Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNumérosvol. 25, n°2ArticlesViolent Women: Changes in Magiste...

Articles

Violent Women: Changes in Magisterial Attitudes to Female Acts of Assault in Cheltenham and Exeter (England), 1880-1909

Grace Di Méo
p. 81-107

Résumés

Des recherches récentes indiquent qu’au cours de la période victorienne et édouardienne les juges et les magistrats sont devenus de plus en plus sévères dans leur traitement des violences masculines. Jusqu’alors, il était mis en avant que les actes de violence commis par des femmes étaient eux considérés comme insignifiants et faisaient l’objet d’une moindre attention. Cet article présente une autre perspective sur le traitement judiciaire des violences féminines en examinant les poursuites engagées par les tribunaux correctionnels d’Exeter et de Cheltenham au cours des années 1880-1910. En analysant les ressorts des verdicts et des peines prononcés à l’encontre des accusées, l’article soutient que les magistrats ont adopté des politiques plus sévères à l’égard des femmes violentes au fur et à mesure de la période. Des facteurs circonstanciels, démographiques et procéduraux pouvant avoir eu un impact sur les changements dans la prise de décision des magistrats sont également examinés.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

  • 1 Gatrell (1980); Gurr (1981); Stone (1983); Cockburn (1991); Eisner (2003); Godfrey (2008).
  • 2 Taylor (2002); Godfrey (2008).
  • 3 Elias (1978, 1986). Although published in German in 1939, Elias’ Civilizing Process was not trans (...)
  • 4 Wiener (1998, 2004); Spierenburg (2001, 2008); Pratt (2002); Carter Wood (2004); Emsley (2005a).

1It is now widely accepted by scholars that there was a gradual decline in recorded rates of both lethal and non-lethal violent crime in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century England.1 Some researchers, including Godfrey and Taylor, have attributed this trend to developments in policing and prosecution practices.2 Others have adopted the “civilising process” theory put forward by Elias.3 Tracing changes in public manners within Europe from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, Elias argued that two components — the spread of elite attitudes which promoted self-restraint and the growth of state monopolies over criminal justice systems — culminated in a reduction of interpersonal aggression. Applying his theory to changes which occurred centuries later, scholars have argued that similar factors influenced both a harshening in attitudes towards violence and a widespread campaign to eradicate violent behaviour during the nineteenth century.4

  • 5 Wiener (2004, 132).

2Studies which examine changes in response to violence often suggest that Victorian and Edwardian contemporaries were primarily concerned with acts committed by men. In a study on male acts of homicide and rape in Victorian England, Wiener argued that men were increasingly likely to be convicted and received stricter sentences as the nineteenth century progressed. This tightening of judicial policies towards male offenders was regarded to be part of a campaign — or so-called “civilising offensive” — directed at curtailing male violent behaviour. However, whilst demonstrating fundamental changes in nineteenth-century attitudes to violence, the study made little attempt to ascertain whether these transformations impacted the treatment of violent women. Although Wiener alluded to female perpetrators by noting their “surprisingly indulgent” treatment when charged with violence against their husbands, the study seldom discussed female cases or commented on either judicial or public responses to them.5

  • 6 Godfrey et al. (2005, 716).
  • 7 Davies (1999, 87); D’Cruze et al. (2010, 244).
  • 8 Turner (2019, 9).
  • 9 August (2015, 847). Further exceptions include several studies which examine stereotypically “fem (...)

3Conversely, studies which address the treatment of violent women by the English courts indicate that judicial decision-makers were relatively unconcerned by female violence. In their examination of assault prosecutions across ten magistrates’ courts between 1880 and 1920, Godfrey et al. argued that, whilst differences in verdicts were linked to “gender-related” rather than “gender-biased” factors, female defendants were issued with lighter sentences than their male counterparts since magistrates felt that women’s offences were “petty” whilst men were “in need of civilising”.6 Davies’ study of female gang-related violence in Manchester and Salford claimed that women received lenient treatment due to being held as “marginal figures”, whilst D’Cruze et al. argued that magistrates in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Crewe perceived violent women as a “social nuisance” rather than a “social threat” and thus regarded their offences as trivial.7 Similarly, Turner’s study of assaults by women on their husbands in nineteenth-century Stafford argues that, “as with cases in which women assaulted other women, neither Stafford magistrates nor the press were overly concerned with women who assaulted their menfolk”.8 August’s examination of female assault prosecutions at Thames Police Court in the years 1880-1920 remains one of the few exceptions to this view, within which it is argued that the civilising campaign was directed not only against “unruly working-class masculinity” but also at “violent and unfeminine women”.9

  • 10 Ferguson (2010); Gibson (2009). However, Gibson suggests that women were stigmatised at subsequen (...)
  • 11 Van der Heijden and Pluskota (2015, 164). See also van der Heijden’s research on Dutch courts in (...)
  • 12 Pluskota (2018, 728).

4Studies of violent crime elsewhere in Europe have further enriched discussions he treatment of male and female offenders by the criminal justice system. Some research supports the contention that women could receive preferential treatment in court: Ferguson’s research on violence in fin-de-siècle Paris indicates that juries were more likely to issue acquittals in cases of spousal murder if the defendant was a female, whilst Gibson’s research on women’s criminality in post-unification Italy suggests that infanticide was treated leniently by the courts.10 However, research by van der Heijden and Pluskota on prosecutions in nineteenth-century Holland offers an alternative view by offering two key findings: first, that women were convicted at similar rates to men; second, that differences in sentencing — men having received harsher sentences than women — were linked to contextual factors rather than gender bias. This led the authors to argue that the “criminalization of men” as identified in England by Wiener was not evident in Holland, a difference which they attributed to the English magistrates having had a “greater opportunity to be lenient” with female defendants than their Dutch counterparts.11 Pluskota’s more recent comparison of petty criminality in Amsterdam, Le Havre and Bologna has similarly demonstrated that there were only limited differences in the treatment of male and female assault cases and thus suggests that courtroom procedures were “relatively gender-neutral”.12

  • 13 Women could constitute roughly a third of those charged with assault in nineteenth- and twentieth (...)
  • 14 Wiener (1998, 2004); Carter Wood (2004).
  • 15 Godfrey et al. (2005); Abraham (2012); Turner (2012).
  • 16 However, this issue has been addressed within studies outside of England. See, for example, Plusk (...)

5Recent research has brought women out of the shadows from a history of violence which previously overlooked them: although earlier studies focused heavily on those who were the most prevalent offenders (men), it has now been demonstrated that women were more involved in violence — especially that which was non-lethal — than once assumed.13 These studies have also provided rich discussions on the relationship between gender, violent crime and justice in the criminal justice system. However, a shortcoming within recent research, particularly from the English context, is that there have been few attempts to examine shifts in judicial attitudes towards violent women. Studies which examine changes in response to violence have provided scant discussion on female offending and instead focused on acts perpetrated by men.14 Studies which consider the treatment of female offenders, meanwhile, have often neglected to consider changes over time. These examinations typically provide overviews of women’s conviction and sentencing rates within a set period without addressing any incremental changes in judicial policies, thereby failing to identify whether there were shifts in the treatment of female violence as the period progressed.15 As such, it remains unclear whether the harshening judicial treatment of violent males by the English justice system was also reflected in the treatment of their female counterparts.16

  • 17 Most research on non-lethal violence has focused on London, the North West and the Midlands. See, (...)
  • 18 These courts were chosen for two reasons. First, as is discussed later, the differing socioeconom (...)
  • 19 These newspapers include: Cheltenham Chronicle; Cheltenham Examiner; Gloucester Citizen; Gloucest (...)
  • 20 Cases were first catalogued using court registers before being supplemented with corresponding mi (...)

6This article therefore discusses changes in the treatment of female non-lethal violence within the late Victorian and Edwardian criminal justice system by drawing on evidence from an underexplored region of England: the South West.17 In particular, it examines the experiences of the 1507 women who were prosecuted for assault at the Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates’ courts during the years 1880-1909.18 To ascertain whether magisterial policies changed over this 30-year period, the study analyses data gathered from court records and newspapers. Court records included both registers and minute books, the first of which were used to identify and catalogue female assault prosecutions. The latter was a highly valuable resource: although seldom used by researchers due to their scarcity, minute books provide accounts of cases and contain details relating to women’s actions, backgrounds and treatment. Local newspapers, meanwhile, offered information on cases deemed to be particularly newsworthy, such as the contexts of assaults and the courtroom behaviours of defendants and prosecutors.19 Combined, these three types of sources made it possible to create and analyse a dataset of every case of female-perpetrated assault prosecuted at Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates’ courts in the years 1880-1909.20

  • 21 King (1996).
  • 22 Godfrey (2003, 341).

