Introduction

Crime and punishment in early Victorian Bournemouth featured in the resort’s press coverage. The early settlement lay within the jurisdiction of Christchurch’s Petty Sessions. Felonies ranged from petty theft to arson, the latter causing much concern to local landholders. Magistrates consisted of local prominent men, for the most part landowners, but also a sprinkling of retired military officers.

Crime and punishment

Felonies

Although the seriousness of crime coming before the Christchurch Petty Sessions varied little, the type of offences varied much. Press coverage quickened in the early 1850s, perhaps because of a greater formalisation required by the Summary Jurisdiction Act (1848). Different items attracted the attention of thieves, a watch, spades, and handkerchiefs having clear value, but others perhaps less: hay, peaches, a ‘dead fence’. At least fifty cases coming before the Christchurch magistrates appeared in the press between 1851 and 1856, although the coverage remained sporadic. Around twenty of these concerned people living in Bournemouth. Identification of the Bournemouth defendants has not emerged without question, but, in some cases, the complainant is known: a stakeholder in the Bath Hotel (Mr Lampard, theft of hay), the local estate agent (W.E. Rebbeck, flowers damaged), and a farmer’s widow (Mrs Cailes, theft of handkerchiefs), all members of the establishment.

Penalties

The crime cases reported often attracted sentences: hard labour, gaol, or committal for the next assizes. For example, a girl, 11, found herself faced with six weeks’ hard labour as the return for stealing a watch, sent to Winchester under the Juvenile Offenders Act. Hay stealing received three months hard labour in one case, despatch to the next quarter sessions for the other. Mary Toomer, manager of the Bath Hotel, had to pay a fine for allowing after-hours’ drinking. Sometimes, the magistrates showed discretion. They exacted a nominal penalty for a crime of assault, considered ‘trumpery’ by the press. They dismissed charges against a Coastguard officer – assaulting his wife, burning his property. The press described the officer as ‘a fine specimen of the Emerald Isle’, perhaps reflecting a cultural bias amongst the magistrates. They also took a gentle view of those who trampled down Mr. Rebbeck’s flowers: discharged with caution.

Social unrest and arson

Rural impoverishment

In late winter, 1845, the Sherborne Mercury reported that ‘a posse of eleven hardy peasants volunteered themselves to a recruiting corporal of Marines’. They had made this decision ‘not altogether from genuine patriotism, but, (as stated by them) because they had not known the taste of bread for some time’. After the Napoleonic Wars, depression affected the agricultural economic sector. Low prices combined with high numbers of rural workers to squeeze wages. Also, labourers saw the increasing presence of new farming technology as threatening their livelihood. Instead of volunteering for the forces, some disaffected workers damaged farmland, property, and equipment. Often, arson occurred. Much of the land surrounding Bournemouth consisted of open heath covered with heather and gorse and fir plantations. Reports of fire damage to these areas occurred in the press during the 1840s and the following decade. Furthermore, the press saw a crime in every rural fire. 

Local land proprietors targeted

In the summer of 1842, the press reported the burning of several hundreds of acres belonging to the Gervis Tapps family. Six years earlier, much larger amounts of Mrs Bruce’s land had suffered fire damage. In both cases, the press hinted at crime: suspected arson. In 1845, in response to four fires occurring around the Bournemouth area, the press stated that the timing coincided with indictments made by local farmers for theft of hay and potatoes. ‘We can only attribute these occurrences to the depressed state of the farmers, their inability to find employment for the labourers, and the ill-feeling which arises from it.’ A decade later fire consumed almost 2000 acres of land in the same area. Some of it belonged to Georgiana Talbot, the lady who built there a model village for labouring people. Even so, the press suspected arson, as it had in the 1840s.

Local legal establishment

Order and disorder

Crime substitutes disorder for order. Disorder had long concerned affluent people. Often, they saw labouring people as probable threats to stability. The law provided a measure of defence and a promise of continued order. Instances of disorder packaged protests about inequality. For example, W. E. Rebbeck had found success at Bournemouth by establishing his estate agency. The trampling of his flowers, if intended, seems to send a protest message, although at a gentle level. Somebody resented his action or, perhaps, just his social position. Hence, perpetrators disordered his flowers. As affluent stakeholders in the area, the magistrates could apply local knowledge to their cases. They saw no social threat in Rebbeck’s garden damage. Watch-stealing or arson constituted higher social threats. They upset the delicate balance where magistrates might use their local knowledge of individuals and conditions to smooth ruffled feathers. Such cases left the locality, forwarded to a higher court.

Martial law

Half the Christchurch magistrates during the arson attacks had military and naval backgrounds. Most defendants at the Petty Sessions faced a panel that often included two former naval officers or an army colonel. Little has emerged to date about the latter, Colonel Cameron. Captains, later Admirals, Popham and Walcott both came from naval families. They had distinguished and active service histories, serving in several parts of the world. Members of the local establishment, both supported the Earl of Malmesbury’s brother – another naval captain – in his successful parliamentary campaign. Walcott would follow him as M.P. for Christchurch. Thus, addressing crime at Bournemouth fell to powerful, martial men. They had training and career experience of exacting discipline under war-time conditions. They would have seen arson as attacks committed during a social war. Affluent local people perhaps slept easier knowing that such men had the qualifications for protecting local order.

Takeaway

During Bournemouth’s early period, perpetrators of crime came before magistrates who had local knowledge but some also military experience of maintaining order.

References

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