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Tuesday 1 March 2011

The Declaration of Independence and Lower Canada

The Declaration of Independence by the American colonies in 1776 played an importance role in the political thinking of the rebels during the rebellions in the Canadas. During each political crisis of the 1820s and especially the 1830s, people in the two Canadas looked with some envy at their neighbours in the American republic.[1] The admission of Canada into the Union when it requested it was included by the Founding Fathers of the American Nation in the Articles of Confederation.[2] However, this article was not included in the subsequent Constitution and the question of the possible annexation of Canada remained a recurring and, especially in the southern states, contentious issue in American politics.[3]

The Proclamation of the Independence of the United States followed the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 3 September 1783 that recognised the independence of the thirteen colonies.[4] The treaty was ratified by Great Britain and the United States and by France and Spain that both had interests in the region. Great Britain was the big loser. As well as losing the thirteen colonies, the most prosperous area in its Empire, it also ceded Florida to Spain and several islands in the Caribbean to France.  The idea for a republic came from the Enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century. The Americans were the first to put it into practice. The Canadian colonies obtained these revolutionary ideas from American travellers and settlers. They developed slowly in French Canadian society and finally emerged during the rebellions of 1837-1838.[5] It was not the Treaty of Paris per se that played the critical role in spread America ideas to Canadian reformers but the more important Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 and the American Constitution of 25 May 1787.[6]

The Declaration of Independence was an indictment against the British government especially its attacks on the freedoms of its subjects in the American colonies, a breach of the social contract between the colonists and the British Crown. Its drafters denounced colonial taxation, the arbitrary power exercised by the colonial authorities, the suspension of colonial legislatures elected by the people and other injustices and were left with no alternative but to declare their independence from London. The Patriotes used the same rhetoric in sending the Ninety-Two Resolutions to London in 1834 in which they denounced the abuses of colonial government, seigneurial tenure, the nomination by the monarch of members of the Executive and Legislative Councils etc. Although most Patriotes still had faith in British institutions, these Resolutions were a warning that independence remained a credible alternative to colonial rule. The American Constitution was also an important reference point for the Patriotes especially its principle of the separation of powers initially developed by Montesquieu.[7] The opening words of the Constitution, ‘We The People’ was revolutionary since it replaced the power of the Crown with the legitimacy of the people.

These two documents played a central role in the debates between Patriote leaders and the assemblies in the Canadas. After the defeat of the first rebellion in December 1837, Robert Nelson[8] proclaimed the Déclaration d’indépendance de la République du Bas-Canada on 28 February 1838, a document that was a mixture of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.[9] Nelson took the principal articles of the American Constitution that allowed a separation of powers and combined them with the notion of popular legitimacy. The failure of the second rebellion in November 1838 meant that his declaration of independence was not put into practice.

Appendix: Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Lower Canada

Written by Dr. Robert Nelson, who played a major role in the 1838 revolt, the Declaration was read by him as President of the Republic of Lower Canada before a crowd first on 28 February 1838 and later on 4 November 1838. [10]

February 1838

Déclarons solennellement:

1. Que de ce jour et à l’avenir, le peuple du Bas-Canada libre de toute allégeance à la Grande-Bretagne, et que le politique entre ce pouvoir et le Bas-Canada, est maintenant rompu

2. Qu’une forme républicaine de gouvernement est celle convient le mieux au Bas-Canada, qui est ce jour déclaré être une république.

3. Que sous le gouvernement libre du Bas-Canada, tous les individus jouiront des mêmes droits: les sauvages ne seront plus soumis à aucune disqualification civile, mais jouiront des mêmes droits que tous les autres citoyens du Bas-Canada.

4. Que toute union entre l’Église et l’État est par la présente déclarée être dissoute, et toute personne aura le droit d`exercer librement telle religion ou croyance qui lui sera dictée par sa conscience.

5. La tenure féodale ou seigneuriale des terres est par la présente abolie, aussi complètement que si telle tenure n`eàt jamais existé au Canada.

6. Que toute personne qui prendra les armes ou qui donnera autrement de l’aide au Canada, dans sa lutte pour l’émancipation, sera et est déchargée de toutes dettes ou obligations réelles ou supposées résultant d`arrérages des droits seigneuriaux ci-devant en existence.

