The focus of policing changed too. Rather than chasing down known
criminals, they were to concentrate on preventing crime by regulating the
behaviour of the working class (Plate 9). New offences such as‘loitering with
intent’were introduced, and police were used as inspectors of markets, public
houses, meeting halls, and even the homes of the poor. They were to patrol the
streets and reprimand any behaviour they thought to be contrary to good order.
Arrests could be made on the spot for‘nuisance’crimes such as playing a
musical instrument in the street. This heavyhanded morality was superficially
effective. Street crime declined, and even the crowds at the Great Exhibition
behaved themselves, with only a dozen arrests for pickpocketing.
The change in the forms of crime committed included a replacement of the
gangs with networks of criminal contacts, and indeed contacts with the police.
A degree of professionalism entered the criminal world, including the use of
‘fences’to move stolen goods, and the corruption of hotel and domestic staff
to pass on information about likely targets for theft and robbery. Racketeering
began to flourish in the form of organised crime networks engaged in black
market activities, extortion and control of prostitution. It was a notable period
for a rise in crimes involving fraud.
One such case, recorded in the archives of the HSBC Banking Group, took
place in Bridgnorth, Shropshire in 1889, and was particularly scandalous
because the criminal was a respectable woman.^3 Miss Eliza Jane Scoffham, a
teacher, went to the local branch of a bank to pick up a chequebook on behalf
of a Mrs Blaythwayt, a friend who had previously lent her money; she carried
a letter of introduction from Mrs Blaythwayt as identification, and the clerk
handed over the item without a qualm (Figure 31). Miss Scoffham then went
to a room above a confectioner’s shop, and sat practising the forging of Mrs
Blaythwayt’s signature. She then returned to the bank with a signed cheque for
£210 (approximately £20,000 today) and asked for the money in gold. The
clerk readied the money, but then became suspicious and turned away to make
enquiries. It seems that for this visit the fraudster had dressed as a nurse, and
put on a wig, a disguise which clearly did her no service. Miss Scoffham
grabbed the package of gold and ran out, but the cashier chased her and caught
her as she made for the railway station.
Fraudsters working on a larger scale were more likely to get away with it.
There were some major embezzlements in the late Victorian period–over a
million pounds from one bank in 1882 and several millions from Baring
Brothers Bank in 1897. It was in the interests of the banks to keep such crimes
hidden, so as to maintain public confidence; the perpetrators, being of the
‘respectable’ classes, were not viewed in the same way as ‘common’
VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN CRIME