Streetlife in Late Victorian London: The Constable and the Crowd PDF
Preview Streetlife in Late Victorian London: The Constable and the Crowd
Streetlife in Late Victorian London Streetlife in Late Victorian London The Constable and the Crowd Peter K. Andersson Department of History, Lund University, Sweden © Peter K. Andersson 2013 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-32089-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-45794-6 ISBN 978-1-137-32090-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137320902 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments viii 1 Introduction 1 London! 1 The City as We (Think We) Know It 3 A History of Behaviour 7 The Man on the Beat and the Man in the Street 9 The Purpose and Procedure of This Study 12 2 Victorian London and Its Streets 20 Contemporary Definitions and Views of London 20 The Development of London in the Nineteenth Century 23 The Streets of London 25 Some Notes on the Development of Stranger Interaction 28 3 Straddling the Public and Parochial Realms 32 The Man on the Beat 33 Territoriality and the Private in the Public 54 Nodes of the Neighbourhood 69 Conclusions 81 4 Moving, Shoving and Standing Still 85 The Policeman in Traffic 89 The Route vs the Playing Field 96 The Makings of a Pedestrian 107 The Pickpocket and the Imitation of Normality 115 Cabmen and Other Drivers 119 Conclusions 128 5 Managing Appearances 131 Policing Appearances and Police Appearances 133 Clothes as Classification 139 Civilian Uniformity and Civilian Policing 142 Finery, Swelldom and Masherdom 148 Types and Their Relation to Practised Affinities 155 Conclusions 164 6 Managing Manners 166 The Policeman as a Model of Behaviour 168 The Legal Definition of Misbehaviour 172 Nuisances 175 v vi Contents Attracting and Avoiding Attention 180 Courtesies and Insults 196 Who Makes the Rules, Anyway? 204 Conclusions 207 7 Conclusions 209 The Policeman’s Role Conflict 210 Conflicting Norms of Behaviour 212 The Playing Field 214 Performed Intimacy and Crowd Affinity 215 The Constable and the Crowd 218 Notes 221 Bibliography 249 Index 263 List of Illustrations 4.1 Policeman regulating traffic in Regent Street, 1890s 94 4.2 Policeman regulating traffic in Trafalgar Square, 1890s 95 4.3 Gustave Doré, ‘A City Thoroughfare’ 97 4.4 The Poultry, from Mansion House, 1890s 110 4.5 Edgware Road, 1900 111 4.6 Upper Gloucester Place, early 1900s 112 4.7 Borough High Street 114 4.8 Borough High Street 114 5.1 Outside Temple Bar, Fleet Street 147 5.2 Borough High Street 147 5.3 ‘A Few London Types’, Once A Week, 30 Jan. 1875 158 5.4 ‘Types in the Strand’, Judy, or the London Serio-Comic Journal, Aug. 1898 159 5.5 ‘Types of the Thoroughfares. No. 8 – Whitechapel’, Fun, 19 March 1870 160 6.1 Stills from the film Petticoat Lane 1903 190 6.2 Wilmotts Buildings off Borough High Street, 1900. And music-hall comedian Little Tich on a music sheet cover, 1891 191 6.3 Borough High Street, 1904 192 6.4 Gardeners Buildings, Market Court, near Kensington High Street, 1865 195 vii Acknowledgments There are hundreds of books on Victorian London. There are, however, only very few on the logic of everyday behaviour in history. Choosing a subject as well researched as Victorian London and then looking at it from a hith- erto rather neglected angle serves to demonstrate, perhaps, how historical investigation constantly needs to switch focus, and that the array of focal points is potentially endless. The creation of this book has been made possible by a number of friends and colleagues. First and foremost, my supervisor, Professor Lars Edgren, whose encouraging and inspiring talks have been a constant source of inspiration, and my assistant supervisor, Håkan Forsell, who has likewise provided me with support and ideas. Thank you also to the people at the Centre for Metropolitan History in London, where I spent some time as a guest researcher, receiving generous support from Professor Richard Dennis of UCL, as well as from Carlos Lopez Galvis and Vivian Bickford-Smith. I thank Miles Taylor of the Institute of Historical Research and Matthew Davies, Head of the Metropolitan History Centre, for making my stint in London possible. I also received ample assistance during my research in London from the staff at the National Archives in Kew and the London Metropolitan Archives. I would also like to thank a few colleagues who have read the manuscript at different stages of its writing and contributed with helpful criticism and inspiration. Karin Sennefelt of Uppsala