7. Que le douaire coutumier est. pour l`avenir, aboli et prohibé.

8. Que l’emprisonnement pour dettes n`existera pas davantage excepté dans certains cas de fraude qui seront spécifiés, dans un acte à être plus tard passé à cette fin par la Législature du Bas- Canada.

9. Que la condamnation à mort ne sera plus prononcée ni exécutée, excepté dans les cas de meurtre.

10. Que toutes les hypothèques sur les terres seront spéciales et pour être valides seront enregistrées dans des bureaux à être établis pour cette fin par un acte de la Législature du Bas-Canada.

11. Que la liberté et l’indépendance de la presse existera dans toutes les matières et affaires publiques.

12. Que le procès par jury est assuré au peuple du Bas-Canada dans son sens le plus étendu et le plus libéral, dans tous les procès criminels, et aussi dans les procès civils au-dessus d`une somme à être fixée par la législature de l’État du Bas-Canada.

13. Que comme une éducation générale et publique est nécessaire et est due au peuple par le gouvernement, un acte y pourvoyant sera passé aussit tôt que les circonstances le permettront.

14. Que pour assurer la franchise électorale, toutes les élections se feront au scrutin secret.

15. Que dans le plus court délai possible, le peuple choisisse des délégués, suivant la présente division du pays en comtés, villes et bourgs, lesquels formeront une convention ou corps législatif pour formuler une constitution suivant les besoins du pays, conforme aux dispositions de cette déclaration, sujette à être modifiée suivant la volonté du peuple.

16. Que chaque individu du sexe masculin, de l’âge de vingt et un ans et plus, aura le droit de voter comme il est pourvu par la présente, et pour l`élection des susdits délégués.

17. Que toutes les terres de la Couronne, et aussi celles qui sont appelées Réserves du Clergé, et aussi celles qui sont nominalement la possession d`une certain compagnie de propriétaires en Angleterre appellée ‘La Compagnie des Terres de l’Amérique britannique du Nord’ sont de droit la propriété de l’État du Bas-Canada, et excepté telles parties des dites terres qui peuvent être en possession de personnes qui les détiennent de bonne foi, et auxquelles des titres seront assurés et accordés en vertu d’une loi qui sera passée pour légaliser la dite possession et donner un titre pour tels lots de terre dans les townships qui n`en ont pas, et qui sont en culture ou améliorés.

18. Que les langues française et anglaise seront en usage dans toutes les affaires publiques.

Et pour l’accomplissement de cette déclaration, et pour 1e soutien de la cause patriotique dans laquelle nous sommes maintenant engagés avec une ferme confiance dans la protection du Tout-Puissant et la justice de notre conduite, - nous, par ces présentes, nous engageons solennellement les uns envers les autres, nos vies et nos fortunes et notre honneur le plus sacré.

Par ordre du gouvernement provisoire.

ROBERT NELSON, Président

November 1838

Whereas the solemn compact made with the people of Lower Canada and registered in the book of statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the 31st chapter of the Acts passed in the 31st year of the reign of George III, has been continually violated by the British Government and our rights usurped; and whereas our humble petitions, addresses, protests, and complaints against this prejudicial and unconstitutional conduct have been in vain; and whereas the British government has disposed of our revenue without the constitutional consent of our local legislature, that it has pillaged our treasury, that it has arrested and imprisoned a great number of our fellow citizens, that it has spread throughout the country a mercenary army whose presence is accompanied by consternation and alarm, whose path has been reddened by the blood of our people, that has reduced our villages to ashes, profaned the temples, and spread terror and desolation throughout the land; and whereas we can no longer put up with the repeated violations of our most cherished rights or patiently bear the multiple outrages and cruelties of the government of Lower Canada; We, in the name of the people of Lower Canada, recognising the decrees of Divine Providence that permit us to overthrow a government that has violated the object and the intention of its creation, and to choose the form of government that will re-establish the reign of justice, assure domestic tranquillity, assure the common defense, increase general well-being, and guarantee for ourselves and our posterity the advantages of civil and religious freedom;

Solemnly declare:

1. That from this day forward the people of Lower Canada are absolved of all allegiance to Great Britain, and that all political ties between that power and Lower Canada have ceased as of this day;

2. That Lower Canada shall take the form of a republican government and, as such, declare itself a Republic;

3. That under the free Government of Lower Canada all citizens will have the same rights; the savages will cease being subjected to any form of civil disqualifications and will enjoy the same rights as the other citizens of the State of Lower Canada;

4. That all ties between Church and State are declared abolished, and every person has the right to freely exercise the religion and the beliefs dictated to him by his conscience;

5. That feudal and Seigneurial tenure are abolished in fact, as if they never existed in this country;

6. That any person who bears or will bear arms, or will furnish the means of assistance to the Canadian People in its struggle for emancipation, is relieved of all debts or obligations, real or supposed, towards Seigneurs, and for arriérages[11] in virtue of Seigneurial laws that formerly existed.