7A similar method has been employed to that in King’s study on assault prosecutions during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, within which patterns in prosecution outcomes were analysed in order to identify shifts in responses to violence.21 As Godfrey has noted, King’s study offers the only attempt to link sentencing data to changes in responses to violence, yet it serves as a valuable framework for examining the shifts which subsequently occurred during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.22 This article thus adopts King’s method to uncover changes in attitudes to female violence during the late Victorian and Edwardian period. It begins by assessing trends in the verdicts and sentences issued to female defendants, thereafter providing discussion on the factors which may have influenced changes in magisterial policies. Ultimately, it argues that magistrates became stricter in their treatment of women’s assaults, with women becoming more likely to receive convictions and custodial sentences as the period progressed. It further suggests that this shift may have been linked both to changes in the nature of summary court procedures and, to some extent, the backgrounds of the women who came before the Bench.

Patterns in the distribution of verdicts

  • 23 Maitland (1885, 89).
  • 24 Alexander (1915, 202-203).
  • 25 Bentley (1998, 19-28).

8In 1885, historian F. W. Maitland wrote that the summary justice system was “yearly becoming of greater importance”.23 Rapid increase in the use of summary justice over the nineteenth century had brought magistrates’ courts to the forefront of the English criminal justice system. By the late Victorian and Edwardian period, at which point 98% of criminal offences were handled summarily, magistrates had become responsible for handling the majority of violent crime.24 Whilst previously having dealt only with acts of common assault, magistrates were granted with jurisdiction over more serious classifications of violence such as assaults on children, women and police officers. Only a small portion of violent crime was prosecuted outside of the summary justice system, leaving the most exceptional cases of violence — such as homicide and rape — to be tried by jury at either the Quarter Sessions or the Assizes.25

  • 26 Godfrey et al. (2005, 702).
  • 27 Some of these cases may have been settled out of court instead.

9The range of verdicts which could be returned in cases brought before magistrates’ courts was limited. First, the defendant could be found not guilty, an outcome typically reached when magistrates dismissed defendants but, on occasion, could result from prosecutors consenting to withdraw a case. In either scenario, the defendant would be acquitted, although was sometimes also cautioned by magistrates or ordered to pay the prosecution costs. A second option for magistrates was to find the defendant guilty and to issue them with either a financial or custodial sentence upon conviction. Third, magistrates could bind the defendant over, a sanction which required the suspect to be financially bound over to keep the peace for a specified period of time. This verdict was not technically a conviction, typically being used when magistrates felt there was evidence of misbehaviour but not enough to warrant a conviction.26 Finally, it was possible for no outcome to be reached. This scenario was most common when cases were adjourned by magistrates but, for any number of reasons, were not brought back to the court at a subsequent date.27

10An overview of the verdicts issued during the years 1880-1909 indicates some differences between the Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates in their responses to female acts of assault (see Table I). Women prosecuted at Cheltenham faced relatively good chances of being acquitted, most defendants (60.7%) having been either dismissed by the magistrates or granted a withdrawal by a prosecutor. By contrast, only 38.1% were convicted and 0.2% bound over. A summary of the verdicts issued at Cheltenham across the entire period therefore indicates that the magistrates were not particularly concerned with bringing women under legal sanctions. Accused women met much starker outcomes at Exeter, where magistrates appear to have adopted a less lenient stance towards female assault cases. The proportion of defendants found not guilty was almost a third that of Cheltenham, only 24.1% of the women having been sent away with either a dismissal or withdrawal. Exeter magistrates were instead more willing to impose penalties upon women; 67.7% of defendants were convicted whilst a further 7.4% were bound over.

Table I. Verdicts issued at Cheltenham and Exeter

Table I. Verdicts issued at Cheltenham and Exeter

Source: DHC, Court Registers for Exeter City Magistrates’ Court (F1/32); GA, Court Registers for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/RM1/1-16)

  • 28 However, convictions were more common in some courts elsewhere in Europe. Convictions were issued (...)
  • 29 Turner (2012, 65); Abraham (2012, 65).
  • 30 Godfrey et al. (2005, 702).

11The divergence between conviction rates at Cheltenham and Exeter — 38.1% compared to 67.7% — is more likely to have been caused by leniency amongst the Cheltenham magistrates than by harsh magisterial responses at Exeter. Studies of magistrates’ courts elsewhere in the country provide similar conviction rates for female acts of assault to that of Exeter.28 Turner’s research on prosecutions at Stafford Borough Magistrates’ Court during the years 1880-1905 finds that 62.8% of women summoned for assault were convicted, whilst Abraham’s study of assault prosecutions at Nottingham and Northampton during the period 1880-1920 demonstrates that roughly 50-67% of female defendants were found guilty.29 Godfrey et al.’s study on numerous magistrates’ courts over a similar period provides a lower figure, the conviction rate for women being only 49%, although this is still notably higher than the conviction rate amongst women at Cheltenham.30 A preliminary overview of verdicts thus suggests that the Cheltenham magistrates adopted a relatively relaxed approach towards female defendants, a leniency which may have been anomalous to magistrates elsewhere in the country.

12An examination of changes in the distribution of verdicts over the period complicates this view. Graphs 1 and 2 show the verdicts issued at Exeter and Cheltenham broken down into 5 sets of 6-year intervals, within which it appears there were fundamental shifts in magisterial decision-making across both courts. These changes in magisterial practices can be best identified by dividing the period under study into two phases: first, the years 1880-1891; second, the years 1892-1909. During the years 1880-1891, Cheltenham magistrates remained remarkably consistent in their responses to female assault prosecutions: the proportion of women who were dismissed dropped marginally from 63.5% to 63.2%, whilst the conviction rate rose from 31.6% to 32.9%. There was also little change in the rate of dismissals at Exeter over these years, this outcome having risen only from 26.3% to 27.1% of all verdicts reached. Although the conviction rate fell from 69.4% to 61.8%, this decline is likely to have been influenced by an increase in the practice of binding defendants over (1.6% to 9.7%). Despite this shift, a notable similarity emerges by comparing the courts: that the magistrates at neither Cheltenham nor Exeter became harsher in their treatment of female assault during the years 1880-1891.

Graph 1. Verdicts issued at Cheltenham

Graph 1. Verdicts issued at Cheltenham

Source: GA, Court Registers for Cheltenham Magistrate’s Court (PS/CH/RM1/1-16)

Graph 2. Verdicts issued at Exeter

Graph 2. Verdicts issued at Exeter

Source: DHC, Court Registers for Exeter Magistrate’s Court (F1/32)

13During the second phase, however, the magistrates at both courts started to become stricter in their verdicts. Over the period 1892-1909, the proportion of dismissals issued by Exeter magistrates dropped substantially: the dismissal rate had been 23.4% during the years 1892-1897, yet this figure declined steadily over subsequent years and had fallen to just 14.1% during the years 1904-1909. At the same time, the proportion of women who were convicted rose from 61.8% to 76.1%, indicating that Exeter magistrates became increasingly willing to convict women as the second phase progressed. This transition was echoed in the verdicts issued by Cheltenham magistrates, where the dismissal rate fell from 60.1% to 42.7% and the conviction rate rose from 35.1% to 56.1% over the years 1892-1909. More significantly, there was a crossover in dismissal and conviction rates at Cheltenham during the 1890s: previously having been more likely to receive a dismissal, women were more often convicted than acquitted from 1898 onwards.

  • 31 Davis (1999); Godfrey et al. (2005); D’Cruze et al. (2010).

14An examination of the verdicts distributed at Cheltenham and Exeter across the years 1880-1909 indicates a shift in magisterial responses to female acts of assault. Although relatively lenient in the 1880s, the magistrates became increasingly willing to issue women with convictions during the years 1892-1909. As a result, the conviction rates for female assault prosecutions reached a peak at both courts by the end of the period under study. The evidence therefore suggests that late Victorian and Edwardian magistrates may not have merely disregarded women’s violence as being trivial, as has been previously suggested; indeed, the Bench at both Cheltenham and Exeter appear to have become increasingly concerned by female acts of assault from the early 1890s.31 To assess whether the impact of this shift in attitudes extended beyond the distribution of verdicts, the following section of this article examines the punishments meted out by magistrates. Analysing the sentences issued to the 765 women who were convicted (326 at Cheltenham and 439 at Exeter), it determines whether magistrates also became more vigilant in their sentencing practices.

Patterns in sentencing practices

  • 32 Offences Against the Person Act (1828).
  • 33 Summary Jurisdiction Act (1879).