University conducted a thorough reading that helped me to improve and clarify the arguments and outline. Thank you, Karin! Professor Eva Helen Ulvros also read the manuscript in its entirety at a late stage in the process and provided me with valuable com- ments. I am also grateful to Jaya Reddy for professionally going through my manuscript and correcting my language mistakes. Professor Kristian Gerner, apart from being supportive and taking an interest in my research from the beginning, was also instrumental in getting my book published internationally. Other colleagues that deserve a mention include Harald Gustafsson, Anna Wallette, Anna Nilsson, Mark Davies, Andreas Olsson, Louise Bergström and Erik Bodensten. I am also grateful to the help I have received from Palgrave Macmillan with improving my manuscript, not least, of course, from the anonymous readers who have provided me with gener- ous comments, but also my helpful editor, Clare Mence. The research upon which this book is based was conducted at the Swedish National Graduate School of History, which has also been helpful in the publication of the book. For making this possible and for providing ample support, I would like to thank Klas-Göran Karlsson and Hanne Sanders, and viii Acknowledgments ix especially Charlotte Tornbjer, who has always been available for assistance. I should also mention the intimate environment of historians and PhD students at the Department of History in Lund, which provided the comfort and consideration necessary for successful research. This especially concerns the so called Playhouse, made up of my fellow PhD students David Larsson Heidenblad, Isak Hammar, Johan Stenfeldt, Emma Hilborn, Fredrik Egefur and Kajsa Brilkman, whose support and friendship contributed to the crea- tivity of the research. Lastly, I would like to direct a few words to my family. First, Charlotte, the foundation for my life and well-being. This book owes much to your love and support, but my love for you also makes me realise that there are things in life other than history. You, mainly. But I wouldn’t even have begun to study history if it had not been for the encouragement of my family. My parents, Kim and Christer, have always unselfishly supported me in doing what interests me and going where my instinct leads me, and my brother Henrik is probably the main reason for my interest in intellectual endeav- ours and my belief in rationality and debate. In the end, there is no one else more suited for me to dedicate this book to than you! 1 Introduction London! There is a world of difference between an expression and the thing it expresses. But with something that is made up of almost nothing but expres- sions, such as the remnants of the past, our search for the latter becomes futile. Unless, that is, we distinguish between the consciously phrased expression and that which is expressed by the way, in passing, between the lines, and identify this as something close to the thing itself before it is focused on and put into words. When the French feminist author Flora Tristan writes up her impressions on visiting ‘the monster city’ – London – in 1840, she finds it apt to make use of numerous exclamation marks. ‘What an immense city London is! That size, out of all proportion to the area and population of the British Isles, immediately calls to mind the oppression of India and the commercial superiority of England!’ And she has exclamation marks to spare: But it is especially in the evening that one must see London! London glitters with the magic lights of millions of gas lamps! Its endless wide streets, its shops … the immense expanse of parks outlined by their beau- tiful curves, the handsome trees, the multitude of superb carriages drawn by magnificent horses – all these splendid things have an enchantment about them that captivates the judgment! And so there is no foreigner who is not fascinated upon entering the British metropolis.1 ‘Superb’, ‘magnificent’, ‘splendid’. She was not the only writer of her time who was given to superlatives in the face of cities. Writers who did not make London out to be a showcase for splendour and extravagance generally took it one step further and, in the spirit of fin de siècle ‘spleen’, stressed how the overbearing impressions of the city numbed the weary observer. Thomas Hardy in one of his early poems, written while he was still a city clerk in the 1870s, sees no escape for the poor flâneur ‘from the rut of Oxford Street into 1
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