7. That the douaire coutoumier[12] is, in future, entirely abolished and prohibited;

8. That imprisonment for debt will no longer exist, except in cases of obvious fraud, which will be specified in an act of the Legislature of Lower Canada to that effect;

9. That the death penalty will be pronounced in cases of murder alone, and no other;

10. That all mortgages on lands must be special and, in order to be valid, must be registered in Offices created to that effect by an act of the legislature of Lower Canada;

11. That there will be full and entire freedom of the press in all public affairs and matters;

12. That trial by jury is guaranteed to the People of the State in criminal trials to its most liberal extent, and in civil affairs to the sum of an amount to be determined by the legislature of the State of Lower Canada;

13. That as a necessity and obligation of the Government towards the people, public and general education will be put in operation and encouraged in a special manner, as soon as circumstances permit;

14. That in order to ensure the franchise and electoral freedom, all elections will be held in the form of a ballot;

15. That as soon as circumstances permit, the People will choose its Delegates following the current division of the country in cities, towns and counties, which will constitute a Convention or Legislative body, in order to found and establish a constitution, according to the needs of the country and in conformity with the conditions of this Declaration, subject to modification according to the will of the people;

16. That any male person over the age of 21 will have the right to vote as above mentioned, for the election of the above-named delegates;

17. That those lands called Crown lands, as well as those called Reservations of the Clergy and those nominally in the possession of a certain company of speculators in England, called the ‘Company of the Lands of British North America’ shall become by law the property of the State of Lower Canada, except for those portions of land that are in the possession of farmers who hold them in good faith, for which we guarantee the title in virtue of a law which will be passed in order to legalize the possession of such lots of land situated in the Townships which are now under cultivation;

18. That French and English will be used in all public matters.

And for the support of this declaration, and the success of the Patriote cause that we support, we, confident of the protection of the All-Powerful and of the justice of our line of conduct, engage by these present, mutually and solemnly the ones towards the others, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.

By order of the Provisional Government

Robert Nelson

President


[1] Caron, Ivanhoe, ‘Influence de la Déclaration de l’Indépendance Americaine et de la Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme sur la rebellion French Canadianne de 1837 et 1838’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 3rd series, Vol. 26, (1931), pp. 5-26

[2] The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (commonly referred to as the Articles of Confederation) was the constitution of the revolutionary wartime alliance of the thirteen United States of America. The Articles’ ratification (proposed in 1777) was completed in 1781, and legally federated several sovereign and independent states, allied under the Articles of Association into a new federation styled the ‘United States of America’. The original five-paged Articles contained thirteen articles, a conclusion, and a signatory section. The pre-approval of Canada’s inclusion was in Article 11: ‘Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.’

[3] Corey, Albert B., The Crisis of 1830-1842 in Canadian-American Relations, (Russell and Russell), 1941, pp. 16-17. The attitude of the southern states was to a considerable extent influenced by the slave-free status of the Canadas.

[4] Bemis, Samuel Flagg, A Diplomatic History of the United States, 4th ed., (Holt, Rinehart & Winston), 1955, p. 62

[5] Ibid, Caron, Ivanhoe, ‘Influence de la Déclaration de l’Indépendance Americaine et de la Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme sur la rebellion French Canadianne de 1837 et 1838’, p. 5.

[6] Peyret, H, Les États-Unis, (PUF), 1961, p. 15.

[7] Ibid, Peyret, H, Les États-Unis, p. 15.

[8] Soderstrom, Mary, Robert Nelson, Le Medecin Rebelle, (L’Hexagone), 1999 is the most recent study; see also ‘Robert Nelson’, DCB, Vol. 9, pp. 544-547 and Messier, pp. 351-352..

[9] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 301-304.