15During the Victorian and Edwardian period, an assault conviction could result in one of two forms of punishment. The first option available to magistrates was to issue a fine, a penalty which could range from 1 shilling to £5 and which required selecting a term of imprisonment to be served in default of an offender being unable or unwilling to pay the sum.32 This option gave magistrates considerable discretion over sentencing measures since it enabled them to select a tariff which they personally deemed fitting of the crime. The second option was to impose a custodial sentence on the offender without the option of a fine. This punishment had been at the prerogative of magistrates from as early as the 1860s, but subsequent legislation extended the maximum term of imprisonment for assault to three months with hard labour (or six months’ hard labour in the event of an offender receiving multiple convictions).33

16Women brought before the Exeter magistrates faced not only higher conviction rates but also steeper punishments than their counterparts at Cheltenham. These women were over twice as likely to receive a custodial sentence, this penalty having been issued in 18.9% of the convictions at Exeter but only 7.6% of those at Cheltenham (see Table II). The Cheltenham magistrates were generally more inclined to issue financial penalties (92.4% of all sentences issued compared to 81.1% at Exeter), although this varied according to the tariff imposed. Remarkably similar proportions of women at Cheltenham and Exeter — 60.6% and 61% respectively  — were issued with low fines (those amounting to less than 10 shillings), yet 31.8% of those convicted at Cheltenham compared to 20% at Exeter received a high-value fine (those equal to or greater than 10 shillings). This discrepancy suggests that, in cases where magistrates were unwilling to issue low fines, those at Cheltenham typically issued high fines whilst their counterparts at Exeter were more inclined to issue the stricter penalty of a custodial sentence.

Table II. Sentences issued at Cheltenham and Exeter

Table II. Sentences issued at Cheltenham and Exeter

Source: DHC, Court Registers for Exeter City Magistrates’ Court (F1/32); GA, Court Registers for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/RM1/1-16)

17As with the distribution of verdicts, sentencing patterns over the years 1880-1909 indicate shifts in magisterial responses to female defendants (see Graphs 3 and 4). Despite overall differences in the sentences meted out at Exeter and Cheltenham, it appears that the magistrates at both courts became more inclined to issue women with custodial sentences from the early 1890s. At Cheltenham, there was a marginal increase in the use of custodial sentences during the years 1880-1891, yet the shift towards incarceration as a punitive measure was more apparent during subsequent years: over the period 1892-1909, the proportion of custodial sentences issued to women more than doubled, rising from 6.1% to 15.2% of all sentences issued by the magistrates. A similar transition also occurred at Exeter, where the proportion of prison sentences increased only from 12.4% to 14.6% during the years 1880-1891 but rose to such an extent from 1892 to 1909 that it accounted for 27.1% of all punishments issued by the end of the period. Although the proportion of custodial sentences reached a plateau at both courts during the final years of the period under study, it is clear that magistrates were more willing to incarcerate women for assault towards the late Edwardian period than they had been during the 1880s.

Graph 3. Sentences issued at Cheltenham

Graph 3. Sentences issued at Cheltenham

Source: GA, Court Registers for Cheltham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/RM1/1-16)

Graph 4. Sentences issued at Exeter

Graph 4. Sentences issued at Exeter

Source: DHC, Court Registers for Exeter Magistrate’s Court (F1/32)

18Whilst magistrates may have started to adopt harsher punishments in the way of custodial penalties, their policies regarding fines were more complex. Patterns in the distribution of low fines suggest some leniency on the part of magistrates. There was an increase in the use low fines during the 1880s: from the periods 1880-1885 to 1886-1891, the proportion of these fines rose from 54.5% to 76.3% at Cheltenham and from 65.1% to 73% at Exeter. Given that this increase occurred during the same years in which, as previously demonstrated, the distribution of verdicts was relatively favourable, it is possible that the period 1886-1891 was one during which magistrates were more lenient. Although the level of low fines dropped after this peak, nominal fines remained popular amongst magistrates. The proportion of low fines remained relatively stable at Exeter during the years 1892-1909, fluctuating only from 51-55% of all sentences issued. At Cheltenham, meanwhile, magistrates became increasingly prepared to issue this penalty, nominal fines having risen from 55.7% to 65.2% of the sentences distributed. These trends indicate some differences between the Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates regarding financial policies — a discrepancy which will be addressed in a later section — yet indicate that they remained willing to issue women with low fines throughout the research period.

19The distribution rates of low fines may suggest evidence of magisterial leniency, yet this is not reflected in the administration of high-value fines. The general decline in the proportion of high-value fines issued to women (with the exception of Cheltenham outcomes in the years 1886-1891) is likely to have been influenced by an increase in custodial punishments rather than by acts of magisterial leniency. Over the years 1892-1909, during which there was a substantial rise in the use of prison sentences across both courts, the proportion of high-value fines dropped from 27.4% to 20% of all sentences distributed at Exeter and from 43.9% to 19.6% of those at Cheltenham. Given this correlation, it is possible that magistrates were starting to issue custodial sentences in cases which might previously have resulted in a heavy fine. This shift is especially apparent at Exeter, since the steady rate at which low fines were distributed indicates that custodial sentences are the only possible alternative measure which could be replacing high-value fines. Patterns in sentencing practices thus suggest that, whilst the magistrates may have kept fines low for the majority of convicted women, they started to consider a wider range of offences punishable by incarceration from the 1890s.

20An analysis of cases brought before Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates’ courts indicates a transformation in the treatment of female assault prosecutions. Although relatively lenient towards female defendants during the 1880s, magistrates became more stringent in their responses to women from the early 1890s. Not only did they become more willing to convict women from this point, but they were also increasingly prepared to issue custodial sentences, thus rendering women considerably more likely to be convicted and incarcerated by the end of the period 1880-1909 than they had been at the start. Patterns in the distribution of nominal fines provide evidence of some magisterial leniency being extended to women during the period, although differences in the use of this penalty across Cheltenham and Exeter suggest that this treatment was inconsistent.

21The discussion which follows therefore considers why magistrates became harsher in their treatment of female assault cases from the early 1890s. In particular, it focuses on whether the rise in conviction rates and custodial sentences was prompted by changes in the following: the severity of women’s assaults; the backgrounds of the parties involved; and the nature of summary court procedures. In order to assess this, the examination will consider whether there were any factors which were not only more likely to result in a conviction and custodial sentence but which were also increasing proportionally from the 1890s. If both criteria are met, it is possible that the factor under examination may have been influential in the gradual harshening of magisterial verdicts and sentences which occurred during the later years of the research period.

The severity of assaults

  • 34 Emsley (2005b, 12). Although the sources provided little information on individual magistrates, t (...)
  • 35 Magisterial statements were examined where available and are discussed where relevant.

22In order to assess why the magistrates’ treatment of female violence shifted across the years 1880-1909, a reasonable starting point would be an examination of the magistrates themselves. Details including the backgrounds of these men, the ways in which they collaborated, and the reasons they provided when issuing verdicts and sentences would be invaluable for understanding magisterial decision-making processes. However, it was not often possible to obtain such information from the sources which were available. Neither court records nor newspapers provided background information on individual magistrates aside from their names, although research suggests that they likely possessed “some wealth and social standing”.34 In addition, sources seldom noted the reasons given by magistrates for reaching a certain decision; whilst newspapers often reported certain terms – such as “abhorrent” or “serious” — which were used by magistrates to describe cases, reports of their full statements were uncommon.35 There is therefore little information available which directly indicates why magistrates dealt with female violence as they did. Despite this shortcoming, it has been possible to examine a number of other factors which may have had an influence over their decisions.

  • 36 Godfrey et al. (2005).
  • 37 Van der Heijden, Pluskota (2015).

23One such factor is the severity of women’s assaults; it is entirely possible that magistrates became stricter in their responses to female acts of assault simply because the offences brought before them were becoming more severe as the period progressed. Several academics have highlighted the ways in which trial outcomes could be influenced by the severity of offences during this period: for example, Godfrey et al. have argued that males convicted of assault in the years 1880-1920 received harsher sentences than their female counterparts since their offences were more harmful.36 Similarly, van der Heijden and Pluskota have suggested that gender-apparent differences in the sentences issued to men and women in nineteenth-century Holland resulted from men committing more severe acts of violence than women.37

  • 38 This discussion excludes the 837 cases (out of a total 1,507) for which it was difficult to deter (...)

24However, an examination of the injuries inflicted during female assaults in Cheltenham and Exeter indicates that the severity of cases did not influence changes in magisterial decision-making. Using statements made by victims, police officers and medical professionals, the cases under examination were categorised by physical harm under the following: non/negligible; minor; and moderate/severe.38 As would be expected, prosecution outcomes were less favourable if it appeared that a great deal of injury had been inflicted. The proportion of women who received a conviction and custodial sentence after causing moderate/severe injury to victims was roughly six times that of those whose assaults had resulted in either no or negligible physical harm. Yet this stricter magisterial treatment did not prompt a rise in either conviction or incarceration rates from the early 1890s, since acts which resulted in moderate/severe injury declined across both courts (from 36.2% to 22.7% at Cheltenham and from 42.4% to 36.2% at Exeter over the years 1892-1909). In other words, womens’ assaults were becoming less serious whilst the magistrates were treating them with increasing severity.

