was begun by Reynolds in 1844 and he the first two series of this long-running narrative of life in mid-nineteenth century London. Thomas Miller wrote the third series and Edward L. Blanchard the fourth series of this immensely popular title. Instalments were published weekly with a single illustration and eight pages of text printed in double columns and later bound together as single volumes. See, Carver, S.J., ‘The wrongs and crimes of the poor: the urban underworld of The Mysteries of London in context’, in Humpherys, Anne and James, Louis, (eds.), G.W.M. Reynolds: nineteenth-century fiction, politics, and the press, (Ashgate), 2008, 149-162.

[11] Les Mystères de Paris, a feulliton or French newspaper serial, was one of the most influential novels of the nineteenth century. While it is little known today, when it first ran as a weekly serial it outsold Alexandre Dumas pere’s The Count of Monte Cristo, and was praised by Victor Hugo, who called its author, Eugène Sue, the ‘Dickens of Paris.’ An English translation was published in three volumes in 1844. See, Maxwell, Richard, ‘G.M. Reynolds, Dickens and the Mysteries of London’, Nineteenth Century Fiction, Vol. 32, (2), (1977), pp. 188-213.

[12] Angelo, Michael, Penny Dreadfuls and Other Victorian Horrors, (Jupiter), 1977, pp. 80-81. See also, Maxwell, Richard, The Mysteries of Paris and London, (University of Virginia Press), 1992, pp. 1-58.

[13] Ibid, Mayhew, Henry, London Labour and the London Poor: The Condition and Earnings of Those that will work, cannot work, and will not work, Vol. I, p. 3. See also, Beier, A.L., ‘Identity, Language, and Resistance in the Making of the Victorian “Criminal Class”: Mayhew’s Convict Revisited’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 44, (2005), pp. 499-515 and Englander, David, ‘Henry Mayhew and the Criminal Classes of Victorian England: The Case Reopened’, Criminal Justice History, Vol. 17, (2002), pp. 87-108.

[14] See also, Henry Mayhew and Binny, John, The criminal prisons of London, and scenes of prison life, (Griffin, Bohn, and Co.), 1862, Englander, David, ‘Henry Mayhew and the Criminal Classes of Victorian England: The Case Reopened’, Criminal Justice History, Vol. 17, (2002), pp. 87-108 and Beier, A.L., ‘Identity, Language, and Resistance in the Making of the Victorian “Criminal Class”: Mayhew’s Convict Revisited’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 44, (2005), pp. 499-515.

[15] The Times 29 March 1870, cit, ibid, Emsley, Clive, Crime and Society in England 1750-1900, p. 73.

[16] See, Greenwood, James, The Seven Curses of London, (Fields, Osgood, & Co.), 1869.

[17] Welshman, John, Underclass: The History of the Excluded, 1880-2000, (Continuum), 2007 examines later developments.

[18] Phrenology developed in the early-nineteenth century. It was based on ‘feeling’ the bumps on a person’s skull. By doing this, phrenologists believed they could draw conclusions about the individual’s personality. See, Stack, David, Queen Victoria’s Skull: George Combe and the Mid-Victorian Minds, (Continuum), 2008, Parssinen, T.M., ‘Popular science and society: the phrenology movement in early Victorian Britain’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 8, (1974), pp. 1-20, Tomlinson, Stephen, ‘Phrenology, education and the politics of human nature: the thought and influence of George Combe’, History of Education, Vol. 26, (1997), pp. 1-22 and Van Wyhe, John, ‘Was Phrenology a Reform Science? Towards a New Generalization for Phrenology’, History of Science, Vol. 42, (2004), pp. 313-331.

[19] See, White, Arnold, The Destitute Alien in Great Britain: A Series of Papers Dealing with the Subject of Foreign Pauper Immigration, (Charles Scribner’s Sons), 1892 and Efficiency and Empire, (Methuen & Co.), 1901.

[20] Morrison, W.D., ‘The Increase in Crime’, The Twentieth Century, Vol. 31, (1892), p. 957, cit, ibid, Emsley, Clive, Crime and Society in England 1750-1900, p. 78.

[21] Zedner, L., Women, Crime and Custody in Victorian England, (Oxford University Press), 1991, pp. 51-92.

[22] Acton, William, Prostitution, (Chirchill), 1857, rep., (Praeger), 1969, p. 118.

[23] Philip, D., Crime and Authority in Victorian England: The Black Country 1835-60, (Croom Helm), 1977, pp. 13-21, 126-129, 287-288.