Policing and Punishment in London, 1660-1750 - J.M. Beattie

another grand jury said in 1694 , the problem (though they did not quite put it

this way) was that there was a steady migration of young men and women seek-

ing work in London, and in difficult times like the 1690 s many found themselves

in such serious trouble that they turned to crime. They complained that

greate numbers of loose, idle and ill disposed persons from all partes of this Kingdom

doe resorte unto this City and partes adjacent; And doe here shelter themselves not fol-

lowing any lawful callings or employments. And haveing noe visible estates or honest

way to mainteyne themelves doe turne Robbers on the highway, Burglarers, pickpockets

and Gamesters that follow other unlawful wayes to support themselves.

They went on to recommend that the magistrates order ‘effectuall and diligent’

searches to arrest such people, and so prevent ‘Robberies, Fellonies, Burglaries

and other Crimes and misdemeanors which doe daily abound in and neere this

City... and bring many young and able persons to untimely ends by the hands

ofJustice’.^155

There was some recognition here that the lack of ‘honest work’ might have

something to do with the levels of robbery and theft that contemporaries com-

plained about so frequently in the 1690 s and that are reflected in the calendars

at the Old Bailey. More often, however, grand juries were likely to blame the

moral corruption of those who succumbed to the temptation to steal, and to

seek solutions that would arm them against that temptation. The need for such

a ‘reformation of manners’ had long been urged, but the campaign to engage

the magistrates and the state in the cause of reformation came to a crescendo

soon after the Revolution of 1689.^156 The arguments and the intentions of the

societies that led that campaign find persistent echoes in the presentments of

PROCESS OF PROSECUTION 2 THE CITY MAGISTRATES AND THE

to put the laws against vice and blasphemy into effect, or, as on one occasion,

pressing for the abolition of garnish in gaols, and the employment of gaolers

who would seek to reform prisoners rather than exploit and terrorize them.

This jury also urged the aldermen to ensure that gaolers be persons who

54 Introduction: The Crime Problem

(^155) CLRO: London Sess. Papers,January 1694.
(^156) For the Societies for the Reformation of Manners and their campaign for moral reform, see Dud-
ley W. R. Bahlman, The Moral Revolution of 1688 (New Haven, 1957 ); Tina Beth Isaacs, ‘Moral Crime,
Moral Reform, and the State in Early Eighteenth Century England: A Study of Piety and Politics’, Ph.D.
thesis (University of Rochester, 1979 ); idem, ‘The Anglican Hierarchy and the Reformation of Manners,
1688 – 1738 ’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 38 ( 1982 ): 391 – 411 ; A. G. Craig, ‘The Movement for the
Reformation of Manners, 1688 – 1715 ’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Edinburgh, 1980 ); Faramerz Dabhoiwala,
‘Prostitution and Police in London, c. 1660 – c. 1760 ’, D.Phil. thesis (University of Oxford, 1995 ), ch. 5 ;
Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, ch. 9 ; idem, ‘Reforming the City: The Reformation of Manners
Campaign in London, 1690 – 1738 ’, in L. Davison, T. Hitchcock, T. Keirn, and R. B. Shoemaker (eds.),
Stilling the Grumbling Hive: The Response to Social and Economic Problems in England, 1689 – 1750 (Stroud, 1992 ),
99 – 120 ; Hunt, The Middling Sort, ch. 4 ; David Hayton, ‘Moral Reform and Country Politics in the
Late Seventeenth-Century House of Commons’, Past and Present, 128 (August 1990 ), 48 – 91 ; and for an
important long-term perspective on moral reform efforts, Martin Ingram, ‘Reformation of Manners in
Early-Modern England’, in Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox, and Steve Hindle (eds.), The Experience of Authority
in Early Modern England( 1996 ), ch. 2.
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