  • 39 This discussion excludes the 176 cases (out of a total 1,507) in which it was not possible to asc (...)
  • 40 Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (1883); Gloucester Citizen (1897).

25A further way in which magistrates determined the severity of an assault was by considering the type of victim targeted. Whilst assaults on adults were legally defined as acts of “common assault”, assaults on both children and law enforcement officers — such as policemen and bailiffs — were categorised as separate, more serious forms of violent crime. As such, the Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates responded more rigidly in these cases.39 Prosecutions for assaulting children were handled severely compared to cases of common assault, the magistrates having been more willing to convict and incarcerate women on such charges: at Exeter, for example, almost half of those summoned for assaulting a child were convicted and incarcerated compared to just 8.8% of those prosecuted for assaulting an adult. Several women also had their children permanently taken away from them. Assaults directed against police officers, meanwhile, were treated yet more strictly. Prosecution outcomes for these offences were remarkably bleak, only four women prosecuted at Cheltenham and none tried at Exeter having been acquitted for assaulting an officer. Magisterial anxieties over violence directed against officers are sometimes demonstrated within their remarks during court hearings: a woman was convicted for assaulting a constable since the Exeter magistrates wanted to do “all in their powers… [to] protect police officers”; another was convicted for assaulting a bailiff since the Cheltenham magistrates felt that bailiffs “should not be assaulted in this way, particularly by a female”.40

26Yet the stricter magisterial treatment of assaults on officers and children was not a significant factor in the rise of conviction rates and custodial sentences from the 1890s. The incidence of assaults on officers, for one, declined across both courts: these acts fell from 7.8% to 4.8% of all assault charges heard at Exeter during the years 1892-1909; at Cheltenham, where assaults on officers had always been uncommon, this figure fell from 2.9% to 1.3%. Responses to assault on children may have had a greater impact, although this was limited; offences within this category increased for only part of the period during which convictions and custodial sentences rose. At Cheltenham, the proportion of child assaults rose from 5.8% during the years 1892-1897 to 8.2% in the years 1898-1903 yet declined to just 4% in the period 1904-1909. Following a similar pattern, the corresponding figures at Exeter during these intervals were 2.9%, 17.3% and 8.3%. This indicates that assaults on children may have impacted rises in conviction and incarceration rates during the years 1898-1903, yet that assaults on neither children nor officers are enough to account for the changes in magisterial policy which occurred throughout the years 1892-1909.

Sociodemographic factors

  • 41 For an examination of the impact of age on judicial discretion, see Turner (2012, 71).

27Since changes in the severity of assaults do not explain transformations in magisterial responses to female defendants, it will be considered whether these shifts were influenced by the backgrounds of defendants and/or their victims. Such an examination is limited, however, by the difficulty of obtaining personal information from court records and newspapers. Occupational status would be a useful factor to consider, yet this information was rarely provided for either victims or defendants — nor were defendants’ husbands’ occupations recorded frequently enough to be used as a marker of social class. It would also be invaluable to examine the ages of the parties involved, especially given that so few studies consider the impact of age upon judicial discretion, but age was rarely revealed in these cases unless the defendant and/or her victim(s) were juvenile or elderly.41 As a result, it was only possibly to examine three social markers relating to the parties involved in these cases: the sex of victims, the marital status of victims; and the marital status of defendants.

  • 42 This discussion excludes the 126 cases (out of a total 1,507) in which it was not possible to ide (...)
  • 43 Abraham (2012, 124-125); Turner (2009); Turner (2020, 73). Note that Turner’s examination (2009) (...)
  • 44 During the period under study, all officers were males. Britain’s first female police officer was (...)

28The sex of the victim played little role in the gradual harshening of magisterial attitudes from the early 1890s.42 In the first place, there were only marginaltuations in the proportions of female and male victims; female victims, for example, accounted for 79-83% of victims at Exeter and for 66-71% of those at Cheltenham across the years 1892-1909, demonstrating little variability in the sex of women’s victims overall. Secondly, the sex of the victim had little impact on the verdicts and sentences issued by magistrates. This contrasts with studies of court elsewhere in the country, with research on the East Midlands and West Midlands by Abraham and Turner (respectively) indicating that magistrates treated women’s assaults on men more strictly than they did those directed against other women.43 However, this differential treatment was less marked in the South West region: at Exeter, 66.4% of female assaults on women compared to 70.4% of those against men resulted in a conviction; at Cheltenham, the corresponding figures were 42.6% and 48.1%. Furthermore, there were only minor differences in the punishments issued in these cases: assaults on men were only slightly more likely to result in a custodial sentence, a discrepancy possibly caused by women’s greater likelihood of receiving a custodial sentence after assaulting a police officer.44

  • 45 Out of a total 1,507 cases, this discussion excludes: 625 cases wherein the marital statuses of v (...)

29The marital status of victims also fails to account for shifts in prosecution outcomes.45 Assaults on widowed victims were uncommon throughout the period (less than 5% of victims at either court), so have been discounted as an influential factor. Assaults on married and unmarried victims also had little impact on patterns in decision-making, although the reasons for this differ between the two courts. At Cheltenham, magistrates returned remarkably similar verdicts in cases where victims were married as in those where they were single: 58.7% of alleged assaults on both married and unmarried victims were acquitted, whilst 1.9% of cases in the former category and 1.6% of those in the latter resulted in a conviction and custodial sentence. At Exeter, there were greater divergences in prosecution outcomes in relation to the marital status of victims, yet the category most often resulting in a conviction and prison sentence declined across the period: assaults on unmarried victims more often resulted in this outcome than those on married victims, yet the proportion of assaults on unmarried victims declined steadily from 16.6% to 8% during the years 1892-1909. This decline indicates that the stricter treatment of assaults on unmarried victims at Exeter did not influence a rise in either conviction rates or custodial sentences.

  • 46 This discussion excludes the 591 cases (out of a total 1,507) in which the marital statuses of de (...)

30To some extent, the marital status of defendants ma had a more significant influence over paterns in trial outcomes.46 On the one hand, stark contrastsverdicts issued to married and unmarried defendants may have prompted a rise in conviction rates from the early 1890s. Across both courts, married women were more often convicted than their unmarried counterparts (see Table III). This divergence was particularly marked at Exeter, where married defendants were almost twice as likely to be found guilty than those who were single. Alongside this, the proportion of married defendants rose at both courts over the years 1892-1909 — from 77.8% to 86.8% at Exeter and from 86.4% to 92.9% at Cheltenham — and may thereby have prompted a small rise in conviction rates. On the other hand, this factor is unlikely to have contributed to the increase in prison sentences. Custodial punishments appear to have been distributed with little bias regarding marital status: married women prosecuted at Exeter were only marginally more likely to be incarcerated than their unmarried counterparts whilst the Cheltenham magistrates meted out almost identical proportions of prison sentences to married and unmarried defendants. As such, the marital status of defendants may help to account for a rise in conviction rates across the courts but not for the increasing use of custodial penalties.

Table III. Outcomes analysed by marital status of defendants

Table III. Outcomes analysed by marital status of defendants

Source: HC, Minute Books for Exeter Magistrates’ Court (F1/32); GA, Minute Books for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/M1/32-52)

  • 47 King (2006, 263-5); Turner (2011); Pluskota (2018).
  • 48 Cheltenham Mercury (1884).

31Although no relationship to sentencing patterns was identified, the link between marital status and conviction rates indicates that, if there was a “civilising offensive” directed against violent women during the late Victorian and Edwardian period, it may have been more focused on regulating the behaviour of those who were married. This contrasts directly with studies which indicate that single female defendants have been both convicted more frequently and punished more severely than their married counterparts.47 Although an explanation as to why this should have differed for women prosecuted at the Cheltenham and Exeter courts can only be tentative, it is possible that the motives and behaviour underlying these women’s offences had an impact. Some unmarried defendants received magisterial sympathy since they had assaulted their previous or current partners after being abandoned or mistreated and were thereby regarded as wronged women. One woman, for example, was dismissed three times for assaulting her former partner, the magistrates having disregarded evidence from witnesses when she claimed that he had borrowed money from her, refused to repay the loan, and then revoked his promise to marry her while she was pregnant with his child. Although convicted when he issued a fourth summons against her, she received the more lenient penalty of a fine since the magistrates felt that her ex-partner, alongside the policeman who had given evidence, had “staged” the event with hopes of “trapping her”.48

  • 49 Turner (2019, 8).
  • 50 The Western Times (1896).
  • 51 Cheltenham Chronicle (1880).