[10] Nelson, Robert, Déclaration d’indépendance et autres écrits (1832-1848), édition établie et annotée par Georges Aubin, (Comeau et Nadeau), 1998, pp. 26-34.

[11] The amount due on the rent of a farm.

[12] That which the husband assigns to the wife for her use should she survive him.

Murder and assault: crimes against the person

Although there were several high profile crimes and criminals in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, most criminal activity was small-scale, often involved a degree of violence and, despite the fears of the middle-classes largely involved members of the working-classes both as criminals and as victims.[1] There are major problems with the official crime statistics. How the police collated information or massaged the figures is often unclear and many crimes went unreported largely because the poorer sections of Victorian society, those most vulnerable to crime, had little faith in the police and many did not bother to report crimes as a result.[2] National figures of committals on indictment began in 1805, covering fifty crimes until 1834 when they become almost complete.

Crime 5

“Oliver amazed at the Dodger’s Mode of ‘going to Work’”

From the middle of the nineteenth century the annual publication of Judicial Statistics for England and Wales suggested that in general crime levels appeared to be declining in England and Wales. Indictable offences declined by 79% between 1842 and 1891 and in London they declined by 63% between the 1820s and 1870s. Much of the decline in London reflects a sharp drop in violent crime of about 68% between the 1830s and the 1860s. Larceny indictments also decreased in London, from about 220 per 100,000 in the 1830s and 1840s to about 70 per 100,000 in the 1850s. This decline, however, stems at least partially from a revision of the criminal code in 1855 that removed minor larcenies from the indictable category and permitted courts to deal with them summarily. Although this revision treated simple assaults similarly, nearly all the decline in assaults had occurred by 1855. Other property crimes, particularly burglary, fraud, and embezzlement, increased during this period or remained steady. However, some areas experienced increases in crime. For example, as the Black Country industrialised, larceny committals to trial rose from 91 per 100,000 in 1835 to about 262 in 1860, an increase of 188%, and committals to trial for offences against the person increased from about 6 per 100,000 to about 14 per 100,000, a 133% increase.[3] This study suggests that rural areas and small towns exhibited sharply higher levels of criminality as they industrialised, while in heavily urbanised areas such as London studies found declines in serious criminality as they and their surrounding communities developed.

The volume and composition of indictments were determined by various factors, particularly the legal definition of crime and the zeal of prosecutors and officials. It is clear that prosecution rates varied both between crimes and over time. As a result, criminal statistics offer a poor indication of the fluctuating level of crime. The pattern of indictments demonstrates starkly a determination to protect property and an assumption that it was endangered by the criminality of the lower orders. In contrast, the countless offences of nobles, gentry, shopkeepers, and tradesmen went largely unpunished and white-collar criminals were more familiar to readers of Charles Dickens than to officials of the criminal courts.

It was offences against the person that provided the most spectacular and terrifying images of criminality in this period although they only accounted for about 10% of all indictable crimes in the nineteenth century For example, the metropolitan garrotting panics of the mid-1850s and 1862-1863 that set a trend for describing a variety of robberies in London and the provinces, as ‘garrotting‘ and the butchery of Jack the Ripper in East London in the autumn of 1888 reverberated outside London. [4]

At the popular level, there were newspapers devoted to crime and this helped to feed people’s interest. There were few restrictions on reporting and artists were used to draw scenes from the crime allowing them to print the kind of pictures that would not be allowed as photographs today. Madame Tussaud’s opened in 1802 and had popular waxworks of criminals, especially murderers. Murder featured a great deal perhaps because it was, from the 1860s, the only capital offence. There was huge public interest in celebrated nineteenth century horror crimes, like the Radcliffe Highway murders of 1811 when two families were battered to death, the activities of the poisoner William Palmer in the mid-1850s[5] and the Ripper murders of 1888. [6]

But these were the dramatic and well-publicised exception rather than the norm. The statistics show that the number of murders stood at about 400 a year during the nineteenth century and that, then as now, most murders were normally committed by either relatives or by persons known to the victim. Murders by strangers or by burglars were exceptional though they were widely and luridly reported in newspapers.

