Crime City: Manchester's Victorian Underworld by Joseph O'Neill Page A
Authors: Joseph O'Neill
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all commentators agreed that the number of juvenile thieves who were hardened criminals had shrunk. The 1884 Royal Commission on the Reformatories and Industrial Schools accepted that the training of boys as professional criminals that had taken place in prisons was now a thing of the past.
Education also had a key responsibility for saving the young from a life of crime. This was an ambitious task. The Education Aid Society, in its report of 1870, spoke of the need for schools to ‘civilise and humanise the great masses that have sunk so low’. Many children were no more than savages, totally lacking in any sense of right and wrong. Another report from the same period states clearly that the children it seeks to help are often ‘as wild as ostriches of the desert’.
The Society was in no doubt how this came about. ‘When for the first ten or twelve years of their life there has been no discipline – when cleanliness and comfort have been unknown – when no law of God or man has been considered sacred, and no power recognised but physical force, it is impossible these children should settle down to work. They seek satisfaction in the lowest sensual enjoyments. It is the story of the lives of tens of thousands.’ It is hardly surprising that young criminals regarded a court appearance as a badge of honour, much as their twenty-first century counterparts regard an ASBO as a rite of passage. Imprisonment guaranteed status, especially when it merited newspaper coverage.
Dick Turpin, Jack Sheppard and other legendary desperados were young criminals’ heroes. They swapped tales of their audacity round the lodging house fires and in prison cells and sang about them in the pubs, beerhouses and the penny gaffs frequented by criminals. From the mid-century hawkers sold written accounts of their exploits. And there were plenty of older criminals who regarded themselves as craftsmen, passing on their lore to the next generation, enabling them to make a living. Often, however, this was more self-interest than philanthropy. In many cases the mentor ran a lodging house and provided his charges with pencils, oranges, notebooks or other items they might peddle as a front for stealing.
Writing in 1895, Caminada tells of professional thieves who attended race meetings, not only to rob, but in the hope of ‘plucking greenhorns’ – recruiting accomplices from the gutter children selling newspapers and matches. An apprentice thief was totally dependent on his mentor, as no fence would accept stolen goods from anyone unknown to him. In return for this service, the boy, who often did the actual stealing, was generally well looked after – for so long as he remained a valuable asset.
Girls made up about twenty per cent of young convicts. Apart from prostitution, begging and pickpocketing, they often acted as look-outs for burglars and served as their ‘canaries’ – carrying tools to and from the burglary. In Manchester as elsewhere, children often provided information about targets for robbery and were essential for entering houses through small windows and apertures. Forgers and coiners used them as go-betweens. But the use of children in crime declined greatly in the second half of the nineteenth century. Yet there were still many who graduated into adolescent and young adult criminals. Then, as now, a great deal of crime was the work of young men and Manchester was a young man’s city. In the middle of the century half the population was under twenty-three. They often organised themselves into groups specialising in one or two types of theft. Most attacks on the person were the work of such gangs. The very young thieves tended to be opportunists, snatching whatever they could when the opportunity arose.
The practice of juveniles preying on young children was common early in the nineteenth century and, according to the Manchester City News, during the economic downturn of 1864 reemerged with such force that children went in
Education also had a key responsibility for saving the young from a life of crime. This was an ambitious task. The Education Aid Society, in its report of 1870, spoke of the need for schools to ‘civilise and humanise the great masses that have sunk so low’. Many children were no more than savages, totally lacking in any sense of right and wrong. Another report from the same period states clearly that the children it seeks to help are often ‘as wild as ostriches of the desert’.
The Society was in no doubt how this came about. ‘When for the first ten or twelve years of their life there has been no discipline – when cleanliness and comfort have been unknown – when no law of God or man has been considered sacred, and no power recognised but physical force, it is impossible these children should settle down to work. They seek satisfaction in the lowest sensual enjoyments. It is the story of the lives of tens of thousands.’ It is hardly surprising that young criminals regarded a court appearance as a badge of honour, much as their twenty-first century counterparts regard an ASBO as a rite of passage. Imprisonment guaranteed status, especially when it merited newspaper coverage.
Dick Turpin, Jack Sheppard and other legendary desperados were young criminals’ heroes. They swapped tales of their audacity round the lodging house fires and in prison cells and sang about them in the pubs, beerhouses and the penny gaffs frequented by criminals. From the mid-century hawkers sold written accounts of their exploits. And there were plenty of older criminals who regarded themselves as craftsmen, passing on their lore to the next generation, enabling them to make a living. Often, however, this was more self-interest than philanthropy. In many cases the mentor ran a lodging house and provided his charges with pencils, oranges, notebooks or other items they might peddle as a front for stealing.
Writing in 1895, Caminada tells of professional thieves who attended race meetings, not only to rob, but in the hope of ‘plucking greenhorns’ – recruiting accomplices from the gutter children selling newspapers and matches. An apprentice thief was totally dependent on his mentor, as no fence would accept stolen goods from anyone unknown to him. In return for this service, the boy, who often did the actual stealing, was generally well looked after – for so long as he remained a valuable asset.
Girls made up about twenty per cent of young convicts. Apart from prostitution, begging and pickpocketing, they often acted as look-outs for burglars and served as their ‘canaries’ – carrying tools to and from the burglary. In Manchester as elsewhere, children often provided information about targets for robbery and were essential for entering houses through small windows and apertures. Forgers and coiners used them as go-betweens. But the use of children in crime declined greatly in the second half of the nineteenth century. Yet there were still many who graduated into adolescent and young adult criminals. Then, as now, a great deal of crime was the work of young men and Manchester was a young man’s city. In the middle of the century half the population was under twenty-three. They often organised themselves into groups specialising in one or two types of theft. Most attacks on the person were the work of such gangs. The very young thieves tended to be opportunists, snatching whatever they could when the opportunity arose.
The practice of juveniles preying on young children was common early in the nineteenth century and, according to the Manchester City News, during the economic downturn of 1864 reemerged with such force that children went in
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