32By contrast, many married defendants were condemned by magistrates not only for their acts of violence but also for having behaved in a manner deemed unacceptable for married women. This was especially common when women had assaulted their husbands. Whilst Turner’s research suggests that the Stafford magistrates handled such cases “very leniently”, the Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates do not appear to have shared this view; they convicted 30% of those who assaulted their husbands compared to only 8.8% of those who assaulted other women.49 When a woman was prosecuted for assaulting her husband during a row over dinner preparations, the Exeter magistrates sentenced her to a weeks’ imprisonment with hard labour since they “could not tolerate a woman assaulting her husband in the manner that she had done”.50 In another case, the Cheltenham magistrates condemned a woman for assaulting her husband in a pub since they felt that “a wife had no right [to] follow her husband to a public-house”.51 It would therefore appear that, whilst magistrates sometimes extended sympathy to mistreated single women, they may have focused their “civilising” efforts on violent, married women who deviated from expected standards of wifely behaviour.

Courtroom procedures

  • 52 Bentley (1998, 25).

33Finally, it is worth considering whether changes in summary court procedures influenced patterns in prosecution outcomes at Exeter and Cheltenham. The employment of a defence lawyer, for one, does not appear to have been an influential factor. Although it might be expected that employing legal counsel would serve to a defendant’s advantage, this was not the case: women brought before both Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates faced remarkably similar odds of being convicted and incarcerated regardless of whether they had employed a lawyer. There was also little change in the propensity of women to employ a lawyer during the years 1898-1909, the proportion of those who appeared with a representative having increased only from 14.6% to 16.3% at Exeter and having declined from 15.4% to 12.2% at Cheltenham. As Bentley has noted, legal representation remained throughout the period “a luxury beyond the means of most prisoners” since legal aid was not available in the magistrates’ courts until the 1930s.52

34However, women’s pleading decisions appear to have been more influential. Guilty pleas became increasingly common over the years 1892-1909, during which time the proportion of women who pleaded guilty almost tripled at Cheltenham and increased eightfold at Exeter (see Table IV). Women were also considerably more likely to be convicted if they made a guilty plea; the Exeter magistrates convicted a staggering 95.5% of those who pleaded guilty compared to 64.8% of those who pleaded not guilty, whilst at Cheltenham the conviction rates were 77.8% and 34.2% respectively. In addition, if women had pleaded guilty with the idea that a confession might improve their chances of receiving a lenient punishment, their hopes were largely unrealised: at Cheltenham, 11.1% of women who pleaded guilty compared to 2.6% of those who pleaded not guilty received a prison sentence upon conviction; this sentencing discrepancy was yet more marked at Exeter, where the corresponding figures across these categories were 45.5% and 11.7%. The evidence therefore suggests that pleading decisions impacted patterns in court outcomes, whereby the stricter magisterial treatment of cases in which women pleaded guilty, combined with a substantial rise in the proportions of women who chose to do so, may have influenced an overall increase in the distribution of convictions and custodial sentences at Cheltenham and Exeter.

Table IV. Pleading decisions analysed by period

Table IV. Pleading decisions analysed by period

Source: DHC, Minute Books for Exeter Magistrate’s Court (F1/32); GA, Minute Books for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/M1/32-52)

  • 53 This discussion excludes the 113 cases (out of a total 1,507) in which the relationship of the pr (...)

35A further courtroom procedure that played a role in the administration of summary justice was the type of prosecutor who brought a case before magistrates.53 Prosecutors of summary offences typically fell under one of three categories: the victim or one of their acquaintances; police officers; and representatives from organisations (such as the NSPCC or the Board of Guardians). Of these categories, cases prosecuted by victims or their acquaintances were the least likely to result in a conviction (see Table V). Although summonses taken out by organisations were the most likely to result in convictions and custodial sentences, these had only a minimal impact on patterns in magisterial policies; the proportion of these cases increased only in the years 1898-1903 before declining — even disappearing altogether at Cheltenham — in the years 1904-1909.

Table V. Outcomes analysed by prosecutor type

Table V. Outcomes analysed by prosecutor type

Source: DHC, Minute Books for Exeter Magistrate’s Court (F1/32); GA, Minute Books for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/M1/32-52)

  • 54 Hay, Snyder (1989, 23-5); Godfrey (2008).

36Cases prosecuted by police officers, however, may have been more influential. Although the impetus of prosecution had largely fallen on victims in earlier years, police officers began to take on the role of prosecutors in the summary courts during the late nineteenth century.54 This shift is notable at Exeter and Cheltenham from the 1890s: whilst officers had seldom prosecuted cases during the 1880s, the proportion of police prosecutors rose from 2.3% to 7.5% at Exeter and from 10.4% to 18.2% at Cheltenham over the years 1892-1909. In addition, these cases were considerably more likely — at Exeter more than four times as likely and at Cheltenham more than eight times as likely — to result in a conviction and custodial sentence than those prosecuted by victims or civilian witnesses.

37Evidence from Exeter and Cheltenham therefore suggests that the growing practices of guilty pleas and police-led prosecutions may have had the effect of driving up conviction rates and custodial sentences from the 1890s. Due to source limitations, however, an explanation as to how — and why — these factors impacted magisterial decisions can only be tentative at this stage. One explanation is that the magistrates became more stringent simply because court procedures were changing in a way which disadvantaged female defendants, a theory which could be further supported by comparing these results with data from male assault prosecutions.

  • 55 Godfrey (2004).
  • 56 Express & Echo (1885); Gloucestershire Echo (1897).

38A second explanation is that these changing courtroom procedures were representative of a wider civilising campaign directed against violent women. In other words, these practices could be seen as a result — rather than a cause — of a more stringent attitude towards female violence. The increasing involvement of police prosecutors, for example, may have been part of an attempt to curb women’s violence. Godfrey has indicated that the late Victorian and Edwardian police played a key role in disciplining girls at the street level, and it is possible that their increasing presence in the courtrooms — as demonstrated in this study — was an extension of their efforts to regulate female behaviour.55 Indeed, several police staff members expressed their concerns with women’s actions to the magistrates: when a woman was caught committing an assault by a patrolling officer, the police superintendent stated that he had ordered the patrol since he “often got complaints of the conduct of the women living in [her] street”; in another case, a superintendent testified to a woman’s assault on her neighbour and added that “there had been continual disturbance in the neighbourhood [and] he was continually sending policemen there”.56

  • 57 Gloucester Citizen (1892).

39Women’s increasing propensity to plead guilty may also be suggestive of a civilising campaign being in place. If female defendants were aware of the courts becoming stricter towards their violent behaviours, they may have adopted the practice of pleading guilty in an attempt — although ultimately an unsuccessful one — to secure a light sentence. Women appear to have been especially wary of their chances when police officers acted as prosecutors: guilty pleas were made by 22% of those who were prosecuted by a police officer compared to 3.1% of those prosecuted by either civilians or organisations. One woman expressed particular concern regarding the relationship between magistrates, police officers and the justice system when she stated that “if you’ve got a bad name, you might as well be hung at this court!”57

Financial penalties and socio-economic conditions

  • 58 Godfrey et al. (2005, 714).

40Although the factors previously examined could account for a rise in conviction rates and custodial sentences, none were able to explain the divergence in the financial sentences distributed at Cheltenham and Exeter: in particular, they cannot account for why, from the early 1890s, the use of low fines should have increased at Cheltenham yet remained fairly consistent at Exeter. However, it is possible that this was linked to the financial circumstances of defendants. As Godfrey et al. have noted, late Victorian and Edwardian magistrates often issued low fines to circumvent unnecessary numbers of offenders from being incarcerated in default of inability to pay.58 The reason why this practice should have been increasingly important to Cheltenham magistrates yet not those at Exeter may be linked to differences in socio-economic conditions across the localities. Whilst both Exeter and Cheltenham had overcome challenges caused by a decline in their woollen manufacturing industries at the turn of the nineteenth century, subsequent economic developments — which lasted well into the early-twentieth century — may have had an influence over the financial tariffs which magistrates chose to issue.

  • 59 Jones (2010, 2).
  • 60 Hart (1965, 224).
  • 61 Edlin (2003, 5-13).