Crime 6

Homicide is regarded as a most serious offence and it is probably reported more than other forms of crime.[7] Between 1857 and 1890, there were rarely more than 400 homicides reported to the police each year, and during the 1890s the average was below 350. In Victorian England, the homicide rate reached 2 per 100,000 of the population only once, in 1865. Generally, it was about 1.5 per 100,000 falling to rarely more than 1 per 100,000 at the end of the 1880s and declining even further after 1900. These figures do not take into account the significant number of infanticides that went undetected.[8] The statistics for homicide are therefore probably closer to the real level of the offence. Two points are important. First, there was a high level of violence within the family. Physical punishment seems to have been accepted or at least tolerated across social groups until well into the nineteenth century.[9] Yet there were limits. Ill-treatment leading to death was exceptional but even here courts could find mitigating circumstances: Frederick Gilbert was acquitted of the manslaughter of his wife after the court noted that he was a good, sober man and his wife a drunkard. There appears to have been a decline in violence between working-class men and women in the third quarter of the century, possibly because of growing respectability and rising living standards that reduced stress on the male as the principal economic provider.[10]

A breakdown of assaults taken before Bedfordshire magistrates every five years between 1750 and 1840 shows that there were very high numbers of assaults on women of which a third were attacks by husbands on their wives. Only a third of these types of assault were prosecuted on indictment and one in ten cases failed because wives failed to given evidence in court and wife-beating rarely led to more than six-month imprisonment. There were a significant number of attacks on authority in the shape of constables or overseers of the poor. By contrast, some 85% of these attacks led to prosecution.[11]

Offences against the person made up over 10% of committals made on indictment during the period 1834 and 1914 and about 15% of summary committals in the second half of the century. Assaults on authority, in the shape of policemen formed a significant percentage of nineteenth century assaults and declined at a slower rate than common assault: 15% of summary prosecutions in the 1860s rising to about 21% in the 1880s. Most assaults were for resisting or obstructing the police in their duty.

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Perhaps also the cult of respectability made wives even less likely to complain since such assaults were shameful and in the growing suburbs they were less public, less likely to disturb the neighbours, while the bruising was less visible than on the crowded stair of a tenement.

Crime 8

In addition, there was the extent to which courts and the police were prepared to accept the uncorroborated word of the beaten wife. [12] Although magistrates took contrasting positions with regard to wife-abuse, increasingly brutality by husbands was seen as unmanly and cowardly and some magistrates took the view that no amount of provocation could justify any act of violence against women. However, wife-abuse remained a significant problem and was denounced especially by Frances Power Cobbe. Campaigns around marital violence pre-dated the Ripper murders by a decade and one of the most powerful arguments that campaigners against ‘wife-torture’ had was the inadequacy of the law in protecting women from reprisal. The incidence of wife-beating declined from the 1870s in part because of the increase in penalties such as the power of police magistrates to have offenders flogged and exposed in the public pillory contained in the Wife Beaters Act 1882 but also because of improved living standards and the diffusion of middle-class family values.

Crime 9

Cobbe and many others were convinced that levels of male violence were made worse by the consumption of alcohol; an analysis not exclusive to feminists as long-standing temperance societies show. Drink was often a cause of violence in the family, and outside. For example, in Dundee in the 1870s, the problem with drunkenness had become problematic, and one policeman would bring in between 60 and 70 drunken men and women on a Saturday night. In the late 1870s, the crime of ‘shebeening’, selling alcohol without a licence was committed by more women than men and in 1877, fines imposed on persons selling liquor without a licence raised almost £300 in revenue for the police. Some Victorian temperance reformers gave drink as the fundamental cause of all crime; the public house was the ‘nursery of crime’.[13] Others were less zealous and suggested only a connection between crimes of violence and drink. There is some evidence to suggest that there were slight increases in figures for assault and drunkenness during years of prosperity: high wages and high employment led to a greater consumption of alcohol that, in turn, contributed to more violent crime. However, in the last quarter of the century the overall trend is markedly downwards. This may be explained, in part, by which contemporaries perceived as the civilisation or moralisation of the population. Perhaps also there was a decrease in anxiety about small-scale, drink-related violence.[14]


[1] See, Chassaigne, Philippe, ‘Popular representations of crime: the crime broadside, a subculture of violence in Victorian Britain?’, Crime, Histoire et Sociétés, Vol. 3, (1999), pp. 23-55.

[2] Williams, Chris A., ‘Counting Crimes or Counting People: Some implications of mid-nineteenth century British policing returns’, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés, Vol 4, (2), pp. 77-93 focuses on Sheffield.