41Although Cheltenham’s emergence as a spa and leisure town in the early nineteenth century balanced out the decline of its woollen trade, the town fell under rapid economic dilapidation over the Victorian period. During the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, Cheltenham was a fashionable resort for royals, nobles and gentry owing to its spa facilities. This influx of wealthy visitors and residents contributed to the town’s economy: a growing demand for housing — Cheltenham’s population having increased tenfold over the years 1801-1851 — opened up employment opportunities in the building sector, thereby providing ample occupations in the service and leisure industries tailored to catering for the affluent.59 Yet these economic stimuli dissipated after the mid-nineteenth century, from which point two factors contributed to a significant decline in economic conditions: first, the town lost prominence amongst the elite in favour of overseas travel and English coastal resorts; second, Cheltenham failed to develop a significant manufacturing or industrial base. The two combined prompted a declining demand for services in a town with virtually no other industry and resulted in high unemployment rates.60 Furthermore, the departure of affluent residents meant that contributions to poor relief funds, typically sourced by public donations, started to wane. As a result, Cheltenham was already facing high levels of poverty and economic decline by the late 1870s.61

  • 62 Cheltenham Examiner (1882).
  • 63 Edlin (2004, 29).
  • 64 Seal (2009).
  • 65 Jones (2010, 302-305).

42These socioeconomic shifts set a precedent for the late Victorian and Edwardian period, during which time Cheltenham experienced little development and a further decline in wealthy residents. Contemporaries became increasingly concerned with poverty from the early 1880s, as was indicated when the Cheltenham Examiner reported that there was a “great deal of poverty” yet “inadequate local funds” to alleviate the situation.62 A subsequent appeal from the Cheltenham branch of the Charity Organisation Society to raise relief funds did little to help, since outdoor relief rates issued to paupers remained well below the poverty line.63 Conditions further declined in the years 1886-1887 when national depression prompted a reduction in wages and an increase in taxes, whilst subsequent difficulties caused by severe winter weather in the years 1895-1896 resulted in exceptionally high levels of unemployment.64 By the early twentieth century, there had been a substantial rise in slums as well as a chronic shortage in relief funds: despite the attempts of a Distress Committee (1905-1908) to relieve these difficulties, Cheltenham remained rife with poverty and unemployment well into the twentieth century.65

  • 66 Swift (1981, 24-25).
  • 67 Newton (1968, 134).
  • 68 Hoskins (1960, 98).

43Exeter’s socioeconomic position during the nineteenth and early-twentieth century was more prosperous than that of Cheltenham. Despite the collapse of its manufacturing industry in the first half of the nineteenth century, Exeter retained its status as a hub of regional economic activity. Not only did surviving industries such as brewing, tanning and paper-making experience growth, but the city also began to attract a growing number of wealthy professionals.66 The migration of professionals was essential to Exeter’s economy, establishing not only its prominence as the regional centre for legal, banking and engineering services, but also providing an increased demand for housing, domestic services and retail. At the same time, the experiences of Exeter’s working-class residents improved in two ways. First, employment rates and wages increased across several sectors: labourers’ wages, for instance, rose steadily from 14 shillings to 25 shillings per week during the years 1850-1914.67 Second, living standards were improved in the 1890s when the Freeland Hold Society bought large plots of land and built affordable working-class housing. As such, late Victorian and Edwardian Exeter developed into a prosperous county capital which faced “no lack of employment” and which offered profitable retail, administrative, market and labouring industries within the region.68

  • 69 The Western Times (1894).
  • 70 The Western Times (1895).
  • 71 The Western Times (1903).

44Despite intermittent difficulties caused by harsh winters and national financial crises, Exeter’s economic prosperity ensured that poverty rates remained tolerable in the late Victorian and Edwardian period. During these years, the city’s officials appear to have largely met the demands of poor relief as well as reduced levels of pauperism. According to a committee report in 1894, the Board of Guardians had little concern over poverty levels since provisions were “enough to meet the case”.69 Although the Guardians were confronted by greater difficulties the following winter due to severe weather, they responded to an appeal from the magistrates and Chief Constable stating that, although they were unable to find work for unemployed men, the Governor would pay £50 from his pocket to alleviate the situation.70 As the nineteenth century came to a close, employment rates resumed and rates in pauperism began to decline: over the years 1898-1902, the number of paupers in Exeter had fallen from 37 to 20.8 per 1,000 of the population, a reduction which led the Local Government Board to proclaim that the Exeter Charity Organisation Society was “one of the best provincial branches of the parent Organisation”.71

  • 72 Turner (2020, 77-78).

45The contrasting socioeconomic situations at Cheltenham and Exeter provide a reasonable explanation for discrepancies in the financial sentences issued by magistrates; the women who came before them were typically working-class — a characteristic recently highlighted in Turner’s research on the Stafford court — and receiving even a low fine may have had a significant impact on their circumstances.72 Social and economic conditions were rapidly deteriorating in late Victorian and Edwardian Cheltenham, where the waning of a wealthy population prompted mass unemployment alongside reductions in poor relief funds. The inability of the local Board of Guardians to alleviate pressures caused by severe winters and national depression further increased poverty and unemployment. It is possible that the Cheltenham magistrates, aware of financial struggles amongst defendants, issued lighter fines in the hope that convicted women would be able to afford the sums imposed on them (and thereby circumvent them from going to prison). By contrast, Exeter’s economic conditions were more favourable for working-class residents. The continued presence of wealthy professionals ensured high employment rates, whilst the Guardians appear to have largely met the demands of poor relief. As a result, Exeter magistrates may have been less concerned by poverty than their Cheltenham counterparts and, as such, issued consistent proportions of low fines to women throughout the late Victorian and Edwardian period.

Conclusions

  • 73 Wiener (2004).
  • 74 See, for example, Davies (1999); Godfrey et al. (2005); D’Cruze et al. (2010).

46Over a decade ago, Wiener argued that the English criminal justice system became increasingly harsh in its treatment of male violence during the nineteenth century due to the efforts of a “civilising campaign” directed against violent models of masculinity.73 By contrast, historians have typically argued that judicial decision-makers regarded female violence as trivial and as such treated violent female offenders with leniency.74 This discussion of female acts of assault prosecuted at the Exeter and Cheltenham magistrates’ courts during the years 1880-1909 argues otherwise. From the early 1890s to the close of Edward VII’s reign, the magistrates at these courts became stricter in their treatment of female defendants and, as a result, women became increasingly likely to receive convictions and custodial sentences as the period progressed. It has also been suggested that this shift in magisterial policies was linked to three factors, two of which related to courtroom procedures: the involvement of police prosecutors; the use of guilty pleas; and, with regards to conviction rates only, the marital statuses of defendants. However, financial sentences remained lighter at Cheltenham than at Exeter, a practice likely influenced by the severe economic decline that the town faced during the late Victorian and Edwardian period.

  • 75 Watson (2007, 13).
  • 76 August (2015).

47The general harshening in magisterial responses to female-perpetrated assaults returns us to the debate concerning violent women and the “civilising process”, a discussion which Watson has claimed to be of “immediate relevance” for historians of violence.75 August’s examination of female assault prosecutions in Late-Victorian East London remains one of the few attempts to deal directly with this topic, within which it is argued that magistrates and newspaper reporters directed a civilising campaign against disorderly and unruly violent women.76 Evidence from the Cheltenham and Exeter courts over a similar period also underlines a degree of concern amongst magistrates, with women being more severely punished for acts of assault as the period progressed. In addition, the factors which were identified as having influenced this shift may be indicative of a wider civilising campaign against violent women: the increasing appearance of police prosecutors potentially acted as part of a wider attempt at regulating women’s behaviour, an attempt which women — as suggested by their pleading decisions — may have been well aware of. The evidence also suggests that if there had been a civilising campaign directed against female violence, married women — who were convicted more frequently than their single counterparts — were a particular target.

  • 77 Van der Heijden has recently stressed the value of comparative perspectives within histories of c (...)

48Given the extensive number of cases handled by magistrates’ courts during this period, this article has examined evidence from only two courts within one region of England. As such, the conclusions drawn in this study cannot attest to any national transformations in magisterial attitudes towards violent women; any attempt to do so should consider a number of courts across multiple regions or adopt a comparative approach.77 It would also be informative to conduct a similar study on prosecutions for male acts of assault across these or other magistrates’ courts, as such an assessment could indicate whether — and, if so, why — there were similar transformations in the treatment of male petty violence. At this point, however, two conclusions may be drawn from this study: first, that Cheltenham and Exeter magistrates became harsher in their responses to female acts of assault from the early 1890s; second, that this shift was predominantly associated with wider changes in summary court procedures and, to some extent, with the magistrates’ apparent disapproval of violence which was carried out by married women.

Haut de page

Bibliographie

Abraham M.A., 2012, The Summary Courts and the Prosecution of Assault in Northampton and Nottingham, 1886-1931, PhD thesis, Leicester, University of Leicester.

Alexander G.G., 1915, The Administration of Criminal Justice (in England and Wales), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Alker Z., 2014, Street Violence in Mid-Victorian Liverpool, PhD thesis, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University.