[3] Ibid, Philip, D., Crime and Authority in Victorian England: The Black Country 1835-60, p. 143.

[4] In July 1863 Hugh Pilkington, an MP was garrotted and robbed in central London. This led to a ‘garrotting scare’. There were 12 more recorded cases in October and 32 in November. Maybe the press reports of the original case led criminals to copy the tactic. Maybe the police or the public labelled certain kinds of robbery ‘garrottings’ that they would not previously have done; see, Davis, J. ‘The London garrotting panic of l862: a moral panic and the creation of a criminal class in mid-Victorian England’, in ibid, Gatrell V.A.C. et al., (eds.), Crime and the law: a social history of crime in Western Europe since 1500, pp. 190-213 and Sindall, R.S., ‘The London garotting panics of 1856 and 1862’, Social History, Vol. 12, (1987), pp. 351-359 and Street Violence in the Nineteenth Century: Media Panic or Real Danger?, (Leicester University Press), 1990. See also, Rudé, G., Criminal and Victim: Crime and Society in Early Nineteenth-Century England, (Oxford University Press), 1985 and Wood, J. Carter, Violence and crime in nineteenth-century England: The shadow of our refinement, (Routledge), 2004.

[5] Watson, Katherine, Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and their Victims, (Hambledon), 2004 considers one type of homicide.

[6] Gray, Drew D., London’s Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (Cointinuum), 2010 examines the impact of the Ripper murders.

[7] Wiener, Martin J., ‘Homicide and “Englishness”: Criminal Justice and National Identity in Victorian England’, National Identities, Vol. 6, (2003), pp. 203-214 and Conley, Carolyn A., ‘Wars among Savages: Homicide and Ethnicity in the Victorian United Kingdom’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 44, (2005), pp. 775-795. Local studies include, Cockburn, J.S., ‘Patterns of violence in English society: homicide in Kent, 1500-1985’, Past & Present, Vol. 130, (1991), pp. 70-106, England, R.W., ‘Investigating Homicides in Northern England, 1800-24’, Criminal Justice History, Vol. 6, (1985), pp. 105-123 and Conley, Carolyn A., Certain other countries: homicide, gender, and national identity in late nineteenth-century England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, (Ohio State University Press), 2007.

[8] On infanticide, see http://richardjohnbr.blogspot.com/2010/10/infanticide-case-study.html

[9] On this issue see, ibid, Wood, J. Carter, Violence and Crime in Nineteenth-Century England: The Shadow of Our Refinement, pp. 1-69 who argues that violence was ‘discovered’ as a social problem in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a traditional customary understanding that legitimated physical confrontation was challenged by an emergent middle- and upper-class culture. Ibid, Wiener, Martin, Men of Blood argues that, while there was an increasingly sharp distinction made between the separate spheres of men and women during the Victorian period, this had the effect of criminalising male violence.

[10] Tomes, Nancy, ‘A “Torrent of Abuse”: Crimes of Violence between Working-class Men and Women in London, 1840-1875,’ Journal of Social History, Vol. 11, (1977-8), pp. 328-345.

[11] Emsley, C., Hard Men: the English and Violence since 1750, (Hambledon), 2005 and Wood, J. Carter, Violence and crime in nineteenth-century England: the shadow of our refinement, (Routledge), 2004 provide an overview. See also Stone, L., ‘Interpersonal Violence in English Society 1300-1980’, Past and Present, Vol. 101, (1983), pp. 22-33.

[12] On domestic violence, see, Hammerton, A. James, Cruelty and companionship: conflict in nineteenth-century married life, (Routledge), 1992. See also, Emmerichs, M.B.W., ‘Trials of Women for Homicide in Nineteenth-Century England’, Women & Criminal Justice, Vol. 5, (1), pp. 99-109.

[13] Burne, Peter, The Teetotaler’s Companion, (Arthur Hall and Co.), 1847, p. 31-56.

[14] Davies, A., ‘Youth Gangs, Masculinity and Violence in Late Victorian Manchester and Salford’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 32, (1998), pp. 349-369 and ‘”These viragoes are no less cruel than the lads”: young women, gangs and violence in late Victorian Manchester and Salford’, British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 39, (1999), pp. 72-89 and G. Pearson, G., Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, (Leicester University Press), 1983 consider one aspect of violence.