August A., 2015, “A Horrible Looking Woman”: Female Violence in Late Victorian East London, Journal of British Studies, 50, 4, 844-868.

Bentley D., 1998, English Criminal Justice in the 19th Century, London, Hambledon Press.

Carter Wood J., 2004, Violence and Crime in Nineteenth-Century England: The Shadow of our Refinement, Abingdon, Routledge.

D’Cruze S., Godfrey B., Cox D., 2010, “The Most Troublesome Woman in Crewe”: Investigating Gender, Sentencing and the Late Victorian English Lower Courts, in Avdela E., D’Cruze S., Rowbotham J. (Eds.), Problems of Crime and Violence in Europe, 1780-2000: Essays in Criminal Justice, New York, Edwin Mellen Press, 237-277.

Davies A., 1999, “These Viragoes are No Less Cruel than the Lads”: Young Women, Gangs and Violence in Late Victorian Manchester and Salford, British Journal of Criminology, 39, 1, 72-89.

Edlin R., 2003, Attitudes to Poverty and Social Reform in Cheltenham, 1870-1899, MA thesis, Gloucester, University of Gloucestershire.

Edlin R., 2004, A Case of Poverty in Late Victorian Cheltenham, Gloucestershire History, 18, 29-31.

Eisner M., 2003, Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime, Crime and Justice, 30, 83-142.

Elias N., 1978, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners, vol. I, London, Blackwell.

Elias N., 1986, The Civilizing Process: State Formation and Civilization, vol. II, London, Blackwell.

Emsley C., 2005a, Hard Men: Violence in England since 1750, London, Hambledon and London.

Emsley C., 2005b, Crime and Society in England, 1750-1900, 3rd edition, Edinburgh, Longman.

Felstead K., 2001, Interpersonal violence in late Victorian and Edwardian England: Staffordshire, 1880-1910, PhD thesis, Keele, Keele University.

Ferguson E., 2010, Gender and Justice: Intimacy and Community in Fin-de-Siècle Paris, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press.

Gatrell V.A.C., 1980, The Decline of Theft and Violence in Victorian and Edwardian England, in Gatrell V.A.C., Lenman B., Parker G. (Eds.), Crime and the Law: The Social History of Crime in Western Europe since 1500, London, Europa Editions, 238-270.

Gibson M., 2009, Women’s Prisons in Italy: A Problem of Citizenship, Crime, History and Societies, 13, 2, 2009, 27-40.

Godfrey B., 2003, Counting and Accounting for the Decline in Non-Lethal Violence in England, Australia and New Zealand, 1880-1920, British Journal of Criminology, 43, 2, 340-353.

Godfrey B., 2004, Rough Girls, 1880-1930: the “recent” history of violent young women, in Alder C., Worrall A. (Eds.), Girls’ Violence: Myths and Realities, New York, State University of New York Press, 21-41.

Godfrey B., Farrall S., Karstedt S., 2005, Explaining Gendered Sentencing Patterns for Violent Men and Women in the Late Victorian and Edwardian Period, British Journal of Criminology, 45, 5, 696-720.

Godfrey B., 2008, Changing Prosecution Practices and their Impact on Crime Figures, 1857-1940, British Journal of Criminology, 48, 2, 171-189.

Gray D., 2007, Settling their differences: the nature of assault and its prosecution in the City of London in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in Watson K. (Ed.), Assaulting the Past: Violence and Civilisation in Historical Context, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 141-159.

Gurr T.R., 1981, Historical Trends in Violent Crime: A Critical Review of the Evidence, Crime and Justice, 3, 295-353.

Hart G., 1965, A History of Cheltenham, Leicester, Leicester University Press.

Hay D., Synder F. (Eds.), 1989, Policing and Prosecution in Britain, 1750-1850, Oxford, Clarendon Press.

Hoskins W.G., 1960, 2000 Years in Exeter, Surrey, James Townsend and Sons.

Hurl-Eamon J., 2005, Gender and Petty Violence in London, 1680-1720, Ohio, Ohio State University Press.

Jackson L., 2006, Women Police: Gender, Welfare and Surveillance in the Twentieth Century, Manchester, Manchester University Press.

Jones A., 2010, Cheltenham: A New History, Lancaster, Carnegie Publishing.

King P., 1996, Punishing Assault: The Transformation of Attitudes in the English Courts, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 27, 1, 43-74.

King P., 2006, Crime and Law in England, 1750-1840: Remaking Justice from the Margins, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Knelman J., 1998, Twisting in the Wind: The Murderess and the English Press, Toronto, University of Toronto Press.

Maitland F.W., 1885, Justice and Police, London, Macmillan.

Nagy V., 2014, Narratives in the Courtroom: Female Poisoners in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England, European Journal of Criminology, 11, 2, 213-227.

Newton R., 1968, Victorian Exeter, Leicester, Leicester University Press.

Pluskota M., 2018, Petty Criminality, Gender Bias, and Judicial Practice in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Journal of Social History, 51, 4, 717-735.

Pratt J., 2002, Punishment and Civilization: Penal Tolerance and Intolerance in Modern Society, London, Sage.

Seal C., 2009, Poor Relief and Welfare: a comparative study of the Belper and Cheltenham Poor Law Unions, 1780-1914, PhD thesis, Leicester, University of Leicester.

Spierenburg P., 2001, Violence and the Civilizing Process: does it work?, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History & Societies, 5, 2, 87-105.

Spierenburg P., 2008, A History of Murder: Personal Violence in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present, Cambridge, Polity Press.

Stone L., 1983, Interpersonal Violence in English Society, 1300-1980, Past & Present, 101, 1, 22-33.

Swift R., 1981, Crime, Law and Order in Two English Towns during the Early Nineteenth Century: The Experience of Exeter and Wolverhampton, 1815-1859, PhD thesis, Birmingham, University of Birmingham.

Taylor D., 2002, Policing the Victorian Town: The Development of the Police in Middlesborough, c.1840-1914, London, Palgrave Macmillan.

Turner J., 2009, Offending women in Stafford, 1880-1905: punishment, reform and re-integration, PhD thesis, Keele, Keele University.

Turner J., 2011, Punishing Women, 1880-1905, Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 50, 5, 505-515.

Turner J., 2012, Summary Justice for Women: Stafford Borough, 1880-1905, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History & Societies, 16, 2, 55-77.

Turner J., 2019, “A Shocking State of Unhappiness”: Male Victims of Female Violence and the Courts in Late Nineteenth Century Stafford”, Societies, 9, 2, 1-12.

Turner J., 2020, The “Vanishing” Female Perpetrator of Common Assault, in van der Heijden M., Pluskota M., Murrling S. (Eds.), Women’s Criminality in Europe, 1600-1910, Cambridge, 72-90.

Van der Heijden M., 2013, Women, Violence and Urban Justice in Holland, c.1600-1838, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History & Societies, 17, 2, 71-100.

Van der Heijden M., Pluskota M., 2015, Leniency versus Toughening? The Prosecution of Male and Female Violence in 19th Century Holland, Journal of Social History, 49, 1, 149-167.

Van der Heijden M., 2017, Future Research on Women and Crime, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies, 21, 2, 123-133.

Watson K., 2004, Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and their Victims, Cambridge, Hambledon Continuum.

Watson K. (Ed.), 2007, Assaulting the Past: Violence and Civilization in Historical Context, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Wiener M., 1998, The Victorian Criminalization of Men, in Spierenburg P. (Ed.), Men and Violence: Gender, Honor and Rituals in Modern Europe and America, Ohio, Ohio State University Press, 197-212.

Wiener M., 2004, Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Zedner L., 1991, Women, Crime and Custody in Victorian England, Oxford, Clarendon Press.

Haut de page

Notes

1 Gatrell (1980); Gurr (1981); Stone (1983); Cockburn (1991); Eisner (2003); Godfrey (2008).

2 Taylor (2002); Godfrey (2008).

3 Elias (1978, 1986). Although published in German in 1939, Elias’ Civilizing Process was not translated into English until 1969.

4 Wiener (1998, 2004); Spierenburg (2001, 2008); Pratt (2002); Carter Wood (2004); Emsley (2005a).

5 Wiener (2004, 132).

6 Godfrey et al. (2005, 716).

7 Davies (1999, 87); D’Cruze et al. (2010, 244).

8 Turner (2019, 9).

9 August (2015, 847). Further exceptions include several studies which examine stereotypically “feminine” offences such as poisoning and husband-murder. These indicate that women could be stigmatised by judges and reporters since their offences transgressed contemporary expectations of their roles as wives and mothers. For further discussion, see Knelman (1998); Nagy (2014); and Watson (2004).

10 Ferguson (2010); Gibson (2009). However, Gibson suggests that women were stigmatised at subsequent stages of the criminal justice procedure; although acts of infanticide were treated leniently in the courtroom, women were ultimately marginalised by the Italian prison system.

11 Van der Heijden and Pluskota (2015, 164). See also van der Heijden’s research on Dutch courts in the early modern period, in which it is argued that the “criminalization of men” may have been apparent in the higher courts but did not occur in lower tribunals (Heijden, 2013, 86).

12 Pluskota (2018, 728).

13 Women could constitute roughly a third of those charged with assault in nineteenth- and twentieth-century courts (Abraham, 2012, 120; van der Heijden, 2013, 86; August, 2015, 845). However, evidence from assault prosecutions in Staffordshire indicates that women’s non-lethal violence may have been declining during the late Victorian period (Turner, 2020).

14 Wiener (1998, 2004); Carter Wood (2004).

15 Godfrey et al. (2005); Abraham (2012); Turner (2012).

16 However, this issue has been addressed within studies outside of England. See, for example, Pluskota’s recent study on prosecutions for petty crime in Holland, France and Italy (2018).

17 Most research on non-lethal violence has focused on London, the North West and the Midlands. See, for example, Davies (1999); Felstead (2001); Hurl-Eamon (2005); Gray (2007); D’Cruze et al. (2010); Abraham (2012); Alker (2014); August (2015); and Turner (2009, 2019, 2020).

18 These courts were chosen for two reasons. First, as is discussed later, the differing socioeconomic climates of these localities may have impacted the treatment which women received. Second, there was an excellent survival of court registers and minute books for both courts.

19 These newspapers include: Cheltenham Chronicle; Cheltenham Examiner; Gloucester Citizen; Gloucester Echo; The Cheltenham Mercury; The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (later The Devon and Exeter Gazette); The Western Times; and Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post.

20 Cases were first catalogued using court registers before being supplemented with corresponding minute book entries and newspaper reports. SPSS was used as the main tool for data collection and analysis.

21 King (1996).

22 Godfrey (2003, 341).

23 Maitland (1885, 89).

24 Alexander (1915, 202-203).

25 Bentley (1998, 19-28).

26 Godfrey et al. (2005, 702).

27 Some of these cases may have been settled out of court instead.

28 However, convictions were more common in some courts elsewhere in Europe. Convictions were issued in over 60% of the female assault prosecutions held at Amsterdam’s correctional court in the years 1812-1831. This proportion reached 78-97% during the period 1850-1886 (Pluskota, 2018, 728).

29 Turner (2012, 65); Abraham (2012, 65).

30 Godfrey et al. (2005, 702).

31 Davis (1999); Godfrey et al. (2005); D’Cruze et al. (2010).

32 Offences Against the Person Act (1828).

33 Summary Jurisdiction Act (1879).

34 Emsley (2005b, 12). Although the sources provided little information on individual magistrates, they indicated that the Bench typically consisted of a group of 3 or more men. These men appear to have swapped in and out with one another on a regular basis, meaning that there were many different combinations of individuals who served on the Bench. A mayor also sometimes acted as chairman.

35 Magisterial statements were examined where available and are discussed where relevant.

36 Godfrey et al. (2005).

37 Van der Heijden, Pluskota (2015).

38 This discussion excludes the 837 cases (out of a total 1,507) for which it was difficult to determine the levels of injury inflicted on victims. Given the difficulty in measuring emotional harm, this assessment considers physical injuries only. Assaults categorised under “non/negligible” injury included those where no physical assault had been committed or where injury was short-lasting (such as the defendant having spat at the victim). Assaults categorised under “minor” injury were those resulting in light marks, grazes, scratches, bruising or black eyes. Assaults within the “moderate/severe” category included cases where victims had received deep wounds, broken bones or burns, or where they had been hospitalised or permanently maimed by the defendant.

39 This discussion excludes the 176 cases (out of a total 1,507) in which it was not possible to ascertain which category a victim fell under.

40 Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (1883); Gloucester Citizen (1897).

41 For an examination of the impact of age on judicial discretion, see Turner (2012, 71).

42 This discussion excludes the 126 cases (out of a total 1,507) in which it was not possible to identify the sex of victims.

43 Abraham (2012, 124-125); Turner (2009); Turner (2020, 73). Note that Turner’s examination (2009) considers the sex of the prosecutor rather than victim, which may partly account for the different results found at Cheltenham and Exeter; a number of assaults in this study were prosecuted by men (such as police officers) when they had been directed against female victims.

44 During the period under study, all officers were males. Britain’s first female police officer was appointed in 1915 (Jackson, 2006, 18).

45 Out of a total 1,507 cases, this discussion excludes: 625 cases wherein the marital statuses of victims were unknown; 84 cases in which victims had been juveniles (thus unmarried); and 23 cases involving widowed victims.

46 This discussion excludes the 591 cases (out of a total 1,507) in which the marital statuses of defendants were unknown, as well as the 8 cases in which defendants had been juveniles (thus unmarried).

47 King (2006, 263-5); Turner (2011); Pluskota (2018).

48 Cheltenham Mercury (1884).

49 Turner (2019, 8).

50 The Western Times (1896).

51 Cheltenham Chronicle (1880).

52 Bentley (1998, 25).

53 This discussion excludes the 113 cases (out of a total 1,507) in which the relationship of the prosecutor to the victim was unknown.

54 Hay, Snyder (1989, 23-5); Godfrey (2008).

55 Godfrey (2004).

56 Express & Echo (1885); Gloucestershire Echo (1897).

57 Gloucester Citizen (1892).

58 Godfrey et al. (2005, 714).

59 Jones (2010, 2).

60 Hart (1965, 224).

61 Edlin (2003, 5-13).

62 Cheltenham Examiner (1882).

63 Edlin (2004, 29).

64 Seal (2009).

65 Jones (2010, 302-305).

66 Swift (1981, 24-25).

67 Newton (1968, 134).

68 Hoskins (1960, 98).

69 The Western Times (1894).

70 The Western Times (1895).

71 The Western Times (1903).

72 Turner (2020, 77-78).

73 Wiener (2004).

74 See, for example, Davies (1999); Godfrey et al. (2005); D’Cruze et al. (2010).

75 Watson (2007, 13).

76 August (2015).

77 Van der Heijden has recently stressed the value of comparative perspectives within histories of crime and notes their utility for examining trends in female offending (van der Heijden, 2017, 130).

Haut de page

Table des illustrations

Titre Table I. Verdicts issued at Cheltenham and Exeter
Crédits Source: DHC, Court Registers for Exeter City Magistrates’ Court (F1/32); GA, Court Registers for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/RM1/1-16)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 774k
Titre Graph 1. Verdicts issued at Cheltenham
Crédits Source: GA, Court Registers for Cheltenham Magistrate’s Court (PS/CH/RM1/1-16)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 660k
Titre Graph 2. Verdicts issued at Exeter
Crédits Source: DHC, Court Registers for Exeter Magistrate’s Court (F1/32)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 774k
Titre Table II. Sentences issued at Cheltenham and Exeter
Crédits Source: DHC, Court Registers for Exeter City Magistrates’ Court (F1/32); GA, Court Registers for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/RM1/1-16)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 32k
Titre Graph 3. Sentences issued at Cheltenham
Crédits Source: GA, Court Registers for Cheltham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/RM1/1-16)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 645k
Titre Graph 4. Sentences issued at Exeter
Crédits Source: DHC, Court Registers for Exeter Magistrate’s Court (F1/32)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 631k
Titre Table III. Outcomes analysed by marital status of defendants
Crédits Source: HC, Minute Books for Exeter Magistrates’ Court (F1/32); GA, Minute Books for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/M1/32-52)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,1M
Titre Table IV. Pleading decisions analysed by period
Crédits Source: DHC, Minute Books for Exeter Magistrate’s Court (F1/32); GA, Minute Books for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/M1/32-52)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 924k
Titre Table V. Outcomes analysed by prosecutor type
Crédits Source: DHC, Minute Books for Exeter Magistrate’s Court (F1/32); GA, Minute Books for Cheltenham Petty Sessions Division (PS/CH/M1/32-52)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/chs/docannexe/image/3068/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,1M
Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence papier

Grace Di Méo, « Violent Women: Changes in Magisterial Attitudes to Female Acts of Assault in Cheltenham and Exeter (England), 1880-1909  »Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, vol. 25, n°2 | 2021, 81-107.

Référence électronique

Grace Di Méo, « Violent Women: Changes in Magisterial Attitudes to Female Acts of Assault in Cheltenham and Exeter (England), 1880-1909  »Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies [En ligne], vol. 25, n°2 | 2021, mis en ligne le 21 mars 2024, consulté le 29 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chs/3068 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.3068

Haut de page

Auteur

Grace Di Méo

University of Bristol

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